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Sky Global CEO indicted over encrypted chat drug trafficking
- sschueller 6y agoIf they didn't specially target only illegal actives as their customer base then you might as well indict every gun maker and whatsapp, apple, google etc.
- Bancakes 6y agoDon't underestimate how corrupt a cabal of old men can be.
- Ariez 6y agoI wonder if the DOJ will try to indict the man behind Signal for similar reasons.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoI know it sounds paranoid, but it's why I don't trust Signal for information that I want to defend against nation-states. In the US, if the govt couldn't circumvent their messages then they would find a way to take it down. Any warrant canaries could be required to be left untouched by secret FISA courts.
- yawaworht1978 6y agoNot saying I do not believe this , but do you have a citation or an example?
- inetknght 6y agoEdward Snowden provides proof and documentation. Lavabit provides a direct example.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoWhen lives are on the line, it's dangerous to wait for peer-reviewed papers or solid evidence to come out. Think of how many years the NSA spied on everything before Snowden leaked it. There were rumors for years, but no solid proof. It's better to be more paranoid and have good OPSEC. I'm not saying I don't use Signal, because I do. It would work fine against cops or the federal government as a citizen. But if lives depended on it, it would merely be part of my communications toolbelt.
- sodality2 6y agoWhat do you use?
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoIf needed, I'd prioritize good OPSEC and prevent association of the communication device with me. Purchase a laptop from Craigslist with cash, disconnect its power when close to an area I frequent. Use macchanger to change the mac address of my device when in use, use a yagi antenna so I don't have to get too close to the open WiFi access point. A host of other activities meant to make association more difficult. Defense in depth is important. It's also unnecessary for most people most of the time, which is why I generally don't do it and just use Signal for interpersonal communication. But it's still good for people to know that depending on one system like Signal for security has risks so they can make their own determination on if it's worth it to harden their communication systems.
- sodality2 6y agoThat sounds very secure, yeah. But what messaging platform would you use? XMPP+OMEMO, matrix, etc? Or PGP?
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoThat depends entirely on the need. I would bet that any sort of decentralized chat system communicating to nonstandard servers would be closely scrutinized. For one-to-one communication, ideally I'd set up either some sort of special code with the receiving end and just use http. If more information relaying is needed, a one-time pad would be good. I'd try to keep the messages short in case there's a hole in the system somewhere. Again, depending on your needs, relying on one protocol like matrix or pgp could be risky. Good OPSEC can make up for a leaky security system. For one-to-many communication, proxies and device disassociation are priority above all else. You can assume interception of those messages generally.
- secfirstmd 6y agoNot every threat model is one where the NSA is what you need to worry about. The vast majority of people in the world live in countries were Signal will help protect them.
- coolspot 6y agoAfter the PIN drama and decision to protect data using SGX, I am 80% convinced Signal and NSA are on the same team.
- thecopy 6y agoI suppose one of the most effective ways to reduce state hostility towards privacy issues is to legalize all drugs.
- tweetle_beetle 6y agoAssuming that wasn't intended sarcastically, I'm a bit more pessimistic. I think that the narrative would just move on to the next bogeyman to maintain the hostile stance. Between terrorists, paedophiles, organised crime and occasionally illegal immigrants, you always have an excuse for your political dilemma.
- standardUser 6y agoNone of those other things are nearly as profitable as drug markets, or nearly as widespread. Drugs are a uniquely effective excuse for massive government interference into people's personal lives, and that interference also happens to be self-funding.
- cat199 6y agodoes anyone else see this title as a bit clickbaity? I initially read this as if the CEO was actually drug trafficking, rather than the selling of encrypted chat being used to claim 'facilitation' of trafficking, which appears to be the actual charge..
- afrcnc 6y agothat's ZDNet for you shit headlines and a deluge of ads, screw the user or accuracy
- ianhawes 6y agoIf you think thats clickbaity, wait until you read the DoJ press release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/sky-global-executive-and-associate-indicted-providing-encrypted-communication-devices https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/sky-global-executive-an...
- jtbayly 6y agoIt's not clickbait, but it is inaccurate in what it implies. The truth is much more clickbaity: "Sky Global CEO indicted for providing encryption on devices sold"
- jmkni 6y agoAm I the only one who thought the CEO of Sky TV had been caught using an encrypted messaging app for drugs?
- qertoip 6y agoPlease help me understand. Say Monica runs a clothing shop and sells clothes (including face masks and sun glasses) to people she suspects are drug dealers. And we are not talking a single pair of sun glasses - she is running the clothing shop 8 hours a day, every day, for many years. Well, she facilitated criminal activity and must go to jail, right?
- 34679 6y agoGo to any small hardware store in Northern California and you'll find a display of turkey bags near the front for bagging pounds of weed. I've wondered what the manufacturer must have thought when they first realized why demand is so much higher in that region. I guess the FBI would have them and all the owners of those mom and pop stores hauled off to prison.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago>Go to any small hardware store in Northern California and you'll find a display of turkey bags near the front for bagging pounds of weed. And the pawn shop will have sawzalls for stealing cats.
