Dutch and French authorities have cracked another encrypted communication service that criminals allegedly used to communicate with each other. The service, named Matrix, was the successor to previously cracked services such as ANOM, Sky ECC, and EncroChat. Police were able to intercept over 2.3 million messages and were able to read along with conversations for months.
I am finding this confusing; there is another encrypted chat service named Matrix? What has been taken down is different than the federated Matrix service that is kind of like IRC/Discord and also offers encrypted communication?
I almost want to bet this is not a coincidence but rather some security-through-obscurity scheme. This thing is completely ungoogleable, the only way to buy access to it was probably through your trusty black-market sales rep. Although maybe I am wrong, as the thing was marketed under different names, so maybe they were indeed oblivious,
Dutch police said the Matrix app was targeted along with similar encrypted services known by the names Mactrix, Totalsex, X-quantum and Q-Safe.
That seems to be the case yes. There was an encrypted chat app called Matrix, and then there’s the protocol called Matrix. And in this case its about the chat app.
2.3 million messages is 2000 people sending 3 texts a day for a year. I know a friend group chats that would blow past that with a fraction of the users.
Considering one of the other ones mentioned was “ANOM” which was a LEO honeypot, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is another that was named that to try to get dumber criminals to think it was the real Matrix.
“The investigation did not spotlight the similarly-named Matrix open source communication protocol.”
Important.
I am finding this confusing; there is another encrypted chat service named Matrix? What has been taken down is different than the federated Matrix service that is kind of like IRC/Discord and also offers encrypted communication?
I almost want to bet this is not a coincidence but rather some security-through-obscurity scheme. This thing is completely ungoogleable, the only way to buy access to it was probably through your trusty black-market sales rep. Although maybe I am wrong, as the thing was marketed under different names, so maybe they were indeed oblivious,
That seems to be the case yes. There was an encrypted chat app called Matrix, and then there’s the protocol called Matrix. And in this case its about the chat app.
Whatever this service is is so small, that related articles are the only information I can find on it.
2.3 million messages is 2000 people sending 3 texts a day for a year. I know a friend group chats that would blow past that with a fraction of the users.
When you put it like that, that’s… pitiful. Two and a third of a million sounds like so much more than it actually is.
Considering one of the other ones mentioned was “ANOM” which was a LEO honeypot, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is another that was named that to try to get dumber criminals to think it was the real Matrix.