US Extradites Man Who Allegedly Sold Backdoored Phones For The FBI (vice.com) 27
The United States has extradited a man it accuses of working for Anom, a company that sold encrypted phones to criminals but which was secretly backdoored by the FBI to spy on the communications of organized crime around the globe. Aurangzeb Ayub quietly arrived in the U.S. last month, according to court records reviewed by Motherboard. From the report: Ayub is the first of 17 alleged Anom workers to be extradited since Motherboard reported on the operation, known as Trojan Shield, and the FBI and its law enforcement partners held press conferences on its success in June. While authorities have arrested and prosecuted users of the Anom devices, Ayub's extradition is some judicial movement regarding those who allegedly sold phones for Anom, some of whom the U.S. Department of Justice has also charged. "Ayub is charged with 16 other co-defendants; he is the first defendant to appear on the Indictment and was extradited from the Netherlands to the United States," a court document filed on Tuesday reads. He first appeared in the Southern District of California on March 21, the document adds.
The Department of Justice and Ayub's defense team have already discussed the production of discovery, which includes all of Ayub's communications on the Anom platform, according to court records. That material contains around 3,500 communications and about 14GB of data, the court records add. By last Friday, the government was expected to turn over these messages to Ayub's defense team, the document reads. The court record adds that the Department of Justice anticipates that it will turn over more material in May, which will contain recorded conversations between an FBI confidential human source (CHS) and Ayub, a technical report about the Anom platform, and other reports. [...] Ayub is charged under RICO, a law traditionally used to prosecute mob bosses. Since 2018 when the FBI started shutting down encrypted phone companies initially with Phantom Secure, the Department of Justice has leveled similar charges against the administrators and sellers for such companies.
The Department of Justice and Ayub's defense team have already discussed the production of discovery, which includes all of Ayub's communications on the Anom platform, according to court records. That material contains around 3,500 communications and about 14GB of data, the court records add. By last Friday, the government was expected to turn over these messages to Ayub's defense team, the document reads. The court record adds that the Department of Justice anticipates that it will turn over more material in May, which will contain recorded conversations between an FBI confidential human source (CHS) and Ayub, a technical report about the Anom platform, and other reports. [...] Ayub is charged under RICO, a law traditionally used to prosecute mob bosses. Since 2018 when the FBI started shutting down encrypted phone companies initially with Phantom Secure, the Department of Justice has leveled similar charges against the administrators and sellers for such companies.
Bad article, bad US (Score:1)
So the US sent him to some other government? No? Then they didn't extradite him. Lerne too inlishe, du joo speaka eet?
It seems to say that the US got him extradited (not extradited him, there is a difference). They're essentially prosecuting an FBI cutout. That's a new low, even for the US.
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"The US repatriated him" means he's a US citizen (or somehow supposed to be), which he isn't. So it doesn't apply.
Extradition means (pay attention OrangeTide) that one government gave the subject over into the jurisdiction of another. So if the US "sucked him into" their jurisdiction, that means they got (some other government to order) him extradited to the US. Just saying "oh it can mean receiving him too", no, that's imprecise language abuse because you're being too lazy to say it properly. Or maybe you
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The word can also mean that the US ordered the extradition and received the extradited individual.
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The US ordering the extradition would send him somewhere else.
This is why neckbeards can't understand anything but pizza and mt dew. They still argue even after a mistake is pointed out. They can't imagine that they're only fucking semi-literate!
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'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
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I'm confused (Score:3)
Is this saying that they're prosecuting a bunch of people that helped them?
It looks like they're standing accused of helping the FBI take down organized crime?
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Informative)
Badly written headline. The FBI backdoored encrypted phones sold to criminals they wanted to prosecute. Now they are prosecuting the sellers of said phones. As one of those sellers is from the Netherlands, extradition was requested and granted.
