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Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

abc.net.au

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Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#141

Post by rorykoehler »

fvold wrote: post #131
intricatedetail wrote: post #109

> and seized more than 3,000 kilograms of drugs and $45 million in cash and assets. Excuse me, but I can't stop laughing. Three years effort to catch a small fish and they sell it as if they got bust of the century. Why don't they investigate politicians that facilitate prohibition and enable these gangs to work in the first place? Police can't see they run fool's errands.

The big blow isn't the amount of drugs or cash taken, it's the grabbing of relatively high ranking people in the organization, and the absolute shattering of their communication. I bet a bunch of them will go back to in-person communication only for a long while after this, slowing things down considerably.

Are they just catching nobodies though?

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#142

Post by rorykoehler »

viraptor wrote: post #104
dt3ft wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food for thought: Telegram estimated costs for 2021 based on 675 million monthly active users (MAU) are $220 Million. Yet, the app is somehow free to use. Where does the money to cover the costs come from?

At least the story of them being dodgy (in terms of origin/funding) and playing up encryption which is not enabled by default is pretty well documented by now. I get that people really like the UX of the app, but I wish more of them approached Telegram with "Russian gov has access to my unencrypted messages, but maybe the encrypted ones too" mindset.

If that is the case normies living outside of the sphere of Russian influence have little to worry about surely. Better Russia than your own government.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#143

Post by kenneth »

yawaworht1978 wrote: post #134
jakub_g wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$220M is not pocket money, but Durov's net worth is apparently $17.2B, so he could afford it for a few more years https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/

Thanks for this, what about Moxie? Who covers those costs?

Signal is funded by a $50M donation from Brian Acton, who made billions selling WhatsApp to Facebook.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#144

Post by yread »

nneonneo wrote: post #57

There are more details in a recently unsealed search warrant against a GMail user: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.casd.70... An informant (confidential human source, or "CHS") helped the FBI and AFP (Australian Federal Police) develop and distribute Anom to criminal gangs (transnational criminal organizations, or "TCOs"): > The CHS offered this next generation device, named “Anom,” to the FBI to…

Thanks for sharing really cool stuff. Criminals discussing logistics of shipping 1.5t of cocoine in banana boxes or tuna cans

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#145

Post by lmm »

ungamedplayer wrote: post #108
lmm wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with most of what you said but: > > especially in the US > The app was deployed in Australia. Australia has an even worse equivalent of US National Security Letters, allowing individual workers to be compelled to plant backdoors etc..

Not without notice of the company, and not for wide spreaed distribution, ie targeted enforcement.

> Not without notice of the company

Oh? The reports I read were that they could compel an individual to do something and not tell their employer.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#146

Post by Nextgrid »

flukus wrote: post #66
cylde_frog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder about this too. What sort of people do international criminal organisations hire to manage their info-sec? A criminal that became a computer expert or a computer expert that became a criminal?

Well the criminal organizations can offer a whole range of addictive non-monetary incentives that a computer expert may desire, so I'd guess that's the main path in. There's more unemployed tech people out there than many here realize though. People that don't present well in interviews, people that didn't stay employ-ably current in tech, hardware guys replaced by the cloud, people in less hot locations for tech, et…

In some countries, getting into tech is impossible if you're not lucky to have the right credentials. In France for example, any even remotely technical job will require years of higher education and experience (yes there's an obvious catch-22 here). You can have perfectly serviceable skills that would put you at a junior/mid developer or sysadmin level and be completely unemployable - at this point crime doesn't sound that bad if you have no other alternative despite otherwise having no propensity/attraction to participate in criminal activities.

For what it's worth, I would still be completely unemployable in France despite having 7 years of successful commercial experience under my belt in some well-known companies. Thankfully I played my cards right and managed to move to a saner country where tech is still more or less a meritocracy.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#147

Post by stef25 »

femto wrote: post #43

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is covering it in more detail than the Reuters article, including some of the mechanics of how it was pulled off: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-08/fbi-afp-underworld-cr... Apparently it revolved around duping Hakan Ayik, one of Australia's most wanted drug dealers now operating as an international kingpin from Turkey, to trust the app and recommend it to his associates. I…

So they got to this most wanted man and instead of arresting him they fed him an app to help catch all his buddies while at the same time put a target on his back? Pretty daring move.

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#148

Post by stef25 »

walrus01 wrote: post #110
deadalus wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why I tend to use VPNs from country's with which the US is not in good terms with : Russia, Iran, Belarus, China

If I was a US intelligence agency I would specifically establish colocation presences with ISPs in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, china, etc, on commercial ISP terms, and admin the servers remotely to set them up as a commercial vpn service. There's plenty of datacenter operators in Russia that will take your money.

> There's plenty of datacenter operators in Russia that will take your money.

Wouldn't they have some uncomfortable questions to answer when Putin finds out they've been cooperating with the Feds?

Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

#149

Post by RyJones »

jeltz wrote: post #126
wruza wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western naivety. Unbound / fake data SIM cards are sold in boxes by carrier’s employees.

You can still buy SIM cards in Sweden in stores without presenting an ID.

Iceland as well.
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