> preloaded on mobile phones you'd only buy for criminal acts

Is this a thing? A specific type of prepaid phone or maybe a “laundered” sim card?

Every article about this has gone into at least a cursory explanation that these weren't even really phones per se. They were basically hardware devices used to access AN0M. This had the double effect of 1) making the criminals feel like it was more secure because it wasn't "public" and 2) making it easier for the governments involved to make the software do whatever they needed it to do.

Basically, you'd buy them by the dozen, app preinstalled, sim and data probably optional.

But globally it was much more. We are talking about in total 800 arrests with 155 of these in Sweden.

they also paid a subscription fee :-P

and it was invite only...

This is brilliant on two counts:

1. There is a well known adage that goes something like, 'if the service is free, you're the product.' One could easily think the inverse is true ('if you're paying for the product, you're the customer') but obviously in the light of this case it isn't necessarily so. But making users pay for the service likely decreased their level of suspicion.

2. Need to tie a pseudonym to real person? A credit card number, bank account, or even a bitcoin public key get you a long way toward that goal.

I like privacy as well, but i can't help but be amused by this whole situation.

I need to go find a copy of the adverts and spec for this product.. i'd love to know how they got around lying to their customers.

IIRC they explicitly used the slogan "Developed by criminals for criminals" or something like that in marketing the device - which has the nice side effect of providing some justification to issue a warrant for all users, that there is some probable cause for reading all data, not just some specific people.

So truth in advertising. Too bad the criminals on other side worked for government...

Or is it? I mean, it sounded like an app specifically marketed and used for serious organised crime, so as someone who is pro-encryption, pro-privacy, this seems like entirely reasonable police work.

I notice whenever police are brought up some people just desperately want to blame them for something.