Looks like the app’s domain was also seized. https://www.anom.io/
Love the AFPs effort at branding Operation Ironsides
Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
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Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect that people don't fall into such neat categories. You could pose a similar question re: lawyers whose bread and butter is protecting and representing people associated with organised crime (the kind of individuals represented by Maury from The Wire or Neil Mink from The Sopranos). Are they lawyers who developed a slippery version of ethics & morality, or people with loose ethical standards who entered law?…
What? Representing criminals is not unethical or 'immoral'. Period. Protecting criminals legally is not unethical unless you are knowingly doing something illegal yourself. I imagine that most layers are just doing their job and getting paid for it. Bringing morality into that equation makes no sense in a legal system that has little to nothing to do with morality.
I haven't seen all of The Wire, but as to the character cited as an example, Wikipedia says, "[Maury] is corrupt and unscrupulous, willing to aid his clients in furtherance of their criminal activity." So he crosses your line, and I think that's what the GP post meant.
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#63not just Australia, it's world wide and likely led by the FBI (but possibly data being collected outside the US to avoid the need of having actual warrants) The following thread looks at some of the opened court documents today: https://twitter.com/ericgarland/status/1402100449013125123 (and points out that the Trump organisation might be in trouble ....)
Being outside the US doesn't avoid the need for actual warrants. That thread mentions several, both in the US and out of it.
Unless they found a pushover country and structured as much data to be sent there in the app. Have them get the warrant and review the data and inform you of anything good.
Arbitrage isn’t just for bankers.
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#64The lesson here is complete trust in modern computing platforms is misplaced and impossible. Your hardware has backdoors, so does your OS, and encryption clients. In addition, popular apps, especially in the US, can always be commandeered by 3-letter agencies. You're only anonymous as long as you're not actively targetted, despite using "secure" apps and stuff like Tor, which media makes it seem are unbreakable.
> Your hardware has backdoors, so does your OS, and encryption clients
None of these were exploited to retrieve this data, and the third party app that was installed was not intended to encrypt conversations given that it was a honeypot.
> popular apps
This was a small app unknown by anyone outside of criminal orgs. It had no "legitimate" non-criminal users.
> especially in the US
The app was deployed in Australia.
> can always be commandeered
Why distribute a random app when they could have gotten the criminals to use Signal or Telegram and bust them there?
> as long as you're not actively targeted
How long did it take to find Bin Laden?
> despite using "secure" apps
This was not a secure app and any audit would have revealed this (audits such as the ones that Signal and friends have undergone).
> and stuff like Tor,
Tor was not involved.
> media makes it seem are unbreakable.
None of the apps hyped as "unbreakable" were broken here, so...point still stands, I guess?
Honestly, if anything, the recommended approach from this incident would be to use the walled garden - an FBI-backed honeypot would have a lot harder time getting from the App/Play Store onto a user's phone if it was obviously a scam to collect user conversations, asked for a bunch of permissions, had no reviews, and no apparent update history. Who would download some random chat app that nobody uses?
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#65Can'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.
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#66Does anyone find it funny that each criminal group could have been better off relying on a "kid who knows computers" level of expertise and bog standard devices running open source software which at least wouldn't be trivially systematically turned against them all at once quite so easily.
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, etc. Criminal organizations are much less picky and judgmental than your average tech startup and in some cases may be the only one's willing to give them a chance.
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#67Does anyone find it funny that each criminal group could have been better off relying on a "kid who knows computers" level of expertise and bog standard devices running open source software which at least wouldn't be trivially systematically turned against them all at once quite so easily.
> anyone find it funny that each criminal group could have been better off relying on a "kid who knows computers" level of expertise and bog standard devices running open source software which at least wouldn't be trivially systematically turned against them all at once quite so easily
Tradeoffs. Traditional tradecraft would inhibit such discovery methods. But it's slow and expensive. Your competitors would outmaneuver you in the short term.
To enable the "kid who knows computers," you also need to train your people in opsec and digital sanitation. That might similarly be expensive and growth inhibiting enough to invite more daring competition.
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
from what I understand they developed the app themselves... marketed and pushed the app to certain "dark markets" and let them use the apps and devices as if they were secure. they were in fact real time monitoring every transaction. amazing really. and pretty funny if you asked me :-P
Not funny. Pretty much worse fucking case scenario. Imagine Signal, Telegram, or any other app that touts themselves as a secure app is really just the creation of the FBI, NSA, CIA, and NRO. Remember, yesterday’s conspiracy theory is today’s reality.
If you're not already operating under the assumption that TLAs have full access to your entire online history, there's really no point in trying to start now. Use secure apps like Signal to hide your information from hackers, thieves, and generic script kiddies, not to hide from national security agencies. Especially when said agency can send a van to your house to take all your digital equipment (fully legally if backed by a warrant) until you comply and give up all your passwords and encryption keys.
You cannot defeat the legal system through technical means, your only hope is having some kind of escape submarine or private jet to get yourself extracted to a non-extradition country like Russia (or, if you're Snowden, trolling journalists with your flight so all the goons get on the wrong plane).
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny how that form is essentially asking users to dox themselves. I wonder how many will take the bait.
My mother-in-law better watch out Overall, a very clean website source. No trackers in the source at all. Countries list is interesting. Lists Puerto Rico, American Samoa and Virgin Islands (US). Didn't know PR seceded, thank you FBI for confirming. Lists various French territories. Missing South Sudan. Missing Kosovo. Includes Taiwan. Includes Palestine.
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Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#70What 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, Sweden, The Netherlands, Lithuania, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Austria, UK, New Zeland, Estonia, Scotland, Germany, Denmark.
I expect this to be bigger than Panama Papers. Way bigger. I expect a few prominent politicians to be soon either arrested or "convinced" to step down. I expect the US to have gained a lot of intel and leverage over those from the countries who did not participate in this. We will absolutely not learn about everything they discovered. CIA will and the respective intelligence agencies will.
EDIT: Europol will hold their conference live on YouTube at 10 AM CST: https://twitter.com/janoorth/status/1402164252266409987
EDIT 2: given how Serbia was in the top 4 of messages sent, I really hope that the info gathered will help Interpol fight child trafficking and exploitation in the EU.
From the VICE article (https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie...) quoted elsewhere here:
"Additionally, the review of Anom messages has initiated numerous high-level public corruption cases in several countries. The most prominent distributors are currently being investigated by the FBI for participating in an enterprise which promotes international drug trafficking, money laundering, and obstruction of justice."
"Late Monday, the FBI said that it would be holding "a news conference announcing a massive worldwide takedown based on the San Diego FBI’s unprecedented investigation involving the interception of encrypted communications" on Tuesday."