Encrypted Phone Network Says It's Shutting Down After Police Hack (vice.com) 31
Someone in control of an email address long associated with Encrochat, a company that sells custom encrypted phones often used by organized criminals, tells Motherboard the company is shutting down after a law enforcement hacking operation against its customers. From a report: The news comes as law enforcement agencies have arrested multiple criminal users of Encrochat across Europe in what appears to be a large scale, coordinated operation against the phone network and its users. "We have been forced to make the difficult decision to shut down our service and our business permanently," the person wrote in an email to Motherboard. "This [sic] following several attacks carried out by a foreign organization that seems to originate in the UK." The email address has been linked to Encrochat for years, but Motherboard could not confirm the identity of the person currently using the account. Motherboard also separately obtained screenshots of text messages sent over the past week of alleged Encrochat users discussing a wave of arrests associated with the Encrochat takeover. Encrochat is part of the encrypted phone industry, which sells devices pre-loaded with private messaging apps, sometimes have the GPS or camera functionality physically removed, and can be remotely wiped by the user.
Re:WHY SUCH COMPANIES ALLOWED TO EXIST??? (Score:4, Interesting)
Governments is another big costumer of encrypted hardware. It is criminals and governments ;)
Re:WHY SUCH COMPANIES ALLOWED TO EXIST??? (Score:4)
criminals and governments
When the criminals are in charge, we call it government. other than that, both are the same thing.
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Q:What is the difference between governments and organized crime?
A: 'organized'
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of course the prisons would be the first shut down since they're rife with the criminal types
Re:WHY SUCH COMPANIES ALLOWED TO EXIST??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because having liberties always also means that they will be abused by criminals. You can have guns, and they are often used by criminals in their activities (frankly, in peace time there are surprisingly few legal applications of weapons). Should we ban weapons because of that? How about devices and programs finding security holes in computers and programs? Or how about encryption in general?
Re:WHY SUCH COMPANIES ALLOWED TO EXIST??? (Score:5, Insightful)
"a company that sells custom encrypted phones often used by organized criminals" "Encrochat is part of the encrypted phone industry"
Maybe we need (global) law(s) that ban(s) existence of all companies, which have criminals as their primary customers (because of providing products/services, which protect criminals from government law enforcement)???!!!
Or, maybe we need to label YOU some kind of data terrorist for daring to use a password to protect your email account. What are YOU HIDING?!?
Wake up and understand that encryption is like a gun. Often a very beneficial tool used by citizens and governments worldwide. And can always be portrayed as "evil" by the idiotic MSM who loves to hype it that way. These are the same morons who want to ban guns while demanding waivers for their private armed security staff. Hypocrisy at its fucking finest.
IMHO, general public is NOT obsessed w/ privacy...
Yes, and you must be one of them. So kindly hand over your internet history and all of your accounts and passwords. If you refuse, then you must be some kind of privacy-addicted criminal and there's NO WAY to convince me otherwise.
Once again, wake up. If your statement were even remotely true, then the HTTPS Everywhere project would have died before it ever even got traction. That was hardly the case, and now it's far more commonplace to find websites protected by SSL, because the general public wanted it.
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Wake up and understand that encryption is like a gun.
No it's not ! You can't kill someone with encryption. At least not easily. And I happen to currently live in a country that bans most guns but allows encryption, and let me tell you it's a lot more relaxing than the US where you never know if you are gonna get shot on routine cop stops, or when there's a heated argument over a barbecue or some such. Allowing any moron to have a death machine is... moronic. To use the same words as you the other way.
But of course it's way to late to do anything about that i
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Wake up and understand that encryption is like a gun.
No it's not ! You can't kill someone with encryption. At least not easily. And I happen to currently live in a country that bans most guns but allows encryption, and let me tell you it's a lot more relaxing than the US where you never know if you are gonna get shot on routine cop stops, or when there's a heated argument over a barbecue or some such. Allowing any moron to have a death machine is... moronic. To use the same words as you the other way.
But of course it's way to late to do anything about that in the US, just looking at the amount of guns around.
Well, I see you've managed to fully prove my point regarding the idiotic MSM and their hype machine with this rather incredible portrayal of American life. Yes, we all just sit around with guns on our hips at barbeques just waiting to shoot someone. Same with cops at traffic stops. Yup, that's 400 million Americans in a nutshell.
Gosh, if we could just convince all those pouring over our borders what a horrible place this is.
