What's the best phone to do crimes on? (classic)
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What is the story behind the AN0M phone?
Hey, everybody. It is the holiday season, which is a great time to sign yourself or a loved one up for incognito mode. That's the premium version of our show. No reruns, no ads, bonus interviews, and invitations to our board meetings, which happen live on the internet. In fact, today, if you were listening to this before noon Eastern, we have our end-of-year board meeting where we will discuss the secret inner workings of our show and This time we'll be talking about what it's like to shop a podcast in the current environment, which is what we've been up to recently. So please sign up. We depend on your contributions to keep our strange enterprise afloat. You can join at searchengine.show. We also have gift subscriptions.
And this week, here on the free feed, we are rebroadcasting one of our very favorite episodes, a criminal caper that contains some serious twists. We love this one. We're really happy to play it for you again. After some ads, here's the show. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by MUBI, the global film company that champions great cinema. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs, there's always something new to discover. And because every film on MUBI is hand-selected, you can trust that you're exploring the very best of cinema. One film I am excited about is The Mastermind, which is now streaming on MUBI in the US. The Mastermind is the latest triumph from celebrated director Kelly Reichardt.
Josh O'Connor delivers an unforgettable performance as J.B. Mooney, an unemployed man and amateur art thief in a quiet Massachusetts suburb in the 1970s. He's gearing up for his very first heist, convinced he's got the perfect plan. Though as we've seen with the Louvre heist in the news, even the perfect plan doesn't always go how you expect. And you can watch it all on MUBI, the curated streaming service that brings together