from the Back-to-face-to-face-meetings dept.
The next encrypted phone service have fallen after Encrochat, Sky ECC and Anom. This time it's probably "Ghost".
A press conference will be held on Wednesday 18 September 2024 to announce a major action against an encrypted communication platform used for criminal activities, such as large-scale drugs trafficking, homicides and money laundering.
This operation is the latest sophisticated effort to date to disrupt the activities of high-risk criminal organisations operating from all four corners of the world.
Details
Speakers:Europol
French National Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie Nationale)
United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Australian Federal Police (AFP)
Irish An Garda Síochána
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)Countries and organisations involved:
Australia, Canada, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, United States, Europol, Eurojust
(Score: 4, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday September 18 2024, @11:45AM (13 children)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-17/afp-raids-ghost-app-founder-charged-proceeds-crime/104362678 [abc.net.au]
It's confirmed to be Ghost. They managed to track down the service provider to his parents home in Australia and visited him. Direct access. Probably not to much need to crack to many things after that. Not to many lessons learned apparently after and compared to the other services downfall.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Wednesday September 18 2024, @12:27PM (12 children)
Yeah, apparently the lesson of "don't trust your large scale criminal enterprise to a lone nerd living in their parents basement" still needs repeating.
I have to admit I am surprised, considering the possible billions that these enterprises generate that they can't employ their own staff to develop secure communications.
Or maybe they do, and these "publicly known" apps like Ghost are either amateurs or honeypots. After all you only hear about those that got caught.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2024, @01:18PM (10 children)
That's right, just keep drinking the nonsense that these organizations feed you...
(Score: 5, Touché) by janrinok on Wednesday September 18 2024, @01:51PM (9 children)
Either you know exactly how much the gangs make, in which case why don't you tell us and provide your sources please, or you are just sharing an opinion that you cannot substantiate. You are quite free to do this but it adds little of value to the discussion.
Anyone suggesting that they have an insight to a usually restricted or limited area of knowledge is either bluffing or perhaps they shouldn't be discussing it in public for their own safety. Just sayin'.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 18 2024, @03:07PM (5 children)
For another opinion about the other side of the equation:
> large-scale drugs trafficking, homicides and money laundering.
Make the drugs legal and much of the money laundering and homicides will stop. How many people are laundering money and killing people over alcohol manufacture and sales in the US, now that Prohibition is over?
Oh! but the societal costs! Yeah, like they're actually stopping the meth. cocaine, and the rest of it with all of this police action. Decriminalize and instead of locking them up as criminals (and making them resist detection and arrest like criminals), spend half that money on substance abuse and addiction counseling, etc.
Then the nerd in his basement can just have secret chats with his nerd friends about mostly legal nerd things, because there won't be a market for secret communication funded by criminal activity.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Disagree) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday September 18 2024, @05:12PM (4 children)
Nope. We've been there and done that, and it didn't work. That's why in Oregon, "the legislature's Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly voted to re-criminalize drugs" (NPR). This, after a law passed in 2020 to legalize drugs proved to be a dismal failure. Drug overdoses went up by over 400 percent.
"In 2019, 280 people died of a drug overdose in Oregon. Fatalities rose every year after, more than tripling by 2022, when 956 died. And last year, even more people died, according to preliminary data. Each month the number has been higher than the previous year, reaching 628 in June. The state is still compiling data for 2023, but if the trends continue, the total would reach 1,250 deaths from an overdose." - Front Page Magazine
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 18 2024, @05:54PM (3 children)
Google disagrees, first result:
https://nyulangone.org/news/decriminalizing-drug-possession-not-linked-higher-overdose-death-rates-oregon-or-washington [nyulangone.org]
This including Seattle, one of the most notorious needle dens in the world.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday September 18 2024, @11:07PM (2 children)
Well, what do you know? I guess all those Democrats and Republicans who voted together for the repeal of legalization must have not Googled it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 18 2024, @11:45PM
I guess Oregon is statistically insignificant in an analysis of the two state area, and Oregon politicians know a hot button bipartisan issue when they see one.
