Category Archives: The Denise Simon Experience

Have you Heard of the FBI’s Trojan Shield Program?

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New court records detail how the FBI turned encrypted phone company ‘Anom’ into a honeypot for organized crime.

Vice: For years the FBI has secretly run an encrypted communications app used by organized crime in order to surreptitiously collect its users’ messages and monitor criminals’ activity on a massive scale, according to a newly unsealed court document. In all, the elaborate operation netted more than 20 million messages from over 11,800 devices used by suspected criminals.

The news signals a major coup for law enforcement: ordinarily, agencies either shut down or crack messages on an already established service, such as Phantom Secure or Encrochat, two similar encrypted messaging networks. But in this case, the FBI took control of a communications company called ‘Anom’ in its infancy and turned that into a wide reaching honeypot, with the suspected criminal users instead coming to them.

“The FBI opened a new covert investigation, Operation Trojan Shield, which centered on exploiting Anom by inserting it into criminal networks and working with international partners, including the Australian Federal Police (“AFP”), to monitor the communications,” the unsealed court record reads, referring to Anom, the app at the center of the investigation. Seamus Hughes, a researcher at George Washington University, shared the document with Motherboard.

Do you know anything else about Anom? Were you a user? We’d love to hear from you. Using a non-work phone or computer, you can contact Joseph Cox securely on Signal on +44 20 8133 5190, Wickr on josephcox, OTR chat on [email protected], or email [email protected].

The AFP began going public with the contours of Anom Tuesday morning local time, and announced it had begun making arrests with data pulled from the honeypot.

In 2018, the FBI arrested Vincent Ramos, the CEO of Phantom Secure, which provided custom, privacy-focused devices to organized criminals. In the wake of that arrest, a confidential human source (CHS) who previously sold phones on behalf of Phantom and another firm called Sky Global, was developing their own encrypted communications product. This CHS then “offered this next generation device, named ‘Anom,’ to the FBI to use in ongoing and new investigations,” the court document reads. While criminals left Phantom, they flocked to other offerings. One of those was Anom; the FBI started what it called Operation Trojan Shield, in which it effectively operated a communications network targeted to criminals and intercepted messages running across it.

The FBI, AFP, and CHS built the Anom system in such a way that a master key silently attached itself to every message set through the app, enabling “law enforcement to decrypt and store the message as it is transmitted,” the document reads.

“A user of Anom is unaware of this capability,” it adds.

But first the FBI and their source needed to establish Anom as an option in the criminal underworld. As Motherboard showed in a years-long investigation, using sources around Phantom as well as FBI files, Phantom was particularly popular in Australia. The CHS introduced Anom to his already trusted distributors of mobile devices, who were in turn trusted by criminal organizations, the document reads. Three people in Australia who had previously distributed Phantom, “seeing a huge payday,” agreed to then sell these Anom devices, the document adds. With this, “the FBI aimed to grow the use of Anom organically through these networks,” it reads.

anom-site.png

A screenshot of the Anom site Motherboard took before Anom closed. Image: Motherboard.

Earlier on Monday before obtaining the court record, Motherboard reviewed Anom’s social media presence. The company’s Reddit account first announced the existence of the company two years ago, according to a since deleted but cached Reddit post that Motherboard found.

“Introducing Anom—a Ultra-Secure Mobile-Cell-Phone Messaging App for Android,” the announcement read. “Your Confidentiality, Assured. Software hardened against targeted surveillance and intrusion—Anom Secure. Keep Secrets Safe!”

Anom started to grow, with initially 50 devices distributed in Australia and the AFP able to monitor the phones. It was slow at first, but soon word of the new devices spread, with Anom gathering several hundred users a year later, the document continued.

A third country also got involved in the investigation, and provided the FBI with Anom user data three times a week.

“This data comprises the encrypted messages of all of the users of Anoms with a few exceptions (e.g., the messages of approximately 15 Anom users in the U.S. sent to any other Anom device are not reviewed by the FBI),” the document reads.

Anom had grown exponentially in size, stretching beyond its Australian beginnings to having over 10,000 devices in over 90 countries. Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Serbia were also popular, with over 300 distinct transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) using the devices, the document reads. When authorities closed down Sky, as Motherboard reported in March, Anom’s user base tripled.

The number of obtained messages totalled at over 20 million messages since October 2019. Messages include discussions around drug smuggling, corruption, and other high-level organized criminal activities. The document also includes direct quotes of messages from Anom users discussing cocaine shipments.

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A series of messages included in the court document. Image: Motherboard.

“There is 2kg put inside french diplomatic sealed envelopes out of Bogotta [sic],” one message reads referring to how the people are allegedly hiding shipments of cocaine.

