How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime
vice.com
vice.com
How is is that supposedly "dumb," criminals can do this, and yet many of us are stretching our intellectual capacities to learn new technologies and maths, developing our nth stupid app, trying to achieve a fraction of the customer traction and revenue that street thugs manage to do every day. Are these people much smarter than average, or does it mean that if you sell something people actually want, literally nothing else matters about your intelligence, education, character, background, or anything at all. When I read these drug stories, it just reinforces for me that growth solves everything. You can succeed with a crew of violent, drug addicted idiots whose only reliable characteristic is short term thinking, and who spend half their time in prison if you have product market fit. What I'm beginning to think is that the "smarter," people are in a company, the less anyone will want their product. It's like the success of a venture is inversely proportional to the number of ostensible geniuses it employs.
Sales is also all about creating emotion in the buyer. For drugs, that emotion is present without a salesman having to do anything.
Make your product and customer service so good that people can't say no, even if they want to.
See: Google Search and Mail, Facebook, TikTok, other spyware
Yes, although I think more specifically s/want/are addicted to/. See also: Saudi Aramco and Facebook.
> What I'm beginning to think is that the "smarter," people are in a company, the less anyone will want their product.
Do you not think Apple and Google are composed of very smart people? Tesla and SpaceX don't make the cut?
You got it. As always, it's the gross margins. Cocaine has higher gross margins than most prescription drugs, which in and of themselves are almost pure margin -- nevermind that, the market demand for it is broad and deep globally. Cartel operators aren't dumb. On the contrary, they show much of the unsavory, warlord like aspects of doing many kinds of business where there are zero-sum dynamics like this -- they just don't even try and hide it.
I just hope this doesn’t become yet another incident used as an example to slowly erode the freedom and idea of privacy. The current anti-encryption sentiment and reactionary nature of legislation doesn’t inspire much confidence.
On a side note for anyone wanting a truly secure device, you’d have to source the raw materials, create the hardware, software, distribution and oversee the entire process. The old school Ford assembly line for the brave new world. And this assumes you didn’t leave any security holes in the process. Which humans tend to do.
Aside from that I think most hardware is actually still safe. I don't know of hardware backdoors that were actually implemented. I think self preservation keeps most companies in line.
In my mind the key is that it’s the French that did it ...
post scripton
I’m extremely surprised by the latter, it seems that one has to declare any operational use of cryptography when it’s not for those two uses.
It reads to me like, had Encrophone not opted to inform all their customers, this would have simply gone on?
I have a hard time condemning the specific case here, but if you substitute any other phone manufacturer here, this becomes quite obviously scary.
What are "thrashing robberies"? Is this an odd translation of some Dutch term?
If they get a hunch of a crime in preparation ( killing/liquiditation or robberies ), they might contact future victim and suspect to tell them they are aware.
This usually is enough to stop the crime.
edit: my explanation does not seem to fit the context, will look into it.
Most probably "plofkraken" has been translated to "trashing robberies". A better translation would be something like "ram-raiding" or "ATM-raiding".
Based on the article, Encrochat didn’t sound like a fully legitimate company and may have been run by criminals as well. The part I found interesting is how these vendors often block competitor apps and services from working on their phones, essentially requiring everyone to use the same type of modified phone. This made life a lot easier for investigators once the network was penetrated.
I doubt that provides significant value. Cameras aren't too hard to disable yourself, just use black tape. They probably didn't disable to microphones, which arguably provide at least more valuable information than a camera. They removed the GPS module, but you can probably get the same info with better accuracy by using wifi + cell phone signals. All in all, I think those "features" are just there to make criminals feel better.
If you have evidence that unencrypted data might be leaked from Signal (except by a rootkit on the phone, tampered update or by someone having physical access to the phone) you might have a real scoop on your hands and you should contact project zero or someone for a bounty and then a journalist so you can bask in the glory.
If you don't have anything I suggest abstaining from writing in a way that suggests that until you find something.
Perhaps they meant to say: "How Police Secretly Took over a Global Phone Network that was used for Organized Crime"
"bUt EncRypTion is My rIGht/bIg sTATe/ITs jUST maths"
Encryption between groups without decryption available (on request) to outside 3rd parties is a poison chalice.
I'm in the EU, not in the US. I don't want any companies(esp. US companies) deciding how EU daily lives unfold.
Delighted so many scumbags will be off the streets.
If they had access earlier, more crimes could have been prevented.