Enjoy your freedoms. They were provided by generations before you brave enough t
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IMHO, general public is NOT obsessed w/ privacy & only people really obsessed w/ privacy are criminals & their supporters/fans
Also, obsessed with privacy are:
* investigative journalists;
* whistleblowers;
* civil right advocates (only dictatorial or theocratic regimes call them criminals);
* in general all the people who not think government power is the utmost good.
Re: WHY SUCH COMPANIES ALLOWED TO EXIST??? (Score:1)
And of course
* governments, military, spying agencies, and their cronies themselves.
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"a company that sells custom encrypted phones often used by organized criminals"
"Encrochat is part of the encrypted phone industry"
Maybe we need (global) law(s) that ban(s) existence of all companies, which have criminals as their primary customers (because of providing products/services, which protect criminals from government law enforcement)???!!!
IMHO, general public is NOT obsessed w/ privacy & only people really obsessed w/ privacy are criminals & their supporters/fans (like ACLU & EFF etc)!!!
So, you're going to ban criminal defense attorneys?
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"a company that sells custom encrypted phones often used by organized criminals"
Maybe we need (global) law(s) that ban(s) existence of all companies, which have criminals as their primary customers (because of providing products/services, which protect criminals from government law enforcement)???!!!
I don't know who their primary customers actually were, but saying "phones often used by organized criminals" need not imply that the said group would be the primary customers. At least it depends on whether "often" is a reference in relation to the set of criminals or the overall set of customers.
Devices need a hardware factory reset (Score:3, Insightful)
"The malware was designed to conceal itself from detection, disable the phone's factory reset"
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
Devices need a way to do a factory reset in hardware.
Ironically phones and other high-theft items are an exception because you don't want to give a thief a way to take out anti-theft protection. However, you should be able to boot to an "alternate boot sequence" which force-wipes all "user data."
This way if someone hacks the BIOS/EUFI/equivalent and installs code to defeat a reset, you can still erase the important things without destroying hardware if you have physical access.
Re: Devices need a hardware factory reset (Score:3)
MediaTek SoCs can be flashed, even if bricked. Even if all storage is wiped. Even the bootloader.
Because the hardware includes the ability to flash via USB, even then.
Which is great because it means zero risk when flashing a different bootloader, recovery system, LineageOS, rooting, etc.
And is foolishly risky because anyone with physical access, even for a short time, could flash some malware.
They should just add a long delay, so you can only do it when having access for so long, that it could not just happ
Glitter tape on screws and an jumper (Score:1)
MediaTek SoCs can be flashed, even if bricked. Even if all storage is wiped. Even the bootloader.
Good, good.
Because the hardware includes the ability to flash via USB, even then. ... And is foolishly risky because anyone with physical access, even for a short time, could flash some malware.
If only there was a way to put a flash-enable/disable switch behind a tamper-evident seal..... [wired.com]
This [sic] (Score:3, Insightful)
Why did the editor add a [sic] here? There's no problem with the grammar in the sentence in question.
Re: (Score:2)
Because mssmash is a complete idiot.
Re:This [sic] (Score:4, Funny)
Why did the editor add a [sic] here? There's no problem with the grammar in the sentence in question.
Unless you're a /. editor. Then you probably think adding '[sic]' every now and then sounds cool.
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No, "cool" is such a 1960's term... I think you mean "sounds sick" :-)
Cool if it worked (Score:2)
"Often used by criminals" (Score:2)
Ain't that a convenient excuse!
You know what's also often used by criminals? Streets!
And water!
Sounds more like punishing an entire group because there are assholes in that group too. Reminds me of the rethoric of a certain well-dressed goose-steppers.
If that was alright, then pray there won't be aliens applying that to all of humanity.
Using one is a beacon (Score:3)
Once known to be used by criminals, then using one is a beacon to police.
Same with any obscure privacy technology.
You need to merge in with the mainstream, hidden in plain sight.
"This following" is fine (Score:2)
mssmash, please consider an actual English or journalism degree.
No need for the [sic] after "This"
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It may have scanned a *little* better if there was a comma after the this... but I'd say that was more a matter of style than gramatical correctness.
Was probably a honeypot the whole time . . . (Score:3)
Publish the Malware - NOW (Score:2)
GCHQ is on the case... (Score:2)
Its look like GCHQ [wikipedia.org] have got their toybox out and are playing.