Live data from Hacker News

Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app

abc.net.au

211–220 of 361 posts

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

#211
post #191

I think this is very problematic. Let's say police claims you did something with only the chat log as an evidence and they run the chat software. Then they could very well have just faked it, because they have a high incentive to do so. If the messages were on a third party platform you would at least have a neutral third party involved.

I wonder how the police linked the devices to real world identities, the exact procedures would be interesting to know.

Perhaps if the WLAN module was not disabled they could have used the mac addresses of the WLAN router. But that's a good question.

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

#212
post #199
post #182

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 v…

It s not that they were so effective that police forces got scared of them, it's that the ratio criminals vs normal users is so high that it's a no brainer to spend a few millions on hacking/infiltrating them to collect a huge reward. Whatsapp or Telegram which your grandma uses would be very low reward compared to amount of conversations to parse.

Makes me wonder if those aren't already compromised.

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

#213
post #152
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,…

Hee hee! The parent domain now has a useful form for criminals to turn themselves in with: https://www.anom.io/ "To determine if your account is associated with an ongoing investigation, please enter any device details below:" and then it asks for your username, country and IMEI....

That is a law enforcement mic drop and it's well earned by doing good police work.

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

#214
So they seized 130 million, arrested 1800 people. Assuming even wealth distribution, that is 72k Eur. The distribution is of course not even, as some of the confiscation images show cars worth way more than that, also watched and many bags filled to the brink with money. Some of the arrest images show the bedrooms and they do not look better than a prison cell. This means many of the involved do this for very bad ROI ratio, considering that most will face 20plus years sentences.

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

#215

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.

I'm sure the FBI is keen to come up with a suitable product offering.

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

#217
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how the police linked the devices to real world identities, the exact procedures would be interesting to know.

Perhaps if the WLAN module was not disabled they could have used the mac addresses of the WLAN router. But that's a good question.

Indeed, sure some might have shared personal info etc, and this case shows that the English guy recently arrested because of a cheese image was a lie, but finding the real user behind the device must have taken a lot of work, the authorities seem hesitant to share this info. Each one had also to pay a subscription and make a payment, perhaps this helped a great deal.

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

#218
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?

Scotland has an entirely distinct legal system with a single unified police agency (with it's own serious and organised crime division). There has never been a connection between the legal system in Scotland and that of England and Wales. Scots laws are primarily passed by the independent Scottish Parliament with only a small number of matters reserved for the UK Parliament in London which passes distinct statutory instruments for Scotland to create approximate equivalence between the 'English' and 'Scottish' laws. These result in anomalies like the violent imagery laws in Scotland are more strict than those of England, meaning a cartoon image in England can be legal to possess but have strict liability severe punishment in Scotland; Scotland retains a right to silence upon arrest but in England remaining silent can be considered by a court to be an admission of guilt (sorry US readers, there is no 5th amendment in England and Wales; you do not have the option of "never talk to the police").

The difference has long irritated 'the English Establishment' so much that an informal verse was sung at one point as an adjunct to what is now the UK National Anthem (but was not officially added contrary to some popular belief[1]).

It also gave rise to the deeply racist phrase "Scot Free" in relation to people being acquitted in trials - during 'show trials' to crush anti-establishment figures, Scots juries would regularly return 'not proven' verdicts as it was necessary for all parts of an indictment to be 'proved' and juries used the verdict to rebel against unjust trials of English opponents. The phrase was used to denigrate those thus freed by juries and persists throughout the English speaking world today and is in common usage despite it's origin as a racist epithet towards Scots and the Scottish legal system.

[1] http://www.sath.org.uk/edscot/www.educationscotland.gov.uk/s...

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

#220
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, we'll change to that from https://www.reuters.com/article/australia-crime/australian-p... above. Thanks!

The Vice and the NYT articles are better, and of course there's a Wikipedia article about it. This article is too focused on the Australian part of the operation with too little detail about how it actually worked. https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/world/australia/operation... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOM_sting_operation

Well this 145 second animated explainer by the Australian Federal Police covers it pretty well https://youtu.be/qq9wnMXvgOc
Post reply on HN