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Informative)
I THINK the deal is....Anom was breaking the law by knowingly selling devices to criminals to facilitate crime. So the charges here are not "you helped the FBI spy on criminals and that's illegal," but rather "you sold end-to-end encryption to criminals to facilitate crime." The FBI spyware that was on the phones is just how the Department of Justice knows Anom was doing this.
So they aren't being punished for knowingly working with the FBI, they are being punished for knowingly working with criminals, and got stung by the FBI.
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It was badly worded. I think they mean this organization was unaware that the phones they sold were backdoored. I read it at least 3 times before figuring it out.
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Got it, so they weren't really selling phones FOR the FBI, they accidentally sold FBI phones.
The word "for" to me strongly implies that they were doing it knowingly as a partner.
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Reading the article, it seems that the employees didn't know the phones were compromised but the company owner did - the company was created with this FBI cooperation in mind from the start.
They'd have a good chance of claiming entrapment as a defense. The FBI is trying to tie up loose ends like a mob boss by doing something like this.
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I think that assumes he knew the phones were backdoored and/or he was actively working with law enforcement. If not, the normal charges would stand.
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Informative)
Is this saying that they're prosecuting a bunch of people that helped them?
It looks like they're standing accused of helping the FBI take down organized crime?
No, /., in a surprising move, simply screwed up the headline. he did not know he was selling compromised phones, per TFA:
In close coordination with the authorities, that CHS secretly added a feature to Anom’s devices that made a copy of every message sent across the platform and automatically provided that copy to law enforcement agencies. In all, the FBI intercepted 27 million messages sent across Anom. As Motherboard previously reported, the Anom phones also secretly captured their GPS coordinates and provided these to law enforcement as well.
Anom, like other encrypted phone companies before it, used a network of distributors to sell these devices to criminal end users. Unbeknownst to them, these sellers were really in effect working for the FBI, and helped to spread a backdoored device to criminal organizations around the planet.
I suspect being prosecuted by the US is the least of his worries.
Re: I'm confused (Score:2)
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If you don't have open source, someone else owns your system. I guess that's doubly true if you are a criminal.
Re: I'm confused (Score:1)
Poorly worded title and summary (Score:3)
Wow! That was one of the most confusing summaries and title.
First, we had him extradited and did not extradite him.
Second, he was extradited from the Netherlands to the US.
He is not work for the FBI. He illegally sold encrypted phones as an employee/member of Anum to other criminals.
What he didnâ(TM)t know is that the devices he was selling were backdoored and the FBI was the supplier of the devices to Anum.
The FBI used Anom as a honeypot to identify individuals selling the illegal devices and their users. Anum did not know their supplier was the FBI. They were a target.
Whoops.
Thatâ(TM)s how I interpret the original article.
Re: Poorly worded title and summary (Score:2)
Wow! That was one of the most confusing summaries and title.
Not surprising, seeing as how this is Vice feeding Slashdot with content.
I expect to read an article about the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor any day now.
Wait, they're charging him with working for them? (Score:4, Interesting)
Something is wrong here. This operation must have been approved by the DOJ. Their lawyers will have used information gleaned from the operation and thus knew where it came from. So, now it gets really messed up because if they're bringing RICO charges, then everyone involved in the operation is liable. In other words, the DOJ is saying that the DOJ is a "Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization" that must be dismantled and its members imprisoned.
If the FBI authorized Anom to do something illegal then whoever authorized the activity is responsible. Why aren't we hearing about them? Did they even do something illegal? Were they infringing on the 4th Amendment rights of Americans? Wan Anom working in good faith?
Re:Wait, they're charging him with working for the (Score:4, Informative)
Read the previous responses, Anom didn't know the phones were compromised. They were busy selling them to criminals. The FBI compromised the phones without Anom's knowledge, and Anom is responsible for supporting criminals. The synopsis was poorly worded.
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I came here just to post this, but got beaten to it..
Terrible summary again (Score:2)
Although it didn't happen in this case, my personal favorite bad summary type thing was something we had a rash of a few years ago. Let's imagine a guy named John Public is an expert at something and there is some thing, let's call it X, that we don't want to happen and w