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Encryption Privacy News

3-Year Probe Into Encrypted Phones Led To Seizure of Hundreds of Tons of Drugs, Prosecutors Say (apnews.com) 60

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Investigations triggered by the cracking of encrypted phones three years ago have so far led to more than 6,500 arrests worldwide and the seizure of hundreds of tons of drugs, French, Dutch and European Union prosecutors said Tuesday. From a report: The announcement underscored the staggering scale of criminality -- mainly drugs and arms smuggling and money laundering -- that was uncovered as a result of police and prosecutors effectively listening in to criminals using encrypted EncroChat phones. "It helped to prevent violent attacks, attempted murders, corruption and large-scale drug transports, as well as obtain large-scale information on organised crime," European Union police and judicial cooperation agencies Europol and Eurojust said in a statement.

The French and Dutch investigation gained access to more than 115 million encrypted communications between some 60,000 criminals via servers in the northern French town of Roubaix, prosecutors said at a news conference in the nearby city of Lille. As a result, 6,558 suspects have been arrested worldwide, including 197 "high-value targets." Seized drugs included 30.5 million pills, 103.5 metric tons (114 tons) of cocaine, 163.4 metric tons (180 tons) of cannabis and 3.3 metric tons (3.6 tons) of heroin. The investigations also led to nearly 740 million euros ($809 million) in cash being recovered and assets or bank accounts worth another 154 million euros ($168 million) frozen.
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3-Year Probe Into Encrypted Phones Led To Seizure of Hundreds of Tons of Drugs, Prosecutors Say More

3-Year Probe Into Encrypted Phones Led To Seizure of Hundreds of Tons of Drugs, Prosecutors Say

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  • Unless you have the resources to do a code review on the entire firmware codebase (which would take years and lock you into a version without security updates), just use plain ol' commercial-off-the-shelf tools. The FBI has also gone after custom ROM "encrypted phone" makers, and compromised their entire ecosystem. Trusting anything that's "encrypted" in transit, and NOT end-to-end encrypted is foolish (e.g. Telegram by default), all it requires is a server compromise to reveal all plaintext messages.

    S

  • A losing game (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2023 @12:38PM (#63637280)
    The problem with trying to shut down illegal drugs is that addicts don't stop wanting regardless of price and buyers willing to pay more incentivizes new sellers to enter the market because they can make even more money. Unless you're also trying to tackle the demand side of the equation there will be a new set of pushers in place by next week.

    Even if you can tightly control imports due to having a more authoritarian government, addicts will find substitutes, some of which are worse than the drug they're replacing. When Russia clamped down on heroin and other opiates, it gave rise to krokodil which is more horrifying than meth in terms of what it will do to a person using it.

    Most countries would be better off legalizing and regulating the use of even the most hard drugs. In part because it cuts down on the number of criminals, but also because it can help people to get off the drugs if they're buying something that hasn't been cut with god knows what and can be delivered in an environment where they're at less of a risk of going crazy in public.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Most countries would be better off legalizing and regulating the use of even the most hard drugs. In part because it cuts down on the number of criminals

      We could just as easily eliminate ALL criminals! Why are governments too stupid to recognize this?

    • Re:A losing game (Score:5, Interesting)

      by test321 ( 8891681 ) on Tuesday June 27, 2023 @12:54PM (#63637334)

      Most countries would be better off legalizing and regulating the use of even the most hard drugs. In part because it cuts down on the number of criminals,

      There's this story circulating on the internet https://www.vice.com/en/articl... [vice.com] that the Netherlands had heroin addiction disappear by giving heroin for free in hospitals on simple request. Addicts stopped purchasing, traffickers stopped importing, and after a while heroin vanished as existing addicts rehabilitated themselves or died.

    • Erh... careful there.

      The thing with drugs is, that the people using them neither do so because it's cool since they're illegal nor because they're such a fun thing that you just have to try them. Well, at least with the ones that really fuck you up.

      People know that heroin and far worse shit like krok (don't google it, if you don't know it, the pics will never leave your brain) is killing them. THEY KNOW THAT. It's not like anyone today doesn't already know that this shit will sooner or later, and usually so

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        I don't think that is quite right. However they get hooked, they are hooked and it changes their calculus of how to live. Yes, some will go through withdrawal symptoms if they do not use, but most do not get to that stage. They rather feel the craving and it too strong for them to deny it.

        • The key to the solution is already in the "however they get hooked". Why do they get hooked? When was the last time you thought "It's Tuesday, I'm bored, how about I shoot some shit I got from a shady guy on the corner into my veins"?

      • I wish I had karma to upvote this.
    • if you're a politician using the "War On Drugs" as a pretext to attack younger voters and minorities (*cough*Richard Nixon*cough*) or you run a private prison and "lease" out the "inmates" as allowed by the US Constitution then the Drug War's _great_.

      Also if you're a police department using civil asset forfeiture to line your pockets then the Drug War is also great.

      Everyone else it sucks for. If you don't like seeing all those illegal immigrants here it sucks for you, because they're here fleeing dr

    • ... addicts don't stop wanting, regardless of price ...

      The result is, burglaries, car thefts and violent muggings increase.

  • I have it on good authority that police are helpless unless phone manufacturers insert a permanent back door for them in all phones. So I must conclude this story is fake news and never happened.

