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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

#181

Post by yawaworht1978 »

stef25 wrote: post #147
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.

I don't think that was the story.he fled to Cyprus and escaped prison there. Someone somehow got him to believe the app is safe, he took kickbacks for the distribution, even. My main question is, how is this man living free in Turkey despite there being an interpol warrant?

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

#182

Post by janmo »

I've been reading a lot about these "encrypted phones recently". What really shocks me is how in the last years police has been going after operators of such services under the premise that they would help criminals.

- Sky ECC (Shutdown, owner is facing criminal charges)

- Phantom Secure (Shutdown and owner got 9 years in prison)

- Encrochat ("Hacked" by french police)

So it seems like those "Encrypted phones" were very effective for Law Enforcement to put such an effort to go after them.

I think that criminal organizations will now rely on a do it yourself technique. Not buying phones online which is a very bad idea as law enforcement could just trap the phones at the postal facility, something they already do.

Going to an old fashion phone retailer, then removing the camera and GPS module yourself and installing some encrypted open source software.

Probably they are also going to fake messages. For 2 purposes:

- Talk about a fake huge drug deliveries or an imminent mass shooting to verify if the network has been compromised, I am pretty sure police has no choice other than to act in such a situation.

- This could be used as a strategy defense, if some messages turn out to be fake, then they can use plausible deniability on the others. And perhaps even claim police has faked them.

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

#183

Post by Synaesthesia »

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #180

This seems to be just a messaging app, but is there a market for more full-featured ERP, CRM and project management software for criminal enterprises? I'm sure they would benefit from those just the same way legitimate enterprises do. The only difference is that they do more illegal stuff and use more violence, but the fundamental business dynamics should be the same.

Maybe some IBM consultants can help them sort out their tech business strategy.

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

#184

Post by arthur_sav »

Tabular-Iceberg wrote: post #180

This seems to be just a messaging app, but is there a market for more full-featured ERP, CRM and project management software for criminal enterprises? I'm sure they would benefit from those just the same way legitimate enterprises do. The only difference is that they do more illegal stuff and use more violence, but the fundamental business dynamics should be the same.

Trello?

The only aspect that would stand out to use a "criminal specific" CRM would be hosting & security.

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

#185

Post by vinay427 »

cromka wrote: post #70

What we've learned is only what was in Austrlia's piece of the cake, given they started their day already. New Zeland had theirs already, too. I imagine thousands of arrests are still happening worldwide and several press conferences are going to be held today. Looking at the seal of the operation ( https://www.anom.io/trojan_shield_seal.jpg ), following countries participated in the operation: Canada, Australia, US,…

The shield and your comment list the UK and Scotland separately here, which (at least for now) is not accurate as I'm sure you're aware. Are there separate agencies involved that merit including both flags?

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

#187

Post by wallaBBB »

RachelF wrote: post #37
flashman wrote: post #31

As to how the FBI got access to the messages, Vice says[1] after Vincent Ramos of Phantom Secure was arrested in 2018, a confidential human source offered Anom, which the source was developing, to the FBI (probably in exchange for immunity or a reduced sentence, in my opinion). The source then seeded Anom phones to his existing distributors as a replacement for Phantom Secure phones, and from their they made their wa…

Makes you wonder how many commercial VPN services are just FBI honeypots?

One of the (publicly unspoken) conditions to offer VPN services in western countries is to keep logs and provide on their request, regardless of the marketing stories. There are several verifiable cases where Nord has cooperated with FBI and Interpol and provided logs, but this is a fairly small lie, compared to the time when they tried to keep quiet about a breach.

Not saying that having a VPN service from Russia or China is a better solution...

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

#188

Post by te_chris »

spicyramen wrote: post #65

Can't find the article but Mexican drug cartels hired Cisco certified experts to setup their encrypted communications. Not just your average CCNA guy from test king, but industry experts working for Service Providers and Government.

Reminds me of the character from Narcos who was working to secure the Cali cartel's communications. No doubt lots of work for people who know how to harden networks for criminal orgs.

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

#189

Post by Chris2048 »

adriancr wrote: post #155
stef25 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protip to the cartels - pay top dollar to some world class engineers to setup a dark web market and you'll make buckets. Most if not all markets until now have been run by geeks with limited knowledge and skills, wading in to the criminal underworld and inevitably making rookie mistakes. Both Ross and the guy in Bangkok had their personal emails tied to the markets. Some kids running a big market from Germany connect…

Setting up a dark web market is something most people would want to get anywhere close to... Imagine being responsible for facilitating murder-for-hire, sex trafficking and so on...

I'm sure there are plenty of people who wouldn't care. Anyone who buys diamonds has blood on their hands too.

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

#190

Post by walrus01 »

stef25 wrote: post #148
walrus01 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The feds would pose as a slightly shady hosting/Colo company or similar.
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