Australian Federal Police and FBI create "anonymous" messaging app to catch over 800 criminals in 18 countries

[IkeaGnome]

3 hours ago, Vishera said:

Well,as long as they exclusively sell these devices to known criminals without targeting innocents- I am fine with that.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57394831

Quote:

Spoiler

The idea for the operation came after two other encrypted platforms were taken down by law enforcement agencies, leaving criminal gangs in the market for new secure phones.

The devices were initially used by alleged senior crime figures, giving other criminals the confidence to use the platform.

• The man who accidentally helped FBI spread spy app

"You had to know a criminal to get hold of one of these customised phones. The phones couldn't ring or email. You could only communicate with someone on the same platform," the Australian police explained.

 

[Quackers101]

both Australian Federal Police and the FBI has been in hot water before.

this might be a case that is easier to justify, and how this is a device that was maybe used for other purposes anyways.

But ofc they are going to abuse some innocent people of their privacy and could leak important personal information.

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

both Australian Federal Police and the FBI has been in hot water before.

this might be a case that is easier to justify, and how this is a device that was maybe used for other purposes anyways.

But ofc they are going to abuse some innocent people of their privacy and could leak important personal information.

I don’t know if that is a foregone conclusion or not.  What might possibly happen is a person actively avoiding an in process arrest attempt might give such a phone to a loved one that is otherwise innocent of it was the only way they could be contacted.  I doubt that happened very much the phones apparently both were not free but also had a monthly charge which I suspect was high. 

[PocketNerd]

Wouldn't that be either entrapment or illegal wire tapping?

[CerealExperimentsLain]

10 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

A mantra to live by...

 

A gun is always loaded, a microphone is always hot and somebody is always listening.

The Royal Canadian Navy enabled wifi at most times on the ship my partner is deployed on (Until some point in 2020, it was only available in ports) and I have legit been thinking "So there's a ship with 260 cellphones on it all reporting their location to Google?"  The internet access seems to be entirely unrestricted though it is entirely disabled at brief times for operational reasons, but I kinda have doubts that it's filtering location info going home to Google and other apps.

[Bombastinator]

59 minutes ago, PocketNerd said:

Wouldn't that be either entrapment or illegal wire tapping?

Not if they were the ones giving away the phones. They were the company doing it.  Also they were wireless phones. Stuff might vary from nation to nation.  This was apparently run in Australia though it extended to many different countries.

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Not if they were the ones giving away the phones. They were the company doing it.  Also they were wireless phones. Stuff might vary from nation to nation.  This was apparently run in Australia though it extended to many different countries.

Well the answer to is it entrapment is much easier than that, no it is not. These people were likely to have committed their crimes otherwise which means it is not, actually very simple.

[TimonJS]

On 6/8/2021 at 1:06 PM, Pacmanpro said:

 

Summary

 The Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the FBI collaborated to create a fake secure messaging app that they put on Google Pixels and sold to criminals. The AFP and FBI used the backdoor in the app to get information that led to the arrest of over 800 criminals including high level mafia member and drug bosses

 

 

My thoughts

Not sure how I feel about this, all for taking out criminals but it makes you wonder if everything you say on the internet, private or not, is being listened in on. 

I wonder how far governments will go with this, will they start targeting people who simply were buying drugs on the platform?

 

Sources

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/08/australia/afp-fbi-anom-app-operation-ironside/index.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57394831

I was looking if someone has posted this yet.

 

My take is that this is somewhat similar to crypto AG but less controversial. I think they learned something from that shitshow (yes, ik that was the CIA, not the FBI). It primarily focuses only on bad guys and doesn't interfere where it shouldn't. Also, the whole thing was quite transparent for someone looking at it closer. A guy did an analysis on it that got then taken down (probably by the FBI) and discovered it was leaking data. Anyone taking a closer look should have seen it was at minimum badly designed or worst a trap.

 

Stuff I talked about is linked below

Actually got deleted (my guess is by the FBi or similar), but capured by google cache (includes pictures of the actual phones, not in news reports)

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bP-g6VgD1JcJ:https://anomexposed.wordpress.com/2021/03/29/anom-encrpted-scam-exposed/+&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[Bombastinator]

14 hours ago, leadeater said:

Well the answer to is it entrapment is much easier than that, no it is not. These people were likely to have committed their crimes otherwise which means it is not, actually very simple.

Entrapment seems especially unlikely with this one at least according to the definition in US jurisprudence.  These were just communication devices after all.

[12345678]

On 6/8/2021 at 3:00 PM, Mel0nMan said:

I mean... it wasn't very ethical

no state has ethics, they're pretty much legalized mafia imo

 

like the fbi, who under the pretest to catch pedofiles/to protect childrens, they do run thousands of pedo websites

[SolarNova]

Since it was purposefully target and distributed among known 'criminals' , its basically just a 'sting' opp.

 

However, the moment they do this by just releasing the 'app' to the public to effectively spy on people to 'pick out' criminals, thats a massive breach of privacy and security, not only immoral but illegal in many places.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Since it was purposefully target and distributed among known 'criminals' , its basically just a 'sting' opp.

 

However, the moment they do this by just releasing the 'app' to the public to effectively spy on people to 'pick out' criminals, thats a massive breach of privacy and security, not only immoral but illegal in many places.

