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Feds Bust CEO Allegedly Selling Custom BlackBerry Phones To Sinaloa Drug Cartel (vice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Motherboard report: For years, a slew of shadowy companies have sold so-called encrypted phones, custom BlackBerry or Android devices that sometimes have the camera and microphone removed and only send secure messages through private networks. Several of those firms allegedly cater primarily for criminal organizations.Now, the FBI has arrested the owner of one of the most established companies, Phantom Secure, as part of a complex law enforcement operation, according to court records and sources familiar with the matter. "FBI are flexing their muscle," one source familiar with the secure phone industry, and who gave Motherboard specific and accurate details about the operation before it was public knowledge, said. Motherboard granted the sources in this story anonymity to talk about sensitive developments in the secure phone trade. The source said the Phantom operation was carried out in partnership with Canadian and Australian authorities.
Phantom then installs Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) software to send encrypted messages, and routes these messages through overseas servers, the complaint alleges.
If you want to stop drug trafficking and end cartels, you can stop trying to outlaw trapdoor math functions and start overhauling the century old criminal code that made a drug safer than aspirin a capital offense.
Good people go to bed earlier.
You're missing a space after the period!
#DeleteFacebook
Authorities don't appear to be worried if criminals use off the shelf smartphones. Hmmm.
How else would I call a fella who says the following to anyone?
“We made it—we made it specifically for this [drug trafficking] too,”
As he reportedly told undercover agents...
One conclusion: "Moron."
This will now be used as a reason to make all use of encryption, by anyone, into a crime. Be ready for the authorities to start arresting anyone who uses encrypted e-mail, or messaging, as well as encrypting their smartphones. The War on encryption is being escalated, we need to be ready.
The Coca farmers are often poor peasants -- are you advocating napalming families who are just getting by?
As far as Mussolini, he ended up strung up upside down, hanging from a gas station sign like a trussed turkey. "Hanged and quartered" by his own people. Hope that happens to many world leaders in the near future. Murderers like "Duterte Harry", and "Wannabe Stalin" Lukashenko would be good starts.
In short, you Russian troll, feck off, get MRSA of the scrotum from a FSB-run hooker.
It's a combination of back door racism and the American right wing attacking their political enemies. No, really, it is.
The sad thing is that the proof and the history are out in the open an nobody seems to care. A few college kids might but they grow out of it.
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Why not just legalize cocaine and marijuana? Either in moderate quantities is not particularly harmful -- what's wrong with people feeling a high? The "War on Drugs" is essentially a Puritanical war in pleasure, run by the descendants of religious zealots. The world would have been a better place if the Mayflower had hit rocks and the Pilgrims ended up as fish food.
Murder is murder, whether committed by the state or not.
Nothing would have stuck if they hadn't marketed it specifically for criminal activities and admitted as much to the undercovers. Of course, the feds did throw in a Sinaloa cartel witness to reinforce it. All this company had to do was watch their tongues with their shadier clientele and NOT tell people that it's expressly designed to break the law. Should have just said that "Well, technically it probably could be used for such purposes but Phantom Secure does NOT endorse such activity! If you need us to remotely wipe your phone and YOU MENTION law enforcement we will not interfere with their investigation..."
Hell, I'm not a criminal nor a Cartel member but the idea of a portable device without GPS, a mic or cameras that can send encrypted messages to anyone I wish sounds nice.
Personally, I think all phones should have a hardware switch that disables the above forced features unless folks elect to opt in by enabling said switch.
Our intelligence community would have an absolute cow about it though.
Where can I get one ?
Should it really matter who I sell to or who I tell about products im offering? Can we can the sale of these devices to pharmeucital companies that make opoid products? Can we make sure "medical" marijuana dealers are not encrypting their traffic so we can make sure they really are legit?
Despite you being modded down, you're correct. It's aiding and abetting. The Uber driver who drove the Parkland shooter to the high school did not break the law. However, if somebody drove the Parkland shooter to that school in order to help him perpetrate the shooting, the driver would have broken the law, even though driving itself is not an illegal act. Slashdot people are so fucking stupid, often.
From TFA:
Law enforcement agencies have cracked down on other encrypted phone companies allegedly catering to organised crime over the past few years. In 2016, Dutch investigators arrested the owner of Ennetcom, whose customers allegedly include hitmen, drug traffickers, and other serious criminals. And then in 2017, Dutch authorities also busted PGP Sure, which also allegedly catered to organized crime.
So they've been going after companies doing this for a while now.
But also:
Crucially, the complaint alleges that Ramos and Phantom were not simply incidental to a crime, like Apple might be when a criminal uses an iPhone, but that the company was specifically created to facilitate criminal activity.
So if a company can make the case their wares are 'dual use' and they're not responsible for how it's used, they can keep making this stuff. Nice work FBI, you just taught everyone how to avoid you coming after them, or at least how to defend themselves in court. Oops.
Of course we've been playing this game with a variety of technologies, the first that jumps to mind is BitTorrent, which is quite an impressive piece of technology that has some really great use cases. Alas, the biggest one is software/content piracy.
In Ramos' case, he kind shot him self in the foot with his discussions with clients and undercover agents. They'll nail him to the wall for sure, but he's making a great example of what not to do if you wanna fill his shoes.
When are the going to go after the banks that facilitate the movement of the narcobucks through the banking system. After all it should be easy as they keep detailed records.
If you want to un-fuck kids in the US, start by going after the Adderall and anti-depressant pushers.
A kid in america can deccide if it uses heroine or cocaine.
A peasent in south america can not decide not to take a farm job, first they may kill him for not tskkng the job and secondly his kids will starvve if he does not take the job.
No idea why your mind is so fucked up that you don't know how retarded your drug policy is (and how retarded your south america 'monroe doctrine' was. Letting the CIA destroy every legaly elected government and leaving the land for the war lords and drug barons, now you ccomplain they sell drugs to your kids. Learned something? No ...)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This article just stinks. Blackberry? Those went out of style long ago. This is just some sort of fear mongering article trying to make the FBI sound like they're in the right about encryption. There are plenty of other phone manufacturers offering completely secure phones with recent hardware and software. And of course the guy just happens to conveniently admit to selling mostly to the cartel. Next he'll confess to selling to ISIS too and we'll have that "Ah ha, see! This is why we have to break encryption!" moment.
And to assume that the cartel in Mexico doesn't have the technical know how and skill to do this themselves, that they require an American company in the US to do this for them? Are we to assume the cartel is that dumb? Disabling the cameras, microphones, gps and installing encryption software on your phone is not difficult to do. The fact that they setup their own facilities to pack their product, we are to assume they can't start their own small facility to secure their phones for their own people?
Meanwhile, the cartels are setting up number stations all over the place and using encrypted communication for a while, without the need of some American company to do it for them. They've had the technical know how, the sophistication, the engineers for a long time. Something doesn't add up in this article.
If you want to librefy/mangle your phone so that it de-blobs LineageOS to not rely on proprietary firmware, the Replicant project is it.
Of course half the hardware mightn't work but RMS will be impressed. :)
Then of course there's the Librem 5 phone which aims to use libre hardware as far as practicable.
A phone without a camera or microphone...
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