Dutch police have seized and copied the servers of an encrypted communications network behind modified phones they’ve found while investigating drug cases, criminal motorcycle gangs, and gangland killings, prosecutors said on Friday.
On Tuesday, 19 April, Dutch police also arrested the network’s owner, 36-year-old Danny Manupassa, on suspicion of money laundering and illegal weapons possession.
Prosecutors said in a statement that they believe the network, Ennetcom, is the “largest encrypted network used by organized crime in the Netherlands.”
All Ennetcom’s users, about 19,000 of them, were sent a message on Tuesday informing them that police had copied the servers. Most of the servers are in Canada, while most of Ennetcom’s users are in the Netherlands.
Ennetcom’s service, sold over a number of years, was based around customized PGP BlackBerries that were cloaked from the phone or internet networks.
From the Dutch police’s statement:
The company sold modified telephones for about 1,500 euros each and used its own servers for the encrypted data traffic. The phones had been modified so that they could not be used to make calls or use the internet.
PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy, a program for encrypting and authenticating data that’s often used to encrypt email.
According to the Dutch Police’s news release, the message sent to network users on Tuesday explained that the investigation focuses on individuals suspected of serious crime.
Earlier this year, we reported that Dutch and Canadian police have had success in “obtaining encrypted data from BlackBerry PGP devices”, so it will be interesting to see how far investigators get in this case, where they have both the phones and the servers through which they communicated.
Using encrypted communications is legal in the Netherlands. But spokesman Wim de Bruin, of the national prosecutor’s office, told Reuters that police think that many of the network’s users have engaged in serious crimes.
Ennetcom posted a statement on its website saying that it had been forced to “suspend all operations and services for the time being.”
More from Ennetcom’s statement:
There has been an international collaboration of various government agencies and Interpol in attempt to put our network down. Previously there have been attempts to put us down, amongst them the Dutch intelligence service, but they never succeeded (see Wikileaks).
Ennetcom regrets this course of events and insinuations towards Ennetcom. It should be clear that Ennetcom stands for freedom of privacy!
Because of security and privacy reasons Ennetcom chooses to keep all systems offline.
Image of Dutch Police courtesy of JPstock / Shutterstock.com
GS
“Dutch police have seized and copied the servers of an encrypted communications network behind modified phones they’ve found while investigating drug cases, criminal motorcycle gangs, and gangland killings, prosecutors said on Friday.”
This is just crap. The only reason they seized the network was because they couldn’t decipher the encryptions used. Most criminals will and do use iPhones not BBs.
This is just more PRISM Bull$***.
Paul Ducklin
This network happened to be based on BlackBerry devices. There were only 19,000 users of this service in total, so clearly very many more people (crooks and non-crooks alike) have iPhones than have one of these boutique phones. I’m not sure how that fact makes the story “crap.”
Identity Not Public
I think he meant the rationale was ‘crap’, not Lisa’s article.
Anything they (insert your government or state actor of choice) can’t read at will will likely end up being regularly targeted. I’m not sure how much stock I put in the ‘Criminals are using it!!!’ defense for such actions, lacking some salient facts such as ‘ten ongoing investigations into auto theft rings involve Ennetcom devices used by the defendants’ with links and names which are verifiable.
We’ve seen demands to compromise iPhones from varied Alphabet Soup agencies in multiple districts here in the US, and I’m sure more FISA court skulduggery which we’re blissfully ignorant is going on is also happening behind the scenes. Too many people seem to support a massive surveillance state where any Federal, State, or Local authority can demand access to anything you have, with (or often without) cursory oversight which we’re never even allowed to know is happening.
Stuff that ‘If you have nothing to hide’ nonsense defending this sort of abuse – I’m not running an auto theft ring (hey, if you think I am, feel free to get a warrant, sift through all my boring personal stuff, and then apologize afterwards), but the idea any goon with the desire who happens to work for such an empowered entity can sift through all my emails, texts, location data, etc. at will is deeply offensive to my Libertarian views.
We have Accountability reports of just such malfeasance (years after the fact) where people are digging for dirt on ex-spouses, significant others, neighbors, etc. It’s Unamerican and ought NOT happen in a free society.
And frankly, I think this sort of thing is even more pervasive in Europe, though it used to be the rubric of oppressive police states like Iran or China where they feel the need to ‘control’ (aka ‘oppress’) thought.
Paul Ducklin
OK, I see what you mean. The claim of the Dutch police that a disproportionate number of these boutique phones were found in use by organised crooks (in other words, that the market use was skewed towards criminals) ought to be easy enough to test. Of course, where “disproportionate” starts is another matter. (Is Tor bad because a majority of users, or at least a sizeable minority, are up to no good?)
Laurence Marks
Duck wrote “(Is Tor bad because a majority of users, or at least a sizeable minority, are up to no good?)”
Or is Tor redeemed in spite of the majority because a small minority are dissidents or residents of oppressive states?
David L
I think that is a little unfair to Tor users in general. Did Whatsapp turn a sizeable minority of their users into criminals when they enabled end to end encryption, or what about all those banks using encryption, and website’s, and email, etc.? The bad guys will always find ways to try and conceal their dirty deeds, but when your own government turns into the bad guy, well, that’s OK then right? And while I’m at it, what about those libraries in the US who are using Tor? Suppose grandma is up to no good again!