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Police were able to read 258,000 live messages from more than 100 criminals live.
The Public Prosecution Service and the police have been able to read live for some time thanks to conversations conducted by criminals via the Ironchat chat application. This was announced Tuesday at a press conference by the police
Police speak of a "breakthrough" because "in the Netherlands has never succeeded before" to follow in direct criminal talks. "It is therefore an important success for us in the field of digital detection," reports the police.
The criminals thought they were safe for the police and the judiciary because they supposed to communicate encrypted via cryptophones.
What is a cryptophone?
The operation began after the police had enough concrete evidence that a Lingewaard man had sold cryptophones to criminals. These phones look like normal devices, but they are specially designed to send and receive only instant messages and images.
Communication is only possible with another person with a comparable phone. The communication takes place via a unique encryption, so that a stranger can not read.
Cryptotelephones cost an average of 1,500 euros. This included a six-month subscription. The renewal of the SIM card costs 750 euros. A "panic button" was present in the plane. This allowed users to delete the content at one time.
Encrypted Communications Operation
Instant messages can be sent with end-to-end security. These messages or encrypted images can only be read by the sender and the recipient. Only those who have the right "key" to open the message.
People who do not have the right "key" and still try to read at the same time see a series of characters that they can not simply decipher. This ensures the privacy of the users.
For criminals and terrorists, encrypted communication is a welcome method for message exchange. By sending secret messages that no one can read, they try to stay out of the hands of the police and justice.
Secret services like to have access to such messages because they can contain valuable information about criminal activities. In recent years, there has been much talk of helping to open encrypted messages. Call manufacturers such as Telegram and phone manufacturers such as Apple do not want to cooperate because they can violate the privacy of users.
What is the Ironchat?
On Cryptophones used by criminals, the Ironchat chat application was installed. The server and the Ironchat website have now been disconnected by the police. Two owners were arrested.
The company Blackbox Security announced online cryptophones with the appropriate chat application. The police have now taken control of the company's website.
Ironchat reportedly used the Off-the-Record Messaging, or OTR, encryption protocol. This is for sending and receiving encrypted messages. Some examples of images of the application appeared on Tuesday in an online manual of 2015.
What exactly was cracked?
With Ironchat, encrypted messages could be sent to other criminals. The sender sent an encrypted message to a server. From this server, the message was then forwarded to the recipient.
Police found the server during a money laundering investigation. In addition, cryptophone providers have been found. The agents had the server and by this way they were able to access the communications.
The OTR encryption protocol was not cracked.
Is this operation the same as last year at Ennetcom?
last year, access to the content of 3.6 million messages, presumably that of criminals. The messages were sent via a network of the company Nijmegen Ennetcom with specially adapted BlackBerry phones.
The messages exchanged in this case were also encrypted and illegible for foreigners. The police and the prosecution received the necessary encryption keys and could still read. The PGP security standard has not been hacked either.
Last year's operation involved communication between tens of thousands of users via a network of the Dutch company Ennetcom. . Last year, the messages were deciphered only afterwards to be recognized.
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