Also, look at the years involved: deaths attributed to drug overdose were up around the globe due to unusual circumstances, even in places without recent changes in legalization.
https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates#Fig1 [nih.gov]
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 19 2024, @12:00AM
It's not just that. Legalization didn't legalize production of said drugs. That's where the risk is. When the drug is illegal, it is unregulated and hence, no standard of safety exists.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by quietus on Wednesday September 18 2024, @08:50PM (2 children)
Interesting. Perhaps we can make an educated guess. First off, what percentage of the people you know have ever done hard drugs or party drugs? That gives a rough percentage for the total population, or your first number. The second number is the average price for a drug. For coke, in France, that appears to be between 50 and 70 euro, currently (I'm surprised -- thought it was more like 15 €, but hey). That's your second number. The third number is the frequency of use: let's say, to compensate for the usage of party drugs, roughly once every 2 days, or about 150 doses per user per year.
In practical terms, assuming 5% of the total (French) population is a regular user, the total revenue should be figure in the ballpark of 3.35M * 50€ * 150 = € 25.125bn. In normal retail, profit margins are around 2-3 percent. Let's take that as a lower end, and Apple's profit margin (26 percent) as the higher end; thus we arrive at profits of between 502M and a rough 5bn per year -- assuming though you're the only seller in town.
That last part, about being the only seller, is a bit problematic if you have to believe the news bulletins: it seems like about every nationality wants to have its own proper criminal grouping so, for Europe, you'll be on the safe side (i think) if you assume 10 competitors: but this drops your profit further to between 50 and 500M.
Now, this is nothing to sneeze at but one does have to consider (apart from the long working hours and the probably not very intellectually stimulating company) that the career opportunities are about as much limited in time as for a professional sports person, and lavish parties aren't the same in a box of 3 by 5, which is where, statistically speaking, you'll be spending most of your life.
Still would give you plenty of time to be an editor at soylentnews.org though.
(Score: 5, Funny) by janrinok on Wednesday September 18 2024, @09:57PM (1 child)
.... and the pay by being a drug dealer is quite a lot more than an editor at soylentnews gets too.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 4, Funny) by quietus on Thursday September 19 2024, @12:12PM
You're not going to complain about the Antibes yacht and having only 2 twenty-somethings as PA's again, are you? There are limits, even to the patience of this Board.
And no, no way are we going to fly over a Timoan masseuse just for the weekend. No way.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 18 2024, @01:36PM
Organized crime is rarely *that* organized. Drug dealing especially is more like a multi-level marketing operation where everyone is trying to pass the hot potato on as quickly as possible. Anyway, the vast majority of communication is happening at the lowest level - between the dealer and the user - and that dealer is averaging less than minimum wage unless they are good at math and salesmanship, in which case they move up to the next level quickly. The higher up on the scale, the less communication, and the more innocuous it appears.
(Score: 2, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday September 18 2024, @12:31PM (1 child)
They make it sound like privacy and free speech are worse than unrestricted immigration. They do that on purpose, of course.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by gnuman on Wednesday September 18 2024, @09:12PM
Yeah, because you need to use pedo-nets to get privacy in your everyday communications? People here are probably resourceful enough to run their own Matrix server. There, you have privacy. Done. Unless, of course, you want secrecy, not privacy, when dealing with illegal crap from random 3rd party? Yes? The problem with 3rd parties is that eventually you get on police radar with your business and the end-result is the story above.
As to "freedom of speech", sorry mate, but no one is restricting anyone's freedom of speech here. No one is going to jail for "expressing their opinions".
It's sad that some don't understand there is a balance between privacy vs. public good. Everyone has 100% right to privacy in their bedrooms. That right to privacy disappears once you start causing harm to another. There are no absolutes in this world, only shades of grey.
And "unrestricted immigration"? In what part of the world is that happening?