Belgian police seize 28 tons of cocaine after 'cracking' Sky ECC's chat app encryption The Belgian plod says it seized 27.64 tons of cocaine worth €1.4bn (£1.2bn, $1.65bn) from shipments into Antwerp in the past six weeks after defeating the encryption in the Sky ECC chat app to read drug smugglers' messages. "During a judicial investigation into a potential service criminal organization suspected of knowingly …
Didn't the previous encrypted phone network get busted because the cops hacked the software update servers and introduced a backdoor'ed update the handsets then downloaded.
You know, like SolarWinds...
I guess its just another SupplyChainAttack(tm)
One way or another, it almost certainly didn't involve decrypting the messages in flight. One end or the other was compromised and made to dump the messages in clear.
Apparently, until the general availability of desktop computers the CIA in collab with some other secret service or (wish I'd book marked the Register story) ran a security business with a machine that companies and governments could buy via an outlet in Germany.
Of course none that purchased this device knew it was actually owned by the CIA who now knew all their deepest vilest secrets plots and plans.
Problem with getting old, I forget to use Bookmarks, obvious incipient dementia, HELP
Didn't the previous encrypted phone network get busted because the cops hacked the software update servers
Not even. They got a mole hired by the vendor, according to reports.
Good ol' HUMINT-style sabotage. People have been saying for decades that intelligence and police agencies should stop fetishizing technological solutions and continue to use older, less-glamorous techniques where appropriate. The EncroChat takedown is a fine example.
Well, unless all of the stories I've read are incorrect, encrochat was taken down by compromised update version getting pushed to about fifty percent of the handsets. They claim they did that with an attack on the update servers...
I guess an infiltrator could have made the changes to the server, but the articles I've read suggest it was done with a remote technical breach.
We'll probably never know the entire truth.
I'm obviously way out of date on my drug slang as back in the day blow as a slang term meant (in the UK) cannabis. *
Has the US blow = coke taken over everywhere now, or is it just a matter of a US writer authoring this article?
* No surprise given my age as its many years since I had los of friends who did drugs (AFAIK, who knows maybe plenty of my friends do decades later but I'm just unaware of it!)
That's a huge amount of recreational drugs for a population of x million people.
busted today, not even like that is the total.
At some point someone is going to do the math and realise that a large percentage of people in Belgium don't consider doing lines of coke to be immoral even if it is illegal. These people are being criminalised despite a dominant ideology of the population.
recreational drugs are fun, by definition.
anon because its illegal to think this way, not because its bad.
A large part of the population may well think "what's the harm".
At least the same percentage of the population would probably also react badly if somebody on drugs then stabs a member of their family while totally out of it, or ploughs a family down while driving under the influence.
I'm not particularly against the idea of allowing drugs to be sold legally, however as a quid pro quid I would expect a life sentence (and by that I do actually mean life) for people who make the choice to take drugs and then kill whilst under their influence.
Imagine if there was a simple drug molecule that could be made at home and was widely available in Belgium and caused people to stab a member of their family and led to car crashes - I'm sure the Belgian authorities would crack down on it.
In comparison i think coke mostly causes bad ad campaigns
In the late 80's US urban areas were filled with crack smokers and cocaine injecters. Horrifying. It did result in a lot of crime and wasted away women selling their bodies on the street for the next hit. Crack + AIDS = Fast Death. Crack gives 30 minutes of pleasure followed by desperation for the next hit. Like the mouse hitting the pleasure bar repeatedly until it dies. A lot of people also got burned faces while trying to smoke the crack because it can easily explode.
Nowadays it is the speed freaks - c.f. buzznicked, faces-of-meth. Better value for money?
Antwerp... Second busiest port in Europe, where goods from all over the world are received to be distributed in all of the continent.
But nope, that is not the case here. If the blow was found in Belgium then it is for local use only: Belgians consume coke by the kilo...
"That's a huge amount of recreational drugs for a population of x million people"
Never ever consider Coke as being a recreational drug, it's not, treat it as a serious Class A drug, it was given that classification for a reason.
It bites far worse than it barks... it's a subtle bastard that will creep up on you very slowly but steadily.
The encryption isn't the problem.
Distributing keys to groups of people, being able to message groups of people when you don't know if one of them is a police, getting apps that do this and can run on your phone, trusting that the app is written by the police - these are trickier
I think Moxie whatever his name is went into the details in an interview as to what your typical issues are, much as you've indicated, and that the encryption of the message isn't really one of them. They are most likely using an open source (probably audited) library, however they've likely f*cked up the tougher parts of the implementation.
Quote: "....police specialists managed to crack the encrypted messages from Sky ECC...."
*
So some bad actors relied on "end-to-end encryption" provided by a service provider. We hear about this a lot (Whatsapp, Proton Mail, Telegram.......).
*
But the backdoors are secret (for obvious reasons). How long does it take for EVERYONE to realise that relying on SOMEONE ELSE'S ENCRYPTION might be a poor idea?
*
The snoops reading El Reg are welcome to have a go at this secret message on this subject!
*
8DGX6JAngreFSB4Xq5kLsza945SZ0f4vKpqf236z
mZm3G9eR0zGz0nIFgputmJIzg10vuJMbalk90BkD
KlE9eDC7gJIhWfcnCziFSheNIlUlk3YVQfapMFCV
qni9gnIRkXEjIHKPSz2RWVq1g3GDqb0FY3Ap0bS9
sbYZUvQFOD2d4Bm50rsTIfCvevwrM3E9CVALWZkB
ADihy36XKDIzklidC1MleNWDOFYb2d0jk7QhuXQ9
WrG1qpe5ErO32bUrUjkFUXwNitKbqtU56XeB21iv
mVwRKFuTU9o7sTspMtkNqJCVS5on6NUpsdc16XIn
YJqx8hyJW521IJqXQZc3ObAPSfIdC98faDyNydUt
ClGl6NO3uJapGV8JYTYP0JU5SpWfE3K9mz4TAXmz
s7E9sXSFC1MJCf8Jo5Q5UNSRszEpqZCdQ9CbMLGn
iJw1yNcpq5mHsNYNcNADE38xsd0HwfOhyRoboxUZ
O1mXc3sLOhCl0FodU5gtWZsfYtEVWZ6diVSRkR0Z
Q3GpGTEBaFiDgF4lkX8PQteDGlGjOVkZc1SLML4j
WbkJY92TgzIbeF4leLKNI3qtyP2DCPul8Jy1AZI3
iTMv
*
"How long does it take for EVERYONE to realise that relying on SOMEONE ELSE'S ENCRYPTION might be a poor idea?"
Do you suggest that each person create their own encryption, and don't use anyone else's encryption? How will those clevers communicate?
Don't you hate it when someone answers your question with a question?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
