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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

#91

Post by dang »

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…

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

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

#93

Post by deadalus »

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?

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

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

#94

Post by grouphugs »

it's weird that the nazis have distributed almost as much heroin as they've taken in. the united states flooded afghanistan with heroin in the 70's and 80's, so much that it's still such a large regional issue. but why was the united states never prosecuted? hell, for fucking 50 years people called it a conspiracy

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

#95

Post by dannyw »

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?

Especially VPN services that got acquired, like Private Internet Access, acquired by what many people describe to be a malware company.

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

#96

Post by Cederfjard »

pelasaco wrote: post #82

Nice one, but i guess if this whole operation was still a secret, we could pull this trick over and over again? Now will be hard to disguise an app like that. Probably the next season of the "StartUp" TV series

Presumably it would’ve come out during legal proceedings anyway.

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

#97

Post by hervature »

simondotau wrote: post #71
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 outmaneuv…

Nothing wrong with inhibiting growth in return for long term stability. Does it matter if your competition is more daring—if they aren't going to last very long? If anything, they might serve as a useful distraction.

Yes, we are seeing precisely this in action. The short term guided organization has gone down and the long term stable strategy remains uncaught and now has one less competitor.

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

#98

Post by tlb »

deadalus wrote: post #93
RachelF wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

First-order strategy (do something that works as long as the other side hasn't also thought of it) only works until the other side thinks of it. My guess is that the intelligence complex (CIA +) thought of this around 1995, and the domestic law enforcement complex (FBI +) around 2005.

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

#99

Post by Cederfjard »

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…

The AFP says that this Mr Ayik should turn himself in for his own safety, but surely the one with an enormous target on their back is this person. It can’t be too difficult for these criminal organizations to piece together who that is.

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

#100

Post by cromka »

FatalLogic wrote: post #83
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…

>the AFP is now telling Ayik to hand himself in to avoid recriminations from his associates The Australian Federal Police premise that he would be safer from reprisals in prison is an extremely shaky one [1] Although if they can cut him off from all funds, it might become true. [1] edit: https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi103.... - "homicide rate ... is up to 7 times higher [than outside]"

> "homicide rate ... is up to 7 times higher [than outside]"

This is based on assumption that a regular "free" person has not made thousands of criminals at the same time.

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