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A company that sold encrypted phones was run by crime lords
You've probably heard the idiom of the fox guarding the hen house — but how about the one of the encrypted phone company run by drug lords?
Okay, that's obviously not an idiom, but it's a true story chronicled by Vice's Joseph Cox. In the story, Cox tells how MPC — a now-seemingly defunct company that apparently sold phones, tablets, and computers running custom firmware with significant encryption protections — was ultimately controlled by two at-large criminal kingpins known as The Brothers.
As Cox's reporting explains, The Brothers apparently first bought and used encrypted BlackBerrys before hiring developers to make a custom operating system that could theoretically offer them even more privacy and loaded it on phones. The story doesn't say what type of phones The Brothers use(d), but MPC sold Nexus 5 and 5X phones loaded with a custom OS, which seems likely to be the same one paid for by The Brothers.
[...] It's a fascinating and, at times, horrifying story (warning: it describes a murder), but you should go read it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 28 2019, @02:44AM (1 child)
Does honor among thieves extend to compiled code? Or, maybe the developers used some GPL code and (honorably) posted their changes?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 28 2019, @07:09AM
There would be some limited form of honor among thieves in this case. One of these phones would have most, if not all, of governmental and telco backdoors removed. If the Brothers installed a backdoor or two of their own, you would have far fewer spies reading your stuff, than they typical Apple or Android user.
I'm reminded of the drug cartels in Mexico, which are using very extensive phone networks. Gubbermint can't compete with cartel communications. The cartels put hardware where gubbermint isn't willing to go. Cartels have faster, more reliable communications, and the encryption works as well as, or better than, gubbermint's encryption.
2011 article from NPR that hints at the cartel's capabilities - https://www.npr.org/2011/12/09/143442365/mexico-busts-drug-cartels-private-phone-networks [npr.org]
Just don't believe that government has destroyed significant parts of the network. It's still up and working, throughout Mexico.