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CYBER

How the FBI Ran Its Own Texting App to Catch Criminals

CYBER

VICE

Tech News, News & Politics, Technology, News

4645 Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2021

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s basically the FBI’s greatest fantasy come to life: Owning an operating an encrypted communications company exclusively used by some of the world’s most hardened and organized criminals.


“Anom” the subscription based network operated by the feds, was used as the ultimate spy tool that gave an almost godlike view of organized crime to FBI agents who watched users discuss murder, drug deals, and millions of dollars worth of criminal activity. And it all came to a screeching halt this week when a coordinated law enforcement effort around the world took down its customer base.


Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox is on the show to talk in more details about the latest takedown by the FBI.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

It's got the code it's going to launch.

0:11.0

It's a unit system.

0:13.0

I know this.

0:15.0

It's all the files of the whole park.

0:17.0

It tells her everything.

0:19.0

Sir, he's uploading the virus.

0:21.6

The Eagle One, the package is being delivered.

0:23.6

It's basically the FBI's greatest fantasy come to life,

0:27.6

owning and operating an encrypted communications company

0:30.6

exclusively used by some of the world's most hardened and organized criminals.

0:34.6

Criminal organizations purchased and distributed anem devices in an effort to secretly plan and execute their crimes.

0:43.3

But the devices were actually operated by the FBI.

0:48.3

ANOM, the subscription-based network operated by the feds, was used as the ultimate spy tool that gave an almost

0:54.8

godlike view of organized crime to FBI agents who watched users discuss murder, drug

0:59.8

deals, and millions of dollars worth of criminal activity.

1:03.1

And it all came to a screeching halt this week when a coordinated law enforcement effort

1:07.6

around the world took down its customer base.

1:14.5

Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox is on the show to talk more details.

1:17.7

I'm Ben Maku, and this is cyber.

1:25.1

So Joseph, this is pretty big news, I got to say.

1:29.7

I mean, this is something that made big headlines in the cybersecurity community.

1:32.2

But, you know, walk me through this.

...

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