This article is atrocious yellow journalism stoking fear about encryption. Yes, people that used to traffick drugs started selling phones, possibly using their

This article is atrocious yellow journalism stoking fear about encryption. Yes, people that used to traffick drugs started selling phones, possibly using their old network for sales. And yes, these bad dudes sent some thugs to threaten and assault a business competitor. But what were the capabilities of these scary, criminal kingpin, super secret, drug-trafficking phones? "[They] run software for sending encrypted emails or messages, and use their own server infrastructure for routing communications. Sometimes the devices have the microphone, camera, and GPS functionality removed. Some also have a dual-boot mode, where powering on the device as normal will show an innocuous menu screen with no sensitive information. But if certain buttons are held down when turning the phone on, it will reveal a secret file system containing the user’s encrypted text messages and other communications. With these tweaks, the ordinary methods for law enforcement to intercept messages are cut-off—police can’t simply get an ordinary phone tap or subpoena messages from a company; the texts are typically only available in a readable form on the users’ devices." These should be the capabilities of every phone on planet earth! They used off the shelf phones, CopperheadOS, extra security configuration, data only SIMs, and a layer of anonymization since the customer didn't have their name on the SIM, and probably a custom app for the deniability mode. That's it. The lede of the article is about a reporter's murder that could have had something to do with any of the reporter's many organized crime subjects, not just the phone company. He just happened to be hanging out with the MPC guy that night. It's not illegal to sell encryption. I don't know why the author here is trying so hard sensationalize encrypted phones as having to do with murder, fear, strip clubs, drugs, etc. -- I hope it's just clicks.