There Is No ‘Going Dark:’ Dutch Law Enforcement Spent Months Intercepting, Reading Encrypted Messages

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the Chris-Wray-needs-to-shut-the-fuck-up dept

To hear consecutive FBI directors tell it, unless legislators are willing to mandate encryption backdoors, the criminals (including terrorists!) will win. That’s the only option — at least according to Jim Comey and Chris Wray — given that the FBI, with its billions in funding and wealth of brainpower, is apparently unable to decrypt files and devices simply by waving a warrant at them.

All evidence points to the contrary. What FBI directors refer to as “going dark” is actually just the temporary blindness that results from staring directly at the Golden Age of Surveillance sun. While FBI directors waste their time making everyone stupider, law enforcement agencies around the world (including the one represented by these particular misguided loudmouths) are putting plans into action.

Twice in 2021 alone, investigators around the world announced the end results of long investigations that involved taking over message servers or otherwise compromising encrypted communication services that were allegedly marketed almost exclusively to criminals. The FBI, in conjunction with Australian law enforcement, subverted and ran an encrypted messaging server for three years, intercepting millions of messages — something that led to hundreds of arrests around the world. A second investigation targeted a Canadian encrypted service provider, resulting in a number of charges being brought against its CEO.

It has happened again, as Joseph Cox reports for Motherboard. And once again, we can attempt to put FBI director Chris Wray’s pouty, anti-encryption bullshit to bed.

Dutch police have cracked another encrypted phone company, this time reading messages from, and then shutting down, “Exclu,” according to announcements from the police and Dutch prosecution service.

The news demonstrates law enforcement agencies’ continued targeting of the encrypted phone industry, part of which has served organized criminal syndicates for years. The Dutch police specifically have been behind many of these hacks and shutdowns, working on other investigations into companies such as Ennetcom and Sky.

From this seemingly impossible task springs a long list of successes — ones that will remain on the books until a court finds something fishy about eavesdropping on 3,000 users to effect 79 searches and 49 arrests. The combined forces of the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium used the knowledge gleaned from five months of eavesdropping to… make a small dent in crime. And not just the alleged criminal customers of Exclu, but the owners and executives of Exclu itself.

Whether or not these arrests will result in convictions or any perceptible decrease in crime is unknown. But what is certain is that the mere existence of encryption is not a dead end for investigators. The FBI knows this. Its upper management, however, continues to pretend otherwise. Until the FBI can be honest about the challenges posed by encryption, its opinion on the matter can’t be trusted.

Filed Under: dutch police, encryption, going dark, surveillance
Companies: exclu