Thank you for your efforts
And also, shame on the public servants breaking the law, and refusing to comply with it.
The contents of messages from encrypted chat service EncroChat may be admissible as evidence in English criminal trials, the High Court in London, England has ruled. A legal challenge to a warrant used by the National Crime Agency for gaining access to hacked data obtained by the French and Dutch authorities has failed, …
Those civil servants didn't break the law as they didn't do anything because they couldn't do anything about it. The hacking of the server was done in France by the French police with Dutch assistance. There was evidence found on that server, which was passed to the NCA to use as the NCA saw fit.
"The High Court itself also dragged its heels, taking a week of constant nagging to supply a copy of a reporting restriction order attached to the public judgment. Such orders are routinely supplied on request within hours instead of weeks. This level of public sector reluctance to submit to the open justice principle is noteworthy given the topic of the judicial review."
good bit of reporting
... but I can see the argument for letting evidence lead to suspects rather than always insisting investigating suspects leading to evidence. After all, where do you get your suspects from? It's a police state if you always start with the suspects and not the criminal activity.
There's an important and fundamental difference between blanket surveillance of all comms in the hope of finding criminality and the targetting of a specific platform seemingly, openly intended for criminal use; it seems to be of the same kind as an investigation or hacking of say, child abuse sharing servers on the darkweb, leading to identifying the users and operators who would not have otherwise been under suspicion.
Also worth noting that the individuals charged will still be able to make representations about the admissibility of the evidence adduced in their specific cases. I think they have the balance right here.
> There's an important and fundamental difference between blanket surveillance of all comms in the hope of finding criminality and the targetting of a specific platform seemingly, openly intended for criminal use
Openly intended for criminal use according to whom? The prosecutors who have a vested interest in painting the service in as negative a light as possible, that's who!
Wikipedia informs that EncroChat had 60,000 subscribers at the end, but the court claims only "over 1000" arrests. That sounds like an awful lot of people using the service who were not part of "organised crime gangs"!
Did law enforcement have strong evidence that the service was "used solely as a means for organised crime gangs" (note: solely is a strong assertion!) before applying for the warrant to take over the service? Or did they just make that claim unfounded because "those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear"?
It's not only criminals who need encrypted communications. How many political dissidents were caught up in this dragnet, I wonder?
The Register's excellent article on this dated 2nd July 2020 claims that in the UK there were around 10,000 subscribers, and that police had made 746 arrests. If the "over 1,000" arrests referred to in (a UK) court were in the UK only, that would make the relevant subscriber figure 10,000, not the 60,000 you note.
To which you will (correctly) reply, "What about the other 9,000?" I would agree with you that the notion that the service was solely for the use of organized crime gangs is a strong assertion to make in court. This story is likely to run and run over the next few years.
No down thumb from me; fair question. Naturally my original comment is predicated on the claim being true; It was made by both the prosecution and the NCA; no counter-claim by EncroChat or it's users was reported (perhaps for obvious reasons).
If it's not actually true, then I would withdraw my support for this approach, just as I wouldn't support general TLA cracking of Signal, Tor, etc, since these clearly are not the means of communication of 'solely' criminal gangs.
That said, I'm not sure the disjoint between subscribers and arrests need signify anything other than that TPTB haven't caught up with all the wrongdoers as yet. The number of reported arrests has grown by ~250 since the June report.
"difference between blanket surveillance of all comms in the hope of finding criminality and the targetting of a specific platform"
There really isn't. It the government is prepared to do this to its enemies, its not going to be too careful who it's enemies are.
Apropos Doctorow's Attack Surface
@Tom_Chiverton_1
"Enemies" is the word you used. But the NSA and GCHQ are slurping EVERYTHING they can read from public channels. My guess is that criminal content is a lot less than one percent of what they slurp....the rest is content used by law abiding citizens!!
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So......AC folk like me are making sure that their messaging uses private ciphers BEFORE messages enter ANY public channel. I know, I know....private ciphers are cr*p! So....good luck to the snoopers taking a hard look at this message!!
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0KdD1V5S0HRN0tXN0aLD1K==0qOV1P9a1Vv61DiO
0SFi01jN0zty0=T40pGP0U1w0dOT0rEr0ALd12Ei
0y7W1m6n1G$c08Fg1Aqv0uef14ui0FBF1Gzs1a51
0adn1fv61Niz0XCt06WI07LH0f0p17Nt0z0L0bz$
0Ls90HM20l2d1Ide0zL40iew05Wl0E3Z0Op71646
126N1Z$j1N7p1U5d0b0d0xce1Jnk0Jqe0K7U16bs
0rpb12Yp1gEd0BMm1EXU0Rjx0ytJ141D05Z81MS9
0p0I05c50KHp0NLm0EX51W311HeQ18rT0CAo0b8r
1c6206Iq1ZMO0nyP0ket0yam0Tya0P5F0kVx1hS9
1K0p0NVE1mlv0DUv01Lw0JJM0jry0XfF0yV81buV
10gH1mjH1QIa0XRw0MLo1aNd0KH01cv$0k3c0O4w
1OAJ0sv11N9A0jWm0iru1Dr10dCF18d60Och0nqt
1NyV1Yut19P100Gy0D$a1CAt0DIm1jSa0LQF0xV5
0H3x02Q10s2I1ARc02gL0PHx0nM21AHT1mkz0v1k
0iXC0Drr1NR30PT305V11k3A1ZJ51OQG0YHa10jN
0eN61Sf009K=1Abz0Acc0Vr81bA61ZQL0nNR0PA3
1FPf1UEt1io11LC60HQR1S5c1kcX0IDz1Qa21O6r
0voK1JBq107A0t$F0VtU1ZKh0q0w1RgJ0JdE0aZE
0p=Q0Gst0pz9076n1Kqp0qAt0IAz07MW1Zjn0EGw
0hdm160r0kbD1i1f0rs71M6b027Z0IDV0PJQ0hqe
1jer1ZIW0XhT1Xx01IRQ0prG1GvE0n=50LPT082g
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Prosecutors are extremely nervous of public scrutiny of the EncroChat case in Britain and it is somewhat surprising that the judicial review judgment was published at all in light of efforts to deter reporting of it. Interestingly, the NCA appears not to have cared that foreign police were hacking Britons, with the judgment noting that the French and Dutch forces told the NCA that they were going to hoover up messages from Britons regardless of whether or not they were given permission.
With the billions of pounds unaccounted for by UKGBNI government ministers/officials/departments in this current frenetic pandemic splurge of QE funds, such as the above must be a serious constant worry for anyone dodgy imagining they have Wilson Doctrine like protection against stealthy state snooping.
It does appear to be something of an exclusive selfish Parliamentary confection though which I'm sure many would cry is most unfair and extremely inequitable, if we're all supposed to be treated as equals and in this together ......
Since it was established, the development of new forms of communication, such as mobile phones and email, has led to extensions of the doctrine. However, it was never extended to cover members of the new devolved legislatures.
Certainly a lot more to the ‘Hacking Britons’ than meets the eye in this story, obviously the psychological torture of Britons in the name of ‘The Great Game’ psy-ops multi corporation funded experimentation sp00ky projects will also be omitted in a ‘nothing to see here’ everything and everywhere manner will IT not?