why come there no bread in the index
>Encrochat
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-56070648
EncroChat: Suspected drug dealers sought by police
Two suspected drug dealers are being sought as part of an investigation into encrypted mobile phone communications.
Lee Malone and Carl Aldridge, both aged 34, are wanted on suspicion of supplying cocaine and heroin.
Merseyside Police said the Liverpool pair were identified by Operation Venetic, which has targeted a secret mobile network used by criminals.
The operation has seen more than 60 arrests, 45kg of Class A drugs seized and £1.3m confiscated on Merseyside.
A spokesman said Mr Malone, from Garston, was white, about 5ft 7in tall and "of medium build with brown hair and blue eyes", while Mr Aldridge, from Aigburth, was white, about 5ft 6in tall and of "proportionate build with fair hair and blue eyes".
Det Sgt Steven O'Neill said anyone with information about the pair should "let us know and we will do the rest".
Operation Venetic, which has seen local forces work with the National Crime Agency to target the EncroChat network, has led to hundreds of arrests across the UK and the recovery of firearms, more than two tonnes of drugs and about £54m nationally.
The network's servers have now been shut down.
can someone dig this up
Arrest warrants issued for Canadians behind Sky ECC cryptophone network used by organised crime
The US has issued arrest warrants for the CEO of Sky Global and a former distributor for racketeering, aiding and abetting the distribution of illegal drugs by supplying encrypted phones to criminals
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252497819/Judges-refuse-EncroChat-defendants-appeal-to-Supreme-Court
Judges refuse EncroChat defendants’ appeal to Supreme Court
Experts suggest Parliament and Investigatory Powers Tribunal need to consider the implications of a court decision on police use of data from the EncroChat phone network
https://apnews.com/press-release/globenewswire-mobile/human-rights-and-civil-liberties-social-affairs-media-freedom-of-speech-social-issues-f213c82c34b37368e0a70d9ae6dbcb06
March 14, 2021
Sky Global’s CEO responds to recent news reports
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 14, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – “On March 13, 2021, we became aware, through the media, that charges had been laid in the United States District Court- Southern District of California alleging that Sky Global was a criminal organization and that as CEO, I was indicted on criminal charges,” says Jean-François Eap, CEO Sky Global Inc. “To date, the authorities have not informed us of any of the proceedings which have been reported in the media.”
Eap says, “As I have been following the media reports in the past week, it is with great sadness that I see far-reaching coverage of what can only be described as erosion of the right to privacy. Sky Global’s technology works for the good of all. It was not created to prevent the police from monitoring criminal organizations; it exists to prevent anyone from monitoring and spying on the global community. The indictment against me personally in the United States is an example of the police and the government trying to vilify anyone who takes a stance against unwarranted surveillance. It seems that it is simply not enough that you have not done anything illegal. There is no question that I have been targeted, as Sky Global has been targeted, only because we build tools to protect the fundamental right to privacy. The unfounded allegations of involvement in criminal activity by me and our company are entirely false,”
Eap adds, “I do not condone illegal activity in any way, shape or form, and nor does our company. We stand for protection of privacy and freedom of speech in an era when these rights are under increasing attack. We do not condone illegal or unethical behavior by our partners or customers. To brand anyone who values privacy and freedom of speech as a criminal is an outrage. In the coming days, my efforts will be focused on clearing my name of these allegations.”
http://skyglobal.com/
>We succeeded. We will send Sky ECC the account number of the federal police
https://www.brusselstimes.com/belgium/159176/cracking-of-sky-ecc-encrypted-messaging-service-brings-down-organised-crime-lords/
When Sky ECC fell, so too did Belgian crime lords
When Dutch and French police came crashing down on organised crime in the Netherlands last year, criminals in the Belgian underworld of kidnapping, money laundering, cocaine, and weapons trading didn’t break a sweat.
After all, they were using ‘the world’s most secure messaging app’ for their illicit dealings in everything from drug trafficking to torture and murder, and the Port of Antwerp was their playground.
The reason Belgian crime lords slept soundly at night was due in part to their faith in a Canadian company. Sky ECC sold expensive custom phones equipped with their special encrypted messaging service. Texts sent with the phones were automatically deleted after thirty seconds, and if a user entered a “panic” password, the contents of the device were immediately erased.
With cameras, microphones, and GPS disabled, the phones were essentially impossible to track, and the messages supposedly impossible to crack.
While critics said that the majority of their users were criminals, Sky ECC defended their “strong belief in a right to privacy” and resisted cooperating with police and judicial authorities. Their website offered a 5 million USD (€4.2 million) prize to anyone who could crack its encryption.
“We succeeded. We will send Sky ECC the account number of the federal police,” federal prosecutor Frédéric Van Leeuw told De Standaard.
But if Belgian authorities are really planning on collecting their reward, they’ll have to look for another way to get in touch – Sky ECC’s website is no longer operating.
Cracking the encrypted app gave authorities access to the six million messages being sent per day between major criminals – not street dealers or thieves, but harbour bosses and corrupt lawyers, crime families and leaders in countries from Dubai all the way to Finland and Norway.
For almost a month, between 15 February and the beginning of this week, detectives in Belgium and the Netherlands read the messages live.
Then on Tuesday, they launched the largest police operation to have ever taken place in Belgium. Around 1,600 police officers were deployed across the country in 200 raids, seizing 17 tons of cocaine, eight luxury cars, three cash machines, police uniforms, and €1.2 million in cash along with various firearms.
48 people were arrested, including a criminal lawyer from Antwerp. A leader of Belgium’s Hell’s Angels (a motorcycle club often associated with criminal activity, and banned in the Netherlands and Germany), along with an Antwerp kickboxer sponsored by Sky ECC, had their homes searched. Members of crime families from Antwerp and Limburg were pulled from their beds.
And the work is only just beginning.
https://outline.com/BZqgpa
Belgian police raid 200 premises in drug operation linked to breach of encrypted phone network
March 09, 2021
Belgian police raided 200 premises this morning in what prosecutors describe as one of the biggest police operations conducted in the country.
The raids follows widespread reports that Belgium’s law enforcement agencies have compromised an encrypted mobile phone network.
Belgian prosecutors refused to comment on whether they had gained access to the Sky ECC phone network. “We do not confirm, we do not deny. We don’t say anything about this,” a spokesman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office told Computer Weekly.
Sky ECC did not respond to questions from Computer Weekly. The company’s Belgian site was offline today.
The Federal Prosecutor’s office said 1,600 Belgian law enforcement officers took part in coordinated raids between 5am and 11am today.
Police seized evidence and made arrests, with operations centring on the Antwerp region.
The operation followed two and a half years of planning, said a spokesman. Belgian prosecutors gave the go-ahead for the operation a year ago.
Police investigations focused on drugs, but also money laundering and bribery.
“We have to take all the information that we get today, and it will slowly take months or weeks or more – so we have a lot of work,” said the spokesman.
“Quite possibly there are links with other countries, but the investigation is purely Belgian.”
According to reports in Belgium, the police investigation focused on networks of people using Sky ECC cryptophones.
Sky ECC became the communication tool of choice for organised crime after French and Dutch police compromised the EncroChat encrypted mobile phone service last year.
The UK’s National Crime Agency, the Metropolitan Police and Regional Organised Crime Units made hundreds of arrests around the UK after the French gendarmerie shared intercepted messages from EncroChat phones with UK law enforcement.
Belgian’s federal computer crime unit is claimed to have gained access to tens of thousands of messages exchanged by drug gangs using Sky ECC.
Sky ECC bills itself as the “most secure messaging platform you can buy”. It supplies phones that offer self-destructing messages, secure audio messages, a secure encrypted vault, and an app that in “stealth mode” can disguise itself as a calculator.
Modified phones, which are available in Android and iOs, can be bought online or through “authorised partners” for between €900 and €2,000, depending on model.
The phones are modified to remove the camera, microphone and GPS to make them more secure. Uses can wipe the contents of the phone using a “panic” password.
The service costs €2,200 a year and can be paid for in bitcoin, making it more difficult to trace the phones’ ownership.
Sky ECC is marketed by Sky Global, a privately owned company based in Vancouver, Canada. It said it released its phone 10 years ago.
The EncroChat mobile phone network was found to have 60,000 users worldwide and about 10,000 in the UK, and led to hundreds of arrests in the UK after it was compromised by French police, who were able to infect the phones with a malware implant.
The resulting investigations in the UK, dubbed Operation Venetic, resulted in hundreds of arrests, the seizure of tens of millions in cash, illegal firearms including AK-47 assault rifles, submachine guns and grenades, tonnes of class A and B drugs and illicit Valium, luxury cars and luxury watches.
>It's time for you to learn to have fun again
>Ever heard of MK Ultra?
https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/03/23/spring-valley-nursing-home-fire/
https://www.tranbc.ca/2014/03/26/the-evergreen-line-tunnel-alice-will-make-it-a-boring-job/
Finger lakes?