“The Trojan Shield investigation has uncovered that Anom devices are used by TCOs to traffic drugs and launder the proceeds of those drug sales,” the document reads. “The distributors of these devices also obstruct justice by remotely wiping the content of devices when law enforcement seizes them. Additionally, the review of Anom messages has initiated numerous high-level public corruption cases in several countries. The most prominent distributors are currently being investigated by the FBI for participating in an enterprise which promotes international drug trafficking, money laundering, and obstruction of justice.”

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A screenshot of a map showing what the FBI says its Anom’s spread around the world. Image: Motherboard

Late Monday, the FBI said that it would be holding “a news conference announcing a massive worldwide takedown based on the San Diego FBI’s unprecedented investigation involving the interception of encrypted communications” on Tuesday.

The Phantom, Sky, and Encrochat operations showed that law enforcement may shutdown or even hack into encrypted phone companies. But the Anom case shows that law enforcement will also go one step further: they will run such a network themselves. A previous DEA operation involved something similar but on a much smaller scale with BlackBerry devices.

“A goal of the Trojan Shield investigation is to shake the confidence in this entire industry because the FBI is willing and able to enter this space and monitor messages,” the document reads.

US has Recovered Ransom Payment of the Colonial Pipeline Hack

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Just last month, this site posted a detailed article about the fallout of DarkSide, the hackers of the Colonial Pipeline. In short, U.S. officials seized at least two servers.

Now there is more….like the ransom payment, not all of it, but $2.3 million in real dollars, remember it was paid in cryptocurrency. (Remember, money was paid out to all the dark actors of the DarkSide)

“In addition, a couple of hours after the seizure, funds from the payment server (belonging to us and our clients) were withdrawn to an unknown account,” the DarkSide ransomware operation told its affiliates.

DarkSide: New targeted ransomware demands million dollar ...

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(AP) — The Justice Department has recovered the majority of a multimillion-dollar ransom payment to hackers after a cyberattack that caused the operator of the nation’s largest fuel pipeline to halt its operations last month, officials said Monday.

The operation to recover the cryptocurrency from the Russia-based hacker group is believed to be the first of its kind, and reflects what U.S. officials say is an increasingly aggressive approach to deal with a ransomware threat that in the last month has targeted critical industries around the world.

“By going after an entire ecosystem that fuels ransomware and digital currency, we will continue to use all of our tools and all of our resources to increase the costs and the consequences of ransomware attacks and other cyber-enabled attacks,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at a news conference announcing the operation.

Georgia-based Colonial Pipeline, which supplies roughly half the fuel consumed on the East Coast, temporarily shut down its operations on May 7 after a gang of criminal hackers known as DarkSide broke into its computer system.

Colonial officials have said they took their pipeline system offline before the attack could spread to its operating system, and decided to pay a roughly $4.4 million ransom in an effort to bring itself back online as soon as it could.

The FBI generally discourages the payment of ransom, fearing it could encourage additional hacks.

But What is NOT in Fauci’s Emails?

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That is the question(s)…

While many are calling for the resignation of Dr. Anthony Fauci, I say hold on. Why? Often, in fact most often, former government employees rarely are investigated, charged or prosecuted. I say just suspend him without pay until a full commission is launched.

There are all kinds of people reading through all the released Fauci emails and rightly so. While reading through many articles and posts relating to the emails where so appear to be smoking guns…we must consider what is not in the emails.

As Joe Biden has ordered the intelligence agencies to go through a full review and report back, a long application of strategic thinking is also in order. The reader is invited to ask their own questions in the comments section of this post.

For some context and courtesy of Bloomberg News in part:

No matter where the inquiry leads, the history of lab safety shows, at the very least, that leaks of pathogens have happened in the past — sometimes with deadly consequences. It also shows that even transparent, thorough investigations into the origins of an outbreak can end in uncertainty.

By the late 1970s, smallpox had been eradicated in nature, but work on it continued in a handful of labs around the world, including a facility in Birmingham, England, which had access to a particularly virulent strain. In the summer of 1978, a medical photographer working there named Janet Parker fell ill. When pustules spread across her upper body, a local doctor diagnosed it as a bad case of chickenpox.

It was the third leak of smallpox that decade from a British lab. The British government moved aggressively to contain the outbreak, quarantining hundreds of people and vaccinating many more. Thanks to their efforts, only one other person — Parker’s mother — developed the disease. But Parker died an excruciating, lonely death in an isolation ward — the last known victim of smallpox.

But there were other victims. At the time, the newspapers covering the episode fixated on the director of the laboratory, an expert on pox viruses named Henry Bedson. Despite an absence of evidence, the press blamed him for the outbreak. Quarantined at home and despondent, Bedson went out to his garden shed and slit his own throat; he died soon afterward.

