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That was a lot more than a secure messaging app. It was an entire Android-based operating system, preinstalled on physical devices. It was originally created b
by pyuser583 2y ago
That was a lot more than a secure messaging app. It was an entire Android-based operating system, preinstalled on physical devices.
It was originally created by a private company, that went a bit too far in marketing it to criminals. Undercover agents asked the CEO "How do I use this to prevent the police from monitoring my drug smuggling", and he answered the question.
In order to keep the feds from throwing them in prison, the remaining execs needed to provide names, and what better way than to compromise the phone and market it to criminals?
Around the same time, law enforcement cracked a more popular custom phone used by criminals, so gangs started looking elsewhere. And the FBI was waiting for them.
It was an insane operation. It was being run from a local FBI office (San Diego), not headquarters. A bunch of low level agents.
But it provided massive police intelligence around the world.
It also screwed over a lot of the contractors who worked on it. The Android developers who designed the phone are now on organized crime's radar, even though they thought they were just making a secure phone.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoI heard this story elsewhere, and the attitude of law enforcement infuriated me. It was basically, “Only criminals would care about their privacy to purchase this premium phone, so of course we needed to crack it”. Screw everyone else who did not want more ad tracking or whatever.
- proxynoproxy 2y agoI agree in part, but nobody legit is paying $200/month to use signal or other free secure private messengers. If it was a free platform I can see innocents getting caught, but considering it was sold by criminals, to criminals for a criminal fee — I think they were mostly correct.
- johnisgood 2y agoBut there are many open source, free, and actually secure messengers...
- pyuser583 2y agonot in the late 2010s when this was happening.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- johnisgood 2y agoThere was (is) one though, audited by NCC Group in 2015. A vuln has been found but fixed by 2016. Not sure about other messengers.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoGranted I’m hazy on the details of the story, but I did not recall a service fee. Just a few hundred dollars premium Android phone geared towards secure privacy. Sure, there was a nudge and a wink towards crime, but I could easily see it appealing to a civil protestor, journalist, or philanderer.
- pyuser583 2y agoIt was only available from a salesman, you couldn't order it via a website. The salesmen knew their clients, and knew they were criminals. The sales chain was what made the operation so effective. The only people who had the phones were the ones the FBI wanted with the phones.
- pyuser583 2y agoLaw enforcement was paranoid about making sure it only went to criminals. It was producing so much intelligence, any non-criminal usage wasted lots of time. The fact that it was really only criminals using it was the big selling point.