Joseph Cox

And drug traffickers I've spoken to and people who sell these phones since the operation, they say it's basically impossible to build a customer base at this point because everybody suspects, well, what if the FBI is behind that phone as well?

do we want law enforcement to touch these consumer platforms at all?

It's an incredibly complicated and fraught issue, but we're even seeing it.

In Europe, they're proposing legislation to scan the content of encrypted messages for child sexual abuse imagery, and then potentially other crimes as well.

It's not even in the shadows.

The European legislators are just coming out and saying, we want to do this, so maybe it's time we pay attention to what these people are asking.

I think that's why it's so fascinating because you'll have privacy-focused people read the book and they've told me, oh my God, this is terrifying and horrifying.

They did this.

And then you'll have people who are more on the law enforcement side and they'll read it and they'll go, this is fucking awesome.

This is really cool.

And then I think a ton of people will be in the middle

and genuinely won't know what to think about it because you absolutely can see it on both sides.

And again, I've heard from people who also lean more on the privacy side.

They've actually shifted somewhat.

They're like, to be fair, as you say, this was a network primarily for criminals.

And I think that is the key thing, right?

This is not Signal.

It's not WhatsApp or it's not one of these consumer apps, but it is a warning shot of the incredible amount of resources that law enforcement may put towards fighting this problem.

And it's what happens now that I think people may want to worry about or may want to think about.

But for years, we've had to speculate or just basically make up, what would it be like if the FBI got a backdoor into a tech product?