- pmarreck 6y ago"Consensual crimes" are a contradiction in terms
- _fat_santa 6y agoSomething doesn't square up. knowingly and intentionally participated" in a criminal ring that distributed narcotics by facilitating the "sale and service of encrypted communications devices." followed by Canada-based Sky Global is a provider of custom handsets and the developer of Sky ECC, a subscription-based end-to-end encrypted messaging application. Someone please correct me If I'm wrong but I thought If your systems are all E2E encrypted, then you as the service provider have no way of seeing what your users are discussing on your platform. At least from a technical aspect, the state's case doesn't really hold up. However on the other side of the equation I have to ask. There has to be away they knew, and I think that is what the government is getting at, even if you can't read the exact messages, surely you aren't oblivious to what your users are discussing. I think this will come down to the makeup of the user base. If say only 10% of your customers are using it for illicit purposes, you can claim you didn't know, of couldn't have know because the messages are E2E encrypted, however if that number is 50+%, then I think the case could be made that yes even though you couldn't read the exact messages, you can still be held liable. I'm not an expert in this field and this is my Monday morning quarterback, so if someone has any better insights please correct me.
- Aerroon 6y ago>I think this will come down to the makeup of the user base. If say only 10% of your customers are using it for illicit purposes, you can claim you didn't know, of couldn't have know because the messages are E2E encrypted, however if that number is 50+%, then I think the case could be made that yes even though you couldn't read the exact messages, you can still be held liable. But what are you supposed to do in this situation? You get an inkling that the service you're providing is used by drug traffickers. If you start taking actions against that then it means you know, therefore more likely to be guilty in the eyes of the law. If you tell law enforcement then you're also taking a risk, because it's still happening in your backyard. On top of that, anything you do has a good chance of destroying the business as well.
- salawat 6y agoYou let law enforcement do their job, and forward what little you can. If you implemented e-2-e encryption properly it isn't your problem you have no access to anything but metadata. If you didn't, and you really have access to keys that enable law enforcement to intercept or crack the encryption, then you weren't really end-to-end encrypted were you? Law enforcement interaction, and adherence to the law is not that much different than following and implementing a protocol. They can ask. You are expected to make a best effort attempt at accomodating what they ask for, given they have probable cost and a warrant. If they say that isn't good enough, you fight it in Court until either a judge modifies the protocol, or stipulates it's a legislative question. Queue lobbying. At all times, law enforcement are bound by probable cause. If they have it, you have to assist to the best of your ability, which for an e-2-e encrypted data stream is pretty much just metadata submission, or production of ciphertext if you're really going full centralized comm-stream tapping CALEA. Design your comm system like WebRTC, where your infra is only there to help two endpoints meet, and you have not even that. That's all there is to it really. Awful people doing awful things is a certainty. LE just have their knickers getting in a twist because their prey are starting to play the game with the blinders of technical ignorance off. What Law Enforcement wants is everyone to agree that they get privileged access to any message propagating through societal infrastructure... I sure hope everyone here understands why it is essential that they don't have it.
- FDSGSG 6y agoMany commenters here seem to believe that these charges are solely based on the fact that the guy sold cryptophones. That's very unlikely. The feds almost certainly have records of the CEO discussing drug trafficking.
- yorwba 6y agoEspecially considering this part of the indictment: > ... on March 10, 2021, Europol announced that judicial and law enforcement authorities in Belgium, France and the Netherlands had wiretapped Sky Global’s servers and monitored hundreds of millions of messages by Sky Global’s users. The European investigation resulted in hundreds of arrests, the seizure of thousands of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine, hundreds of firearms, and millions of Euros.
- sbarre 6y agoThat refers to the activities of the customers though, not the company itself. If it's end-to-end encrypted, then in theory the company is unaware of the content of the messages. That said, this feels like governments basically saying that even if you sell a service that is _technically_ legal, if the majority of your customers are using it for criminal activity, you're also going down.
- uxp100 6y agoIt seems to me that if it is possible to "wiretap the server" it was not really E2E encrypted. I don't know, maybe some messages were, some weren't. Certain users, certain types of messages, certain platforms.
- sbarre 6y agoIf this is the case, then that's of course quite damning.. However, if you run a business that is making (according to the article) "hundreds of millions" selling handsets and subscriptions, why would you need to be involved in other very obviously illicit business? I think it's more likely that this guy is really a "freedom and privacy at all costs" guy who probably knows what his product is being used for, and doesn't care because for him that comes with the territory, and also because he's raking in the money. Even the whole "skyecc.eu is a fake version made by a disgruntled reseller" feels like a deniability smokescreen.. If you're smart enough to able to set up a service like SkyECC in the first place, you're smart enough to know that one day the cops/feds/govt are going to take a shot at you, so you'd have some kind of plan in place for that I would think. Whether it works or not, remains to be seen I guess.
- StuntPope 6y agoThis is my take on it reading between the lines: That former high-level distributor was selling boatloads of these things into the criminal underworld, and the DoJ is alleging that the CEO knew about it and didn't stop it.