Posted on 11/23/2021 7:02:28 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT
Criminals thought encrypted Sky ECC cellphones were impregnable, but cops tapped a billion messages, yielding arrests and drug seizures
Using supposedly impregnable encrypted phones, the Serbian hit men discussed earlier this year how wind direction and distance could affect the sniper’s bullet and planned their getaway. Unbeknown to them, their messages were also flashing up on the computer screens of a secret police team in Belgium that had hacked into the messenger service, called Sky ECC. The Belgians warned police in Serbia, who whisked the judge to safety.
The infiltration was a signature success in efforts by authorities across the world to counter encrypted communications—a powerful new tool for criminal gangs to hide their identities and hatch plans in secret.
The company that owned Sky, Vancouver-based Sky Global Inc., has denied any wrongdoing and said the platform had the legitimate aim of protecting privacy, not facilitating criminals. Sky Global says it relied in many cases on third-party resellers to distribute its devices and sought to prevent them from supplying criminals.
Sky billed the platform as impenetrable and offered a prize of up to $5 million to anyone who could hack it.
But the locator map appeared to confirm that the phones, with contracts costing as much as $2,500 for six months, were being used almost exclusively by criminals.
The messages revealed new connections and methods, from Belgian links with Italian organized crime to laboratories used by Colombians to extract cocaine hidden in fruit juice or melted into the plastic of toy dolls.
Since the busts in March, police in Belgium have identified nearly 2,500 suspects and detained hundreds more, from suspected gangsters to police commanders and employees from port terminals, shipping firms and security companies.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
The string on your oatmeal box can be read with a laser.
Fulls TXT:
https://archive.vn/xqekE
I don’t believe anything from any federal police force and about 1/4 from the local ones.
Your window with a laser.
So the cops can claim that reward as well?
Only if one is the target.
The LE was after anyone using the encryption system. As such, the computer logrythems were looking for key words and phrases to target.
Much like they may be doing on FR.
One TV show had a organization using their own defunct analog system to get away from digital comunication.
This sounds to me like a gov’t run project designed for the purpose of catching criminals.
With similar technology, the FBI can’t prove a Jan 6 conspiracy while at the same time can’t figure out who planted fake bombs at the RNC/DNC HQ the night before? Or who offloaded pallets of bricks before every riot? Etc. etc.
We live in an age of Pharisees.
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