The British government commissioned a thorough investigation into the outbreak. It turned up evidence that Bedson may not have observed sufficient safety protocols and speculated that Parker must have somehow contracted smallpox through contamination in the air ducts. Later, a lawsuit effectively refuted this explanation, leading to the unsettling possibility that Parker herself may have entered one of the work spaces without proper protection. The debate continues to this day.

When lab leaks take place in a secretive society, the difficult job of confirming the source of an outbreak gets much harder. A good case in point was the infamous anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk, an isolated city in the Soviet Union.

In 1979, rumors of anthrax killing dozens — or even thousands — began trickling out to the West. Later that year, Soviet journals confirmed some of these reports, noting that upward of a hundred people had contracted anthrax after ingesting contaminated meat; over 60 had died. A tragedy, yes, but perhaps inevitable: Anthrax was endemic in local animal populations.

Intelligence officials in the U.S. weren’t convinced. Satellite imagery showed what looked like decontamination trucks around the city, with considerable activity focused on a mysterious military facility known as Compound 19. CIA analysts hypothesized that the Soviets had mistakenly released a weaponized form of anthrax. More here.

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Remember, Dr. Fauci has the Director of the NIAID since 1984. He not only knows the history of super bugs and pandemics but he also has access to the files and documentation of global laboratories and scientists.

Can we quit saying ‘lab leaks’, which infers an accident? Perhaps ‘released’ should replace ‘leak’. Anyway, moving on.

Exactly why was the CIA not called in by Fauci or the suggestion of that in 2019 or earlier like around the time of the warning cables that were sent by U.S. Embassy officials back to the State Department in 2018?

How come Dr. Fauci’s emails did not include communication exchanges with other countries that provided big financial aid to the Wuhan Lab like France and Canada?

As the Public Health Agency of Canada refuses to release uncensored internal documents, a Conservative MP says he wants to know how far Canada’s collaboration with China on Level-4 pathogens went — and why two federal scientists were let go by the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg in January.

“We need these documents. We need to know what the Government of Canada was doing through the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg with respect to cooperating with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China,” Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said during a special parliamentary committee hearing on Canada-China relations Monday night.

The special committee has demanded to know why two federal government scientists were escorted out of Canada’s only Level 4 Lab in July 2019, just four months after one of them shipped samples of the Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China — stories first published by CBC News.

Two months after that shipment, on May 24, 2019, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) referred an “administrative matter” to RCMP that resulted in the removal of two Chinese research scientists — Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng — and several international students on July 5.

No where in the Fauci emails is the request for the medical files of ‘patient zero’ or of any Chinese scientists that fell ill or died. Why?

Did Dr. Fauci reach out to the Galveston National Laboratory which is part of the University of Texas for any pandemic details? Not so much, why?

Galveston bio lab explains connections to Wuhan | Local ...

How come Dr. Fauci only had Dr. Deborah Birx as an addition to the White House Virus Task Force and other virology experts were not called on like other world health leaders?

How about any references to expert white papers that Dr. Fauci made? He only said data…what data?

There are hundreds of questions and standing up a full commission is past due. Meanwhile, suspect the doctor and start the real interviews and subpoenas. There are likely hundreds if not thousands more across the world that know more with evidence….Dr. Fauci makes no email inquiries and the same goes for the intelligence agencies, unless they have and that is being embargoed too.

SCOTUS Unanimous Decision on Temporary Protective Status

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There have been several unanimous decisions out of the Supreme Court lately and this one is curious. The progressive Jurist Elena Kagan wrote this on regarding immigrants obtaining a green cards status….simple description….NO, they can’t have one.

Sounds good…but hold on.

And remember –> The Trump administration has ordered an end to TPS benefits for nearly all immigrants who had them, stating that the program is meant to provide temporary rather than long-term relief. But a series of lawsuits challenging the administration’s decision have blocked those orders from taking effect, giving the vast majority of these immigrants a reprieve until early 2021.

Immigrants from 10 nations have Temporary Protected Status

LATimes:

The Supreme Court on Monday dealt a setback to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have so-called temporary protected status, ruling they can’t have a green card if they entered the country illegally.

That means TPS recipients who entered the county legally as students or tourists, and stayed under TPS may obtain a green card, said Justice Elena Kagan. But the same is not true of those who entered illegally.

“Because a grant of TPS does not come with a ticket of admission,” she wrote in Sanchez vs. Mayorkas, “it does not eliminate the disqualifying effect of an unlawful entry.”

Temporary protected status has been extended to about 320,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan.

But lower courts had been divided over whether these migrants, many of whom have lived here for decades, may apply for and receive lawful permanent status. Four years ago, the 9th Circuit Court in California ruled that TPS recipients were eligible for green cards even if they entered the country illegally.