  • For those unfamiliar, "Roubaix" is a way saying "OVHcloud.com" without pointing fingers. They're a large hosting company with datacenters in that city.

  • And these are the ones they caught. Just think how much got distributed and were NOT caught.

    • That's how this game is played. You give the coppers some fall guys to arrest so they're happy with fulfilling their quota and don't start looking for you.

  • solution (Score:2, Informative)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 )

    The solution to illegal drugs is legalization and regulation. Tax it and spend the money on education and treatment.

    Arresting drug dealers does not solve the underlying reasons people take drugs. People need opportunities to succeed.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by smooth wombat ( 796938 )
      spend the money on education

      You mean the hundreds of millions spent over the decades "educating" people on the dangers of using drugs? The same educatoin efforts people laugh at? The same people who will tell you the experts don't know what they're talking about.

      Arresting drug dealers does not solve the underlying reasons people take drugs.

      Executing drug dealers would certainly cut down on those dealing as well as the supply.

      People need opportunities to succeed.

      Succeed at what? De

      • By your same logic, executing drug users solves the drug problem. I didn't say anything about 'education about not using drugs', that is your take, I simply said education.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        "Executing drug dealers would certainly cut down on those dealing as well as the supply. "

        No it won't. Dealing drugs is a dangerous business for the dealer regardless of the law enforcement. And it pays well. Knock off one dealer and two will take his/her place. Many have turf they will defend against other dealers. In that case, someone wanting to deal has an incentive to knock off the dealer and grab their turf.

        The only people who believe killing dealers will disincentivize the remainders are dolts like

        • You're wasting your time. If they're willing to go that far no amount of logic is going to change their minds. In their world you just execute the folks doing things you don't like. Easy!
          Easy, simple, and dead fucking wrong on all points.

    • How about spending that money on eliminating the reasons people take drugs?

      • Right, I mentioned education, treatment and opportunities. All of which in some way help to address some reasons people take drugs.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        One way to do that is eliminate the happy feeling drugs give you. Get back to us on how you solve that.

        • Weird that I never had the urge to want that feeling. Maybe because I live a happy life?

          • Hey, great for you!
            Now if you'll excuse us, we'd like to get back to discussing the actual issue. Thanks for your tone deaf response though, I at least got a chuckle.

            • Please try to understand what I try to say here: People will reach for drugs if they feel that an artificial happiness is the only way they can get any.

              Give them the opportunity to be happy some other way and there is no reason to reach for something that will destroy them.

      • Some drugs are fun. Some signal despair. The line between the 2 is subjective.
    • on education and treatment. You save so much money not fighting a pointless war the money can come from there.

      It always, always costs less to be a good person. Human beings are a social species. We're at our best and most efficient when we work together.

      But the drug war is *very* useful for a certain kind of politician. And it gets you access to slave labor. So ending it will be hard. People need to change how they vote. Need to stop giving into anger and fear. And we've been doing that for 40+ year

  • Who couldn't enjoy all those drugs. That is the real crime here. Goddamned control freaks.

  • Its always so vague the way they describe the cracking.

    I suspect by cooperating with manufacturers or using non-public backdoors in common phone firmware, law enforcement has a way to simply side-load or push binaries directly to the phone. they can probably install basic keyloggers or screen scrapers right over the cell network without any way for the user to prevent it and without needing to know the first thing about the targets crypto system.

    These boutique centralized services, no matter how good their

  • I will not get into why I was using a Hushmail address back in 2000... but a few years later I learned that not only were the emails stored unencrypted on their servers, but they would provide them to law enforcement on request. Imagine my surprise.

    Every stoner in my area back in the day knew the rotating terminology needed to remain unspecific when calling their dealer. And that was when somebody had to actually listen in... the new breed of criminals put too much stock in what they're told about the secur

    • I don't break the law (other than the speed limit occasionally) but I prefer to control my information wherever possible.

      I host my own email because I don't want MS or Google's algorithms sifting through it. I run my own DNS and firewall so nothing on my home network can call out without me permitting it. As I type this I'm installing my own secure phone system and I intend to deploy it to my entire extended family.

      It's not my duty or responsibility to make life easier for the government to snoop on me 'j

  • The announcement underscored the staggering scale of criminality -- mainly drugs and arms smuggling and money laundering

    Drugs, are a symptom of a badly structured society and therefore a social ill and not one that should be criminalized, and guns and money laundering are both chiefly the result of the aforementioned drug trade.

  • Another win for the war on drugs, It's curious why they don't ever go after the huge sums of money.

  • non-patent drugs still seem to be available anywhere and everywhere. Isn't it time they call this war lost, and try another approach. Also, screw the tax revenue, the US government, hell, any goverment will spend more than it collects, no matter how much they collect.

  • How did we ever smuggle anything before spyphones? It must has been impossible! /s

    I can guarantee that surviving old school shops do not use them at all, and work just like they did in the 60s and 70s.

    "Easy Button" law enforcement only catches the stupid ones.
  • I would buy random Android phones without SIMs that could run Sessions, the fork of Signal, and then restrict their use to public free WiFi. If you ever needed a phone number as an exception, then use a prepaid burner from a large market without ID requirements as straw purchases.

  • Illegal drug prices increase by 3% on average for a couple of weeks.

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