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As to how the FBI got access to the messages, Vice says[1] after Vincent Ramos of Phantom Secure was arrested in 2018, a confidential human source offered Anom,
by flashman 5y ago
As to how the FBI got access to the messages, Vice says[1] after Vincent Ramos of Phantom Secure was arrested in 2018, a confidential human source offered Anom, which the source was developing, to the FBI (probably in exchange for immunity or a reduced sentence, in my opinion). The source then seeded Anom phones to his existing distributors as a replacement for Phantom Secure phones, and from their they made their way into criminal organisations.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shield-anom-fbi-secret-phone-network https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgkwj/operation-trojan-shie...
- RachelF 5y agoMakes you wonder how many commercial VPN services are just FBI honeypots?
- dannyw 5y agoEspecially VPN services that got acquired, like Private Internet Access, acquired by what many people describe to be a malware company.
- Loughla 5y agoWait, what? What did I miss?
- astura 5y agoIt was acquired by Kape Technologies, which used to go by the name of Crossrider and has a sketchy history https://hiddenrouter.com/private-internet-access-vpn-to-be-acquired-by-malware-company-founded-by-former-israeli-spy/ https://hiddenrouter.com/private-internet-access-vpn-to-be-a...
- nvdr 5y agoThoughts on ProtonVPN?
- kdtsh 5y agoThere are few real use-cases for any commercial VPN which claims to sell privacy, they are generally snake oil. The one possible exception is to get around geo-blocking, and in that case you just want to go for one with the most numerous and reliable servers in the location you want to appear to be visiting from. For privacy, the gold (and imperfect) standard is still Tor, and even then you are at the mercy of the owners of the exit node. Freenet and I2P are also interesting.
- killingtime74 5y agoOr even foreign state actors
- xwolfi 5y ago1, but this is exactly the point. Use them for netflix not to coordinate heroin sales.
- deadalus 5y agoThis is exactly why I tend to use VPNs from country's with which the US is not in good terms with : Russia, Iran, Belarus, China
- tlb 5y agoFirst-order strategy (do something that works as long as the other side hasn't also thought of it) only works until the other side thinks of it. My guess is that the intelligence complex (CIA +) thought of this around 1995, and the domestic law enforcement complex (FBI +) around 2005.
- walrus01 5y agoIf I was a US intelligence agency I would specifically establish colocation presences with ISPs in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, china, etc, on commercial ISP terms, and admin the servers remotely to set them up as a commercial vpn service. There's plenty of datacenter operators in Russia that will take your money.
- stef25 5y ago> There's plenty of datacenter operators in Russia that will take your money. Wouldn't they have some uncomfortable questions to answer when Putin finds out they've been cooperating with the Feds?
- kryptiskt 5y agoPresumably the feds wouldn't say who they were and would pose as common criminals, because they wouldn't have any reason to suppose that the datacenter operator would keep quiet if they were open about their identity.
- 542354234235 5y agoBut yours assumes that Russia doesn't do counter-intel and wouldn't be looking for exactly these kinds of infiltrations. If it is obvious to us that these things would be targets, I'm pretty sure it is obvious to Russian intelligence services.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoI'm confident the big ones like Nord are just that. And even if they're not, they can just be taken over or backdoored - nobody will ever be the wiser.
- wallaBBB 5y agoOne of the (publicly unspoken) conditions to offer VPN services in western countries is to keep logs and provide on their request, regardless of the marketing stories. There are several verifiable cases where Nord has cooperated with FBI and Interpol and provided logs, but this is a fairly small lie, compared to the time when they tried to keep quiet about a breach. Not saying that having a VPN service from Russia or China is a better solution...
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoRussia and China would in fact be a better solution as most Westerners are never going to be subject to Russian or Chinese authorities.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> most Westerners are never going to be subject to Russian or Chinese authorities Coercible locals are a valuable asset. Not sure why countries with zero rule of law would be attractive to someone valuing a principle like privacy.
- vkou 5y agoAny locals in any country are coercible to their government, if it really wants to.
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoI'm not sure what you are trying to say, especially with the "coerciable locals", other than trying to say China and Russia have "zero rule of law".
- acoard 5y agoHis point is that foreign states could blackmail you or exert pressure in other ways, even if they aren't gonna extradite and throw you in jail following due process. Thus, Russia/China would have "coercible locals" in western countries.
- hansor 5y agoVery plausible. A lot of "western" VPNs are run by Chinese companies. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252466203/Top-VPNs-secretly-owned-by-Chinese-firms https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252466203/Top-VPNs-secre...
- cromka 5y agoSo Vice says that an external source came to offer the app, while the Australian Police "said the plan to use an encrypted app was hatched overseas over a few beers with FBI agents in 2018, before police figured out how to decrypt all messages." I wonder how this all ties together. As someone mentioned here, there surely be some movie about it.
- marlor 5y agoIt’s likely the FBI mentioned they had an app they could leverage, Australia noted that there was a gap in the local market after Phantom had been taken down, and the two agencies decided to seed the app into the Australian criminal underworld to see how far it would spread.
- cromka 5y agoYep, sounds plausible.
- Cederfjard 5y agoThe AFP says that this Mr Ayik should turn himself in for his own safety, but surely the one with an enormous target on their back is this person. It can’t be too difficult for these criminal organizations to piece together who that is.