Feds Order Massive Number Of Tech Giants To Help Hunt Down One WhatsApp Meth Dealer (forbes.com) 53
As it struggles to get content from encrypted messenger apps and smartphones, the U.S. government is getting creative in how it tracks down criminal WhatsApp users, according to a search warrant uncovered by Forbes. From the report: Aside from shedding light on police data-trawling operations, these new efforts are "problematic," legal experts tell Forbes. They show that investigators are willing to test the boundaries of legality by demanding content they may not legally be allowed to collect from WhatsApp. And they're then demanding data from a seemingly endless list of tech providers -- from Google to any telecom company imaginable -- that could feasibly help them catch a single WhatsApp user.
In a bid to find an alleged Mexican methamphetamine dealer, the government demanded that WhatsApp hand over basic subscriber details, according to a previously unreported government order filed in Colorado in October. They'd been tipped off that the dealer -- a fugitive on the DEA's most-wanted list -- was a frequent user of WhatsApp and had even used the app to talk with an undercover agent. That WhatsApp data would come from what's known as a "pen-trap." Think of these as tracking tools that collect limited metadata like user phone numbers, IP addresses and call duration, not the content of messages. Forbes has reported on these before and they're fairly common. So far, so normal.
In a bid to find an alleged Mexican methamphetamine dealer, the government demanded that WhatsApp hand over basic subscriber details, according to a previously unreported government order filed in Colorado in October. They'd been tipped off that the dealer -- a fugitive on the DEA's most-wanted list -- was a frequent user of WhatsApp and had even used the app to talk with an undercover agent. That WhatsApp data would come from what's known as a "pen-trap." Think of these as tracking tools that collect limited metadata like user phone numbers, IP addresses and call duration, not the content of messages. Forbes has reported on these before and they're fairly common. So far, so normal.
I see (Score:1)
And after they spent a few million dollars, violated the rights of thousands of people they get the IP address of the User's VPN service, saying that he probably was in the vicinity of a Starbucks' free WIFI.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: I see (Score:1)
"served with a gag order"
Wherever there's a gag order, you know the kangaroo courts are doing something un-American.
Almost there..... (Score:5, Insightful)
And they'll definitely never use these powers for less serious things, non-law enforcement purposes, or to go after undesirables, it's Win Win! What could possibly go wrong? Do you have something to hide???
Re: Almost there..... (Score:1)
Hate-filled anonymous cowards sure are eager to trade away everyone's civil rights in the hope that a few social undesirables might be stomped by the iron boot.
Re: (Score:2)
"Come on guys, we're soooo close. If we just give up a little bit more of our privacy and 4th Amendment rights, the scourge of methamphetamine will vanish from the world forever as we emerge victorious in the War on Drugs!!!"
My Whatsapp is on a discarded tablet from the trash-bin, I used an empty prepaid SIM from the same bin, to receive the initial SMS and then threw it away. I wouldn't want anything from FB on my real phone, but to receive family messages this does the deed.
I also _delete_, not archive ev
Re: (Score:2)
That's a lot of work. Maybe you should call your family once a week and catch up instead.
Re: (Score:2)
if you're using it to receive family messages it kind of defeats the whole fking point of scoring it from a bin, because now it's connected to "you" anyways.
well at least it was free I guess. I find it unlikely that the senders and or receivers of the messages were deleting them.
wouldn't it be funny if the whatsapp dealer they're hunting for turned out to be a fbi plant? you should start with that by the way, you shouldn't allow police to create crime to solve crime. I mean USA alphabet organizations have
Re: Almost there..... (Score:1)
But if the law enforcers don't encourage people to commit crimes, how will we keep the gulag full??
Re: (Score:2)
In this case, it looks like they actually went to a court and got a judge to issue an order under 8 U.S.C. S 3123 [cornell.edu] (passed in 1986). That's progress from a government that was very recently conducting mass warrantless surveillance.
We've got a hell of a long way to go, but this seems like progress in the right direction.
Re: Almost there..... (Score:1)
In Soviet America, innocence is proof of guilt!
Comme Positatus (Score:3)
Are they federalizing private firms and installing troops at those private firms, cause it sure seems like this is a direct violation of the Constitution, if so.
Next they will use this to go after your personal firearms.
inflated Rubbish with $10 words (Score:2)
No it's not some slippery slope of forced deputization of Google.
It's no different than asking a store salesman if some suspect came in the store. That's daily business for police. Exactly waht we expect them to do. It's not forcing the clerk to be their stooge.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it was an order, Herr Goombah.
Ve did not ask a question.
Re: (Score:1)
So what???? Why should they not? (Score:2)
Oh is it so hard to ask these HUGE companies to make a small effort? Does it matter how unimportant they think the crime is? THese companies want to skate on the ice of non-responsibility for anything. THat is, it's not a cost issue. It's not an ability issue. It's their fear that this leads to either customer's avoiding them or for their desire not to admit a single instance of an expected code of corporate conduct.
