How the FBI built its own smartphone company to hack the criminal underworld

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Today, I’m talking with Joseph Cox, one of the best cybersecurity reporters around and a co-founder of the new media site 404 Media. Joseph has a new book coming out in June called Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever, and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s basically a caper, but with the FBI running a phone network. For real.

Joseph walks us through the fascinating world of underground criminal phone networks, and how secure messaging, a tech product beloved by drug traffickers, evolved from the days of BlackBerry Messenger to Signal. Along the way, the FBI got involved with its very own startup, ANOM, as part of one of the most effective trojan horse operations in the history of cybersecurity. Joseph’s book is a great read, but it also touches on a lot of things we talk about a lot here on Decoder. So this conversation was a fun one.

Links:

• Dark Wire by Joseph Cox | Hachette Book Group
• How Vice became ‘a fucking clown show’ | The Verge
• Cyber Official Speaks Out, Reveals Mobile Network Attacks in US | 404 Media
• Revealed: The Country that Secretly Wiretapped the World for the FBI | 404 Media
• How Secure Phones for Criminals Are Sold on Instagram | Motherboard
• A Peek Inside the Phone Company Secretly Used in an FBI Honeypot | Motherboard
• The FBI secretly launched an encrypted messaging system for criminals | The Verge
• Canadian police have had master key to BlackBerry's encryption since 2010 | The Verge

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices