Chief Executive and Associates Indicted for Conspiring with Drug Traffickers | Hacker News Reader

Chief Executive and Associates Indicted for Conspiring with Drug Traffickers

justice.gov

15 pointstastroder8 comments

I’m failing to see in this press release what set Phantom Secure apart from, say, iMessage?

I remember in the past reading about them, and as I recall they were marketing way too specifically to the criminal element and had direct knowledge and support of specific illegal acts.

There’s providing cryptography services, and then there’s becoming the IT arm of the cartel. I suspect they leaned too far toward the latter, but this press release doesn’t really explain it.

Yes, I agree. Could be a fairly subtle distinction and a pretty important one for tech pros to be aware of.

These guys were actually shipping phones to cartel bosses. It’s a bit different than just offering a phone in a general purpose retail store.

The case looks terrible on paper and they obviously knew who their clients were to the point of interacting with them, but what's the difference between knowingly selling those same mob bosses a car which they go commit crimes in? There's numerous businesses who know that their customers are unsavory types and face no such punishments.

It all reeks of cryptowars when you read through the law enforcement statements.

Sure there is selective enforcement. But selling a car to someone you know will commit a crime with it is a crime itself:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_Holle

That link doesn't seem to be making the case, for me at least. It seems like a horrendous injustice. 25 years in prison for drunkenly loaning your car to a person who then committed crimes with it? That's insane.

> charges that they knowingly and intentionally participated in a criminal enterprise that facilitated the transnational importation and distribution of narcotics through the sale and service of encrypted communications

> Maximum Penalty: Life in prison

Welp. Guess the issue here is knowingly, do apple execs think all sorts of crimes aren't committed with their products?

Apple executives presumably don't have specific, detailed knowledge of crimes that will perpetuated with iMessage. They have a general and broad knowledge that some unspecified people will.

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