Letting this happen might open the door to being help responsible for content or disinf
Re: (Score:2)
>"This isn't an over-reach of their powers any more than it wold be to go into a mom-and-pop shoe store and ask if they sold any size 14 workboots in the last year and could we see the customer's address."
And, yet, that is not quite the best comparison. If I went into a shoe store and they post a sign saying "we value your privacy" and they have no cameras, no logs, and I paid in cash, there should be no data for them to give. In the case of something like communication software, they *have* to gather
Know your customer laws (Score:3)
Depending on the transaction type there are reasonable laws. Banks need to know their customers. Banks are a platform that can enable illegal money trafficing. So the law is htye need record and No anonymous money laundering.
Likewise if a platform when a platform makes it easy to be used for crimes then it's reasonable to collect info.
The show store I suggested is a case where your exception makes sense in fact. That is obviously all crimminals commit crimes in shoes. But that doesn't mean we need to r
Re: So what???? Why should they not? (Score:1)
How's that bootleather taste?
First they came for the meth dealers... (Score:5, Insightful)
...and no one spoke up. Then it turned out everyone was a meth dealer and no one was left. Or something like that.
Telcos served, most are long gone? (Score:3)
Adelphia Communications
Adelphia Long Distance
Allegiance Telecom of California Inc.
Astound
AT&T California
AT&T Local Service
AT&T Long Distance
AT&T Midwest
AT&T Nevada
AT&T Southwest
Bell South Telecommunications
Broadwing Communications
Cellco Partnership
Cellular One
Central Wireless Partnership
Cingular Wireless
Comcast
Cox Communications
Dobson Cellular
Dobson Communications
Edge Wireless LLC
Electric Lightwave inc.
Embarq
Ernest Communications
Evans Telephone Company
Frontier: A Citizens Communications Company
Genesis Communications international
ICG Communications
ICG Telecom Group
Locus Communications
Metro PCS
Metrocall
Mpower
Nationwide Paging
Navigator Telecommunications LLC
Network Services LLC
Nextel Communications
NII Communications
Pac West Telecomm Incorporated
Qwest Communications
RCN Communications
Roseville Telephone Company
Skype
Sprint PCS
Sprint-Nextel
T-Mobile USA inc.
TelePacific Communications
Teligent
Time-Warner Telecom
US Cellular
US TelePacific Corp.
USA Mobility
Verizon California
Verizon District of Columbia
Verizon Maryland
Verizon New Jersey
Verizon New York
Verizon Northwest
Verizon Texas
Verizon Wireless
Vonage
Weblink Wireless
West Coast PCS LLC
limited metadata (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
All information collected is either data or metadata.
The GPS location from the terrorist's hacked phone is metadata.
That is the sort of thing you use for targeting.
You don't use the direct data, which is just a person's voice.
I mean, fuck an A you're being intentionally stupid.
Re: (Score:1)
Great for finding the on holiday "dual" citizens who returned from a few years in a war zone.
Re: limited metadata (Score:1)
The Cheka are nothing if not thorough...
Re: (Score:1)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]
Re: limited metadata (Score:1)
I don't believe those planes are being used to listen in on cellphone calls. The phone network has been funny snooped since the beginning, and all cellphones come hardware p0wned from the factory.
Maybe they are listening for something more exotic, like a satellite phone?
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, but if you want to land a cruise missile on their car before they get a chance to come back, you need that GPS metadata.
Re: whatsapp should have some solution (Score:1)
Don't worry, it's just fake news. Intended to lull the masses into a false sense of security. EVERYONE KNOWS that Big Brother Google eagerly complies with all badlawful requests for their users private data.
Just ask Facebook! It's closed source! (Score:2)
He can't tell what's in that binary!
The next update could contain a detector for certain phrases the dealer uses. Bam, you've got his phone location, address book, everything.
Make sure to get a warrant, unless you live in a Nazi state thst doesn't care about basic human rights.
A smart dealer would use Signal anyway.
Re: Just ask Facebook! It's closed source! (Score:1)
"Make sure to get a warrant,"
Yes yes, always make sure to get your rubber stamp before stomping a pleb with your iron boot!!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Also the number of people working for that the FBI/other agency/state police task force "deal".
Return to "work" and help the FBI for decades in the private sector or
Take the deal, return to work and its parallel construction deep in the telco/ISP, ad company, bank for decades...
Any US key thought to be in the hands of the compan
Wow, if they didn't have that one meth dealer... (Score:2)
Re: Wow, if they didn't have that one meth dealer. (Score:1)
Naw bro, I get what you're saying, but HE'S TOTALLY REAL!! I know 'cuz I read it on Facebook...
Re: (Score:2)
Naw bro, I get what you're saying, but HE'S TOTALLY REAL!! I know 'cuz I read it on Facebook...
I get it. But seriously, I've been reading all week on Facebook that guys carrying their tools around in padlocked vans are really human traffickers. A driver in Tennessee was killed a few months ago by some doofus that believes what he reads on facebook.
NEVER go Full Facebook! (Score:1)
Sounds like... (Score:2)
Sherman, set the wayback machine to 1984.
Right away Mr. Peabody.
Article got it wrong (Score:1)