Chalk one up for th...
 

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[Closed] Chalk one up for the good guys - EncroChat bust

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 PJay
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Almost up there with cracking the Enigma code and it's nice to see the good guys winning - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53263310


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 1:05 pm
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Amazing and yet hiddin in the depths lf the new


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 1:09 pm
 beej
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Amazing and yet hiddin in the depths lf the new

I'd be quite keen for them to crack this code next.


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 1:25 pm
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I’d be quite keen for them to crack this code next.

Deep joy, all chuckloder in the throakus there.

Oh yes.


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 1:32 pm
 kilo
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A mate of mine was “chatting “ to someone arising from this the other day, said guy was a tad miffed when the sniffer dog found his £300k hidden in the bedroom cupboards 🙂


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 3:23 pm
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some of the "special features" of the phones sound quite interesting (such as the fake boot up screen, and the ability to enter a fake unlock code which actually erases the phone) but given that the encryption is apparently less secure than a stock iPhone, the crims spending 3 grand a year on these things are obvious not the brightest 😂


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 3:44 pm
 mehr
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Vice article on it

Interesting stuff


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 3:53 pm
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Surely a std iPhone and whatsApp would have been a far more secure option ?


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 3:57 pm
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Why can't these just use Whatsapp? I thought that was completely secure?


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 3:57 pm
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only the content, but not the metadata eg who, when, where, how long


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 4:01 pm
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only the content, but not the metadata eg who, when, where, how long
facebook, apple, etc wouldn't give out that information anyway would they, even to police? As long as you call via internet, not cell, would be very secure I would've thought.


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 5:12 pm
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facebook, apple, etc wouldn’t give out that information anyway would they, even to police? As long as you call via internet, not cell, would be very secure I would’ve thought.

Lots of ways of getting meta data:

1. Install eavesdropping tool on phone
2. Court order to FB
3. Court order to network provider (who routes the data)
4. Tap the MNO at source (happens in UK and US)

GCHQ had/has bulk access to most MNOs data pipes and collects meta data on pretty much everything passing through them.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/aug/02/telecoms-bt-vodafone-cables-gchq


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 5:25 pm
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Why can’t these just use Whatsapp? I thought that was completely secure?

Aside from the fact that nothing is "completely secure" and never will be (I spend half my life trying to get people to kill off broken encryption algorithms which were considered secure yesterday),

Remember that this also happened, at an international level:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29459896

I just love the stark raving genius of selling fake bomb detectors, it's gloriously sublime. How many returns are you going to get when they don't work?


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 6:54 pm
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There's often some interesting jobs with NCA on the civil service jobs page. The hours are probably a bit antisocial though.


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 7:39 pm
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According to the news earlier, their legal team says there are clear grounds for a legal challenge to these arrests; I’d be very interested to hear exactly what those grounds are.


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 9:43 pm
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Those ***** with the bomb detectors got off incredibly lightly considering how many dozens of people probably died as a result of their genius. They really should have sent them to Baghdad to be dealt with...


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 10:57 pm
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According to the news earlier, their legal team says there are clear grounds for a legal challenge to these arrests; I’d be very interested to hear exactly what those grounds are.

I presume it will be around the legality of hacking a large number (all?) of these devices perhaps without sufficient information proving that they will yield evidence of criminality. Of course the sorts of people that need or want this level of security are probably up to no good but we don't have to be criminals to want privacy. The Police can't break my door down and go through my things just because I like to keep my curtains drawn can they?

As you may have guessed IANAL.


 
Posted : 02/07/2020 11:18 pm
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I just love the stark raving genius of selling fake bomb detectors, it’s gloriously sublime. How many returns are you going to get when they don’t work?

You could have the victims mates looking for a chat. At which point you better hope they brought their firearms from an equally reliable source.


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 8:32 am
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this hack reportedly happened by gaining control of the app developers servers, then shipping an update that included a keylogger, so the plod could snoop before the message was encrypted. Presumably everyone who had the app has been snooped on, regardless of whether they were specifically under suspician. Legally that might be considered to be unsporting


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 8:43 am
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Facebook can, do and will absolutely give your data to anyone who pays for it. It's how they make their money. Whatsapp is not free, you pay with the info gleaned from your metadata.


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 8:45 am
 kilo
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Presumably everyone who had the app has been snooped on, regardless of whether they were specifically under suspician. Legally that might be considered to be unsporting

I have no idea if that methodology is correct but whilst anyone snooped on who is an innocent member of the public may have a case (IPT tribunal?) if they were snooped on they will have been dropped fairly quickly - resources and UK law would see to that.

I think the chances of such a person existing are pretty slight though!

However I’m not sure collateral intrusion on an innocent third party, nothing to do with ones own arrest, would get evidence excluded - if indeed any of the encro interception product is actually evidential. In the uk, interception of communications material is not evidential and can’t be used in or alluded to in legal proceedings, except Special Immigration Appeals Commission matters iirc. It’s not like The Wire over here. IANAL.


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 9:11 am
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Facebook can, do and will absolutely give your data to anyone who pays for it.

Only the data that you agree to them using.


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 9:28 am
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Ah not true at all, they aggregate with all kinds of data bought from data brokers - your credit history, insurance, phone bills, pretty much everything you do is logged. The raw data isnt passed on, but it is used to generate all sort of other metrics about you which is. Nehoo, getting sidetracked, but Whatsapp is about as insecure a place to have a dodgy conversation as you could get.


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 9:40 am
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I may be in a minority, but I'm happy to give up some of my own privacy if it means lowlifes get taken out of circulation.


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 9:48 am
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Only the data that you agree to them using.

Their plug ins snoop your activity on 1000s of non FB sites - they try and follow you everywhere.

Most browsers now containerise FB and its Apps so it can't see what you're up to on other sites....


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 10:05 am
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I just love the stark raving genius of selling fake bomb detectors, it’s gloriously sublime. How many returns are you going to get when they don’t work?

Those sentences are ridiculously lenient.


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 11:57 am
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The discussion on The Register is that it's a busted honeypot that the authorities are glossing up as a big technical win. See here https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2020/07/02/encrochat_op_venetic_encrypted_phone_arrests/

It's good that organised crime has suffered a hit though.


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 1:28 pm
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Going to make coke and hookers a little more tricky or expensive for a while...


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 1:44 pm
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The discussion on The Register is that it’s a busted honeypot that the authorities are glossing up as a big technical win. See here
tbh it was obvious that all the stuff about "enigma code" was just guff, AIUI all modern cryptography is uncrackable just because the raw computing power needed would be something like every computer in existence running for 100 billion years or whatever 😃 So you have to use some other method to compromise it... people being the easiest angle!


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 2:04 pm
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Ah not true at all, they aggregate with all kinds of data bought from data brokers – your credit history, insurance, phone bills, pretty much everything you do is logged.

[citation needed]

all modern cryptography is uncrackable

All cryptography, modern or otherwise, falls into one of two categories:

1) broken.
2) not broken, yet.

We are shoulders deep in encryption technologies which we once believed were secure until either someone found a flaw or technology advanced sufficiently to brute force it. The WWII Enigma Code was "uncrackable" until the boys and girls at Bletchley cracked it. Today it's offered up as a programming exercise for students.


 
Posted : 03/07/2020 2:47 pm

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