The FBI’s Chat App and the Biggest Sting Operation In History
For three years, law enforcement across the planet had a backdoor into the private messages of transnational criminal empires. Then it shut it all down.
Angry Planet · Matthew Gault
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Show Notes
International criminal organizations are more concerned about message security than the average citizen. The end-to-end encryption of WhatsApp or Signal is great, but drug traffickers are looking for a little extra. Enter services like Anom, EncroChat, Sky, and Phantom Secure— discrete messaging services that charged big bucks and promised criminals a chat experience free from the prying eyes of law enforcement. But the cops always find a way. And one of those services was actually purpose built by the FBI to act as a spying tool on the world’s criminals.
In Dark Wire, investigative journalist Joseph Cox tells the story of how the FBI built and maintained a phone service just for criminals. He’s on Angry Plant today to tell us all about it.
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