The case decided by the Supreme Court began when Jose Sanchez and his wife, Sonia Gonzalez, sought green cards. They arrived from El Salvador in the late 1990s, established lives and careers in New Jersey and had four sons. But they were not lawfully admitted.

Kagan said Congress is considering legislation that would allow such TPS recipients to obtain lawful permanent resident status, but only Congress, not the court, can change the law in this respect.

“Sanchez was not lawfully admitted, and his TPS does not alter that fact,” she wrote. “He therefore cannot become a permanent resident of this country.”

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When can the Secretary designate a country for TPS?

The Secretary can designate a country for TPS due to:

  • Ongoing armed conflict (such as civil war),
  • An environmental disaster (such as earthquake or hurricane), or an epidemic, or
  • Other extraordinary and temporary conditions.

Who is eligible for TPS?

TPS can be granted to an individual who is a national of a designated country, has filed for status during a specified registration period, and who has been continuously physically present in the U.S. since a designated date.

What are the benefits of TPS?

During a designated period, TPS holders are:

  • Not removable from the U.S. and not detainable by DHS on the basis of his or her immigration status,
  • Eligible for an employment authorization document (EAD), and
  • Eligible for travel authorization.

How many individuals are currently granted TPS?

The U.S. currently provides TPS to over 400,000 foreign nationals from the following countries, not including individuals from Venezuela and Burma as they were just recently designated:

Country Estimated Number
Venezuela 323,000 eligible
El Salvador 251,567
Honduras 80,709
Haiti 56,453
Nepal 14,575
Syria 7,010
Nicaragua 4,526
Yemen 1,465
Sudan 805
Somalia 465
South Sudan 83
Burma N/A

Where do TPS holders live?

TPS holders reside all over the United States. The largest populations of TPS holders live in California (17.95%), Florida (13.75%), Texas (12.88%), New York (12.33%), and Virginia (6.75%). Most TPS holders from El Salvador live in the Washington, DC (32,359), Los Angeles (30,415) and New York (23,168) metropolitan areas. Honduran TPS holders live mostly in the New York (8,818), Miami (7,467) and Houston (6,060) metropolitan areas. Haitian TPS holders live mainly in the Miami (16,287), New York (9,402) and Boston (4,302) metropolitan areas. source

We have no idea how many people have been granted TPS, there are only estimates as noted here.

(From uscis.gov website)

Schumer and Dark Money Called Majority Forward Investigation

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Points back again to that pesky Marc Elias –>

Majority Forward was incorporated in June by Perkins Coie lawyer Marc Elias, who represents Senate Majority PAC.

Elias, who is also general counsel for the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said Friday night he could not immediately comment.

Forward Majority | Millennial Politics

FNC: A dark money group aligned with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is facing an Internal Revenue Service complaint from a liberal watchdog group for concealing their political activity where they attempted to damper GOP election turnout for certain races in 2018.

Recently released tax records from the liberal nonprofit Majority Forward showed the dark money group gave $2.7 million to a different nonprofit, the Coalition for a Safe and Secure America (CSSA), in 2018, according to Axios.

Majority Forward is part of the Senate Majority PAC, serving as its nonprofit arm. The $2.7 million it gave made up the majority of the $4 million raised by CSSA that year.

CSSA converted that money into multiple direct-mailing campaigns and digital advertisements during the 2018 midterm cycle targeting Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Mike Braun, R-Ind.

The ads were deceptive in their nature, claiming the candidates had changed their position on central conservative tenets, and were posted to state-specific Facebook pages.

The ads led to the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to file an IRS complaint against CSSA. Majority Forward also recently admitted it left off legally required disclosures from direct-mail pieces in the 2018 midterm cycle.

“Coalition for a Safe Secure America appears to have falsely told the IRS they were not involved in politics. Dark money groups too often bypass the law in their efforts to secretly and improperly influence who is elected,” CREW president Noah Bookbinder said in a statement published last month. “We urge the IRS to open an investigation into Coalition for a Safe Secure America and take swift and appropriate action for any potential violations.”

CSSA’s ad targeting Hawley accused him of siding “with Washington liberals against gun owners.” Braun was labeled “Tax-Hike-Mike.”

Additionally, former Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., were targeted by its ads during the 2018 cycle. Heller and Rosendale both lost their races.

Heller was charged with allowing “almost 200,000 foreign workers a backdoor entry into our country.” Rosendale was accused of supporting “drone monitoring” while running for a Montana Senate seat.

Some of the ads also promoted Libertarian Party candidates to siphon votes away from the targeted Republicans.

Majority Forward was able to finance the ads while hiding its true reasons behind the ads through loopholes in campaign finance laws that allowed limited political activity from nonprofits.