FBI paid renegade developer $180k for backdoored AN0M chat app

https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/08/fbi_trojan_shield/

44 9 5 years ago

tommica• 5 years ago

No need to break encryption if everyone uses your own backdoored app. Quite an impressive story.

belter• 5 years ago

So called drugs lords were relatively low level. Maybe a misdirection operation to convince everybody they cannot break encryption... :-)

hamiltont• 5 years ago

For their objectives, that was undoubtedly a good return on investment. Even ignoring the ROI, the absolute cost seems quite reasonable given the feature set and target market. Someone picked a good CHS or did a good job with avoiding scope creep.

While I applaud them for their understanding and use of technology, it is a strange feeling to see the FBI start to think like the NSA. Given the positive PR of this approach+result other teams will most assuredly try to replicate it

junon• 5 years ago

Which is fine, if you ask me. This app was created for criminal dealings, specifically. It was handed over to them by a criminal. They had an op to specifically distribute the compromised app only to the crime networks.

They didn't take over good-faith services. They didn't try to spy on civilians. They didn't try to blanket-surveil the public.

It was a clever, successful and seemingly by-the-books operation.

oliverx02• 5 years ago

I wonder why the FBI would reveal this information? Surely they could continue under the radar for as long as possible and continue catching criminals?

viro• 5 years ago

Are you from the States? The discovery process probably made keeping it a secret any longer nearly impossible.

oliverx02• 5 years ago

I am not! Thanks for the insight.

foxyv• 5 years ago

Government agencies like the FBI are subject to the Freedom of Information Act and cannot keep stuff like this a secret once they start making arrests. Once they go public it's all subject to scrutiny. This may be why they did all these arrests at once in a large wave.

https://www.foia.gov/

SheinhardtWigCo• 5 years ago

Yet everyone who got Signal from an app store thinks they’re totally fine?

FBI paid renegade developer $180k for backdoored AN0M chat app

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