Depends.  You may be glossing over some stuff.   I think it likely it’s going to be an argument used by some lawyers though

[JZStudios]

On 6/8/2021 at 4:06 AM, Pacmanpro said:

My thoughts

Not sure how I feel about this, all for taking out criminals but it makes you wonder if everything you say on the internet, private or not, is being listened in on. 

I wonder how far governments will go with this, will they start targeting people who simply were buying drugs on the platform?

100% they are. Pretty sure this also entrapment. Did they only sell it to suspected criminals or could anyone just buy this app and have their private stuff read by multiple global government agencies?

 

On 6/8/2021 at 5:20 AM, leadeater said:

The whole platform was fake, so yes. If you were convinced to use these devices and the app by your "peers" (lol) then you were the target of police spear phishing. There might have been some unintended targets but I doubt it since it sounds like it wasn't an app on any apps stores and was pre-loaded on phones specifically intended to be given to individuals under investigation.

 

 

This is about as unobtrusive and non interfering with the general public as possible since it wasn't breaking encryption, wasn't intercepting general communications and was limited only to specific targets with specific devices using a specific app. The shutting down of actual encrypted messaging apps is a different discussion point however, of course there can be legitimate reason why those were shut down too (no free passes with aiding and abetting criminals online I'm afraid, ignorance is not a defense, particularly purposeful).

Oh. Well then. How did they get them to the criminals in the first place?

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Oh. Well then. How did they get them to the criminals in the first place?

That was explained in the article...

 

Informants and feeding them in to black markets for sale. Are you in the market for a black market secure encrypted phone? I suggest you probably check that whatever you buy really is legit, unlike all these criminals caught up by this that went on faith/trust alone.

 

But here's the problem, how would you actually check something like that. My advice, none, I have none for criminal activity. If you get tricked in to buying an FBI run phone then too bloody bad, I hope it happens to every criminal.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

My two cents:

If a non government agency did this, it would be liable for extream false advertising claims. 

Why is it ok for the government to do it, when by their laws it is illegal?

[leadeater]

Just now, HelpfulTechWizard said:

Why is it ok for the government to do it, when by their laws it is illegal?

It's not ok nor legal for the government to do it, at least in most countries. It's legal for the Police to do it given to them by specific laws that allow them to do it. Police != government.

 

A non police officer that tries to "arrest" a person is committing assault, why is it legal for a police officer to arrest a person?

 

I shouldn't think this actually requires much explaining. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

24 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's not ok nor legal for the government to do it, at least in most countries. It's legal for the Police to do it given to them by specific laws that allow them to do it. Police != government.

 

A non police officer that tries to "arrest" a person is committing assault, why is it legal for a police officer to arrest a person?

 

I shouldn't think this actually requires much explaining. 

And the fbi is government, not police.

[leadeater]

9 hours ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

And the fbi is government, not police.

No the FBI is not the government. Federal Agency is not the same thing as "the Government"

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

No the FBI is not the government. Federal Agency is not the same thing as "the Government"

The problem I think is the definition of “the government” is inexact.  The role of the fbi can change drastically depending on what the views of a given administration are.  Their charter does not change though.   There was a period where they served solely as a service system for local police forces and a period where they acted as an almost seperate paramilitary force. They are a federal organization rather than a state specific one. The American governmental system is one of many parts and don’t all act synchronously.  FBI is “federal bureau of investigation”. There is a charter.  Different US federal bureaus all have charters which are often very specific.  If an organization acts in violation of its charter very very bad things can happen to that organization. 

[JZStudios]

12 hours ago, leadeater said:

That was explained in the article...

Reading is for people who are literate.

[SolarNova]

On 6/16/2021 at 5:10 PM, leadeater said:

A non police officer that tries to "arrest" a person is committing assault, why is it legal for a police officer to arrest a person?

Technically that depends on the countries laws.

 

I dunno what the law is in different US states but UK law allows for 'Citizens Arrest' in the case of Indictable offenses.

 

Ironically if person 'A' tries to enforce a 'Citizens Arrest' on person 'B' based on the incorrect assumption that the offense of 'being verbally offensive', be it racially, politically, sexually etc (so we're talking events that happen a lot in Protests come Riots) is considered 'indictable' (which it isn't) ..then person 'B' who is being at this point 'assaulted' can turn around and make a legal 'Citizens Arrest' against person 'A'.

 

Just thought I'd point that out

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, SolarNova said:

Technically that depends on the countries laws.

 

I dunno what the law is in different US states but UK law allows for 'Citizens Arrest' in the case of Indictable offenses.

 

Ironically if person 'A' tries to enforce a 'Citizens Arrest' on person 'B' based on the incorrect assumption that the offense of 'being verbally offensive', be it racially, politically, sexually etc (so we're talking events that happen a lot in Protests come Riots) is considered 'indictable' (which it isn't) ..then person 'B' who is being at this point 'assaulted' can turn around and make a legal 'Citizens Arrest' against person 'A'.

 

Just thought I'd point that out

Citizens arrest is a thing in the US too.  The limitations on it are rather strict though and the result is it’s an extremely rare thing.  In the US police actually have more limited powers of arrest than citizens do, but they are trained about the ins and outs of such things