An excerpt from the book Dark Wire, which details how the biggest FBI sting operation ran the Anøm encrypted phone network to catch criminals like “Microsoft”
When a drug kingpin named Microsoft tried to seize control of an encrypted phone company for criminals, he was playing right into its real owners' hands.
It belongs to a sequence of compromised criminal communications networks: the EncroChat infiltration and the later Sky ECC access showed that trust in a specialized encrypted service can be as consequential as the encryption itself.
First-order effects
The account clarifies that the FBI-controlled Anøm network could use a takeover attempt by the kingpin known as “Microsoft” to draw activity and targets into the sting.
For people using Anøm, the network’s apparent ownership and commercial control were part of the operation’s deception, rather than a reliable signal of who operated the service.
Second-order effects
The episode reinforces the operational value of running a trusted communications channel, not merely obtaining access to one; law-enforcement agencies can collect intelligence from users who believe they are selecting a secure provider.
Providers serving high-risk user groups face a credibility problem after Anøm, EncroChat, and Sky ECC: claims about secure infrastructure do not resolve the risk that the operator itself is compromised.
Third-order effects
If this pattern persists, encrypted-network enforcement will increasingly turn on supply-chain trust, distribution, and operator control rather than a simple contest over breaking message encryption.
The recurring exposure of specialized criminal networks may push illicit users toward more fragmented communications arrangements, while leaving legitimate privacy services under pressure to demonstrate governance and independence.
The trend: Encrypted communications are becoming a contest over platform trust and control, with covertly operated or infiltrated services undermining users’ assumptions about who sits behind the network.
A fantastic excerpt on Wired from @josephcox's new book DARK WIRE, about how the FBI ran an encrypted phone company used almost exclusively by criminals as the largest ever wiretap operation. I bought a copy of his book, so should you. It's a brilliant read and one of my favori…
Really appreciate this incredibly thoughtful review of DARK WIRE by Cory Doctorow. He articulates exactly the issues and stories I surfaced in the book.
Very glad WIRED could get a chunk of Joe's incredible book. Read the story, buy DARK WIRE, get to know an extremely aggressive drug dealer and would-be tech entrepreneur nicknamed Microsoft who had no idea he was helping the FBI extend the biggest dragnet in history.
Microsoft to go all in on a encrypted phone company Anøm where he detailed all his distribution plans. He would even attempt to take total control of it—never realizing that other people, higher up the chain, were in fact taking control of him. Story: https://www.wired.com/... [i…
I have read hundreds of thousands of messages from inside Anom, the encrypted app the FBI secretly ran. Many of those were about Microsoft, and his never ending list of harebrained schemes. These are just a few of them https://www.wired.com/... [image]
Microsoft's drug operations flew under the radar of the authorities, until the drug trafficker started using Anom. They suddenly got a God like view into his trafficking, his activities, his mind https://www.wired.com/... [image]
Microsoft sold Anom phones like he sold kilos of cocaine, with violence. “Nobody sells but for my people,” Microsoft snapped at an associate. “I haven't even started yet.” https://www.wired.com/... [image]
No one was better positioned to tell the tale of the largest sting operation in world history than veteran tech reporter @josephfcox, and tell it he did, in *Dark Wire,* released today: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/ ... 1/ [image]
As Anøm became more popular in the criminal underground, the people at the very top of the company watched everything unfold from a set of desks in San Diego. The FBI wasn't just intercepting its messages. The FBI was secretly managing the whole company. https://www.wired.com/...…
To his mind, Anøm was never the problem. Everyone knew something was wrong except him. Read the excerpt from @josephfcox's “Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever.” https://www.wired.com/...
It's finally time: DARK WIRE, my book on how the FBI secretly ran its own tech startup to wiretap the world, is out *today*. Here is WIRED's adaption of that story following the craziest character I've ever investigated: a drug trafficker called Microsoft https://www.wired.com/..…