RIP Webby

The FBI is said to have cracked the encrypted communications of suspected drug traffickers. On Monday, there were searches around the world, including in Germany.

It is probably one of the biggest blows against organized crime ever. In a coordinated effort, police units in 16 countries moved in Monday morning, storming homes, warehouses, garages and offices.

This happened among others in Australia, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, UK, the USA and also in Germany. In Hesse alone, around 60 properties were affected, and there were also raids in numerous other states such as North Rhine-Westphalia. German investigators speak of an unprecedented operation, with a large number of special police forces deployed.

Drugs, weapons, money laundering

According to research by NDR and WDR, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently gained access to the data of a provider of encrypted communications through which numerous criminal networks and gangs are said to have conducted drug transactions worldwide. Today's raids in Germany were planned under the strictest secrecy. Among other things, they are to be directed against suspected drug laboratories, cannabis plantations and cocaine storage sites.

However, the data related to Germany is also said to be about trafficking in weapons of war, weapons with silencers, money laundering and numerous other offenses. According to sources, the data set is supposed to be highly topical information.

On June 8, 2021, the FBI announced the results of Operation Trojan Shield. Within 48 hours of the announcement, law enforcement agencies worldwide arrested more than 500 suspects and searched 700 locations. In total, the investigation resulted in 800 arrests; the seizure of more than 8 tons of cocaine; 22 tons of marijuana; 2 tons of methamphetamine/amphetamine; six tons of precursor chemicals; 250 firearms; and more than $48 million in various worldwide currencies.

The FBI’s honeypot Pixel 4a gets detailed in new report

FBI honeypot phones are now public—and showing up on the secondary market.

With the new knowledge that the FBI phones presented themselves as "ArcaneOS" to users, Vice was able to find several other confused users on the internet who apparently ended up with second-hand FBI devices. Here's a forum post from XDA Developers user "mayday175" asking how to fix their recently purchased, second-hand Pixel 4a with a barely functional build of "ArcaneOS" locked in place. Because nobody had ever heard of this bizarre OS, the user posted a treasure trove of screenshots in an attempt to get help. Mayday writes, "The installed OS is ArcaneOS 10. The system updater says that ArcaneOS 11 is available for download (but I don't want to do that in case it makes this thing even harder to fix)." I wonder how good the FBI is at delivering timely Android OS updates?

The FBI's compromised phones definitely show some red flags that a tech-savvy user should be able to spot. When you start up an Android phone, the first check that happens is Verified Boot, which makes sure the operating system is cryptographically signed by your device manufacturer, ensuring it hasn't been tampered with. If a device fails verified boot, either from having an unlocked bootloader or a re-locked bootloader with tampered software, it will show a message during startup. In this case, the FBI devices display a message saying, "Your device is loading a different operating system," complete with a yellow exclamation point icon and a link for a Google support page at g.co/ABH. This message is very important.