Comments on: The seeds of the sting were sown when law enforcement agencies took down a company called Phantom Secure https://www.isegoria.net/2021/06/the-seeds-of-the-sting-were-sown-when-law-enforcement-agencies-took-down-a-company-called-phantom-secure/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Thu, 21 May 2026 16:19:21 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: Jim https://www.isegoria.net/2021/06/the-seeds-of-the-sting-were-sown-when-law-enforcement-agencies-took-down-a-company-called-phantom-secure/comment-page-1/#comment-3380936 Jim Mon, 14 Jun 2021 02:39:07 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=47985#comment-3380936 “Take privacy matters into your own hands and learn GPG.”

LMAO! A most excellent joke, good sir, I tip my fedora to you.

]]> By: Joe Smith https://www.isegoria.net/2021/06/the-seeds-of-the-sting-were-sown-when-law-enforcement-agencies-took-down-a-company-called-phantom-secure/comment-page-1/#comment-3380897 Joe Smith Thu, 10 Jun 2021 10:01:24 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=47985#comment-3380897 Never depend on “services” e.g. Proton Mail. Take privacy matters into your own hands and learn GPG. It is not that difficult.

]]> By: Mike in Boston https://www.isegoria.net/2021/06/the-seeds-of-the-sting-were-sown-when-law-enforcement-agencies-took-down-a-company-called-phantom-secure/comment-page-1/#comment-3380896 Mike in Boston Thu, 10 Jun 2021 06:32:52 +0000 https://www.isegoria.net/?p=47985#comment-3380896 Bloomberg “Money Stuff” columnist Matt Levine points out the ironic fate of the unsuspecting middlemen:

In the U.S., the FBI charged 17 foreign nationals operating in places including Australia, the Netherlands and Spain with distributing encrypted Anom communications devices, saying they violated federal racketeering laws typically used to target organized-crime groups, officials said. Eight of those individuals are in custody and nine remain at large, they said.

The FBI got lots of intelligence about real crimes done abroad, and referred it to foreign authorities, who arrested people for those real crimes. But the people charged by the U.S. are not charged with doing murder or drug dealing or bribes or whatever. They are charged with distributing the FBI’s spying device. The FBI built an encrypted-messaging-service-slash-spying-device, which would only be useful to the FBI if it could get it into the hands of criminals. So it subcontracted, as it were, some people to distribute the device widely to criminals. And those subcontractors did a good job and got the device in the hands of many criminals, and the FBI spied on them and arrested a lot of them.

And then it arrested the subcontractors! For doing what the FBI wanted! For helping the FBI catch criminals! Here is the indictment, which charges them with participating in a criminal enterprise, specifically “The ANOM ENTERPRISE,” an enterprise which … the FBI .. ran? This seems very unsporting. Surely you want to reward them, no?

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