[Dismas]

It's been discovered that the Anom messaging application is ran by the FBI. Over 800 arrests relating to drugs and other crimes have been made.

Authorities in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and Europe said Tuesday that they've dealt a huge blow to organized crime after hundreds of criminals were tricked into using a messaging app that was being secretly run by the FBI. Police said criminal gangs thought the encrypted app called ANOM was safe from snooping when, in fact, authorities for months had been monitoring millions of messages about drug smuggling, money laundering and even planned killings.

The app was part of a worldwide sting called operation Trojan Shield, which was led by the FBI and involved the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the European Union police agency Europol and law enforcement agencies in more than a dozen countries. Europol said police from a total of 16 countries had carried out raids sparked by evidence from the FBI-monitored smart phones.

About 9,000 officers have been deployed worldwide to make arrests and search more than 700 locations over the past 48 hours, according to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California. More than 32 tons of drugs — including cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines and methamphetamines — were seized along with 250 firearms and $48 million in various worldwide currencies, the FBI said. More than 50 clandestine drug labs have been dismantled — including one of the largest clandestine labs in German history — and 800 people have been arrested in total, including 500 in the last 48 hours, according to U.S. officials.

"The results are staggering," FBI Assistant Director Calvin Shivers said Tuesday morning at Europol's headquarters in The Netherlands.

Read More: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anom-app-fb...an-shield/

[fritz]

Never heard of this app, was it popular ?

[Dismas]

Never heard of this app, was it popular ?

It's been mentioned here in the past, but it wasn't widely popular. I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens with Telegram or other similar services.

[fritz]

Never heard of this app, was it popular ?

It's been mentioned here in the past, but it wasn't widely popular. I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens with Telegram or other similar services.

Yeah I guess it could! Although there are some that I trust much more than others (Telegram is a bit shady for example).
Signal specially, as it has been proven it can be trusted with this great page for example: https://signal.org/bigbrother/

[mothered]

I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens with Telegram or other similar services.

It's a fact that as an end user, you never know for sure what happens behind closed doors.

Unless It's a service solely under my control, I don't trust any entity In Its entirety.

[Dismas]

I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens with Telegram or other similar services.

It's a fact that as an end user, you never know for sure what happens behind closed doors.

Unless It's a service solely under my control, I don't trust any entity In Its entirety.

I agree. Anom's background was always shady, as they weren't even owned by a company on the books. It's no surprise that the developer created it as part of a plea deal.

[Spooky]

I remember reading a little about this but never looked too much into it. That’s wild they really setup a sting on that many people. Snapchat co operates with the police often so I wouldn’t be surprised if several other apps were doing the same.

[fritz]

I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens with Telegram or other similar services.

It's a fact that as an end user, you never know for sure what happens behind closed doors.

Unless It's a service solely under my control, I don't trust any entity In Its entirety.

I don't totally agree. As we're saying, Anom's backgrounds was shady, and lots of them are, it's quite easy to spot.
Yes you don't control what's happening in a private company, but for apps like Signal for example they would need a big change in technology AND governance to become vulnerable.

Anyway if you want 100% privacy it's always better to use you own services (ONLY if you really know what you're doing though)

[ConcernedCitizen]

This is just another example of having a single point of failure, by giving ultimate trust to an application rather than trusting your own gut and encrypting by default. They never would've gotten caught, at least, not without a graphic amount of other evidence. Want to arrest someone for doing criminal things? Wait for them to send a message in plaintext to a supplier, nab the supplier, get all his buyers. It's so common and yet I don't see encryption by default being the standard among drug dealers or even kingpins in the last 5 years.

[mothered]

Anom's backgrounds was shady, and lots of them are, it's quite easy to spot.

Spotting from an end user's perspective, yes.

Behind the scenes In how they solely operate within the confines of their environment, certainly not.

Anyway if you want 100% privacy

100% privacy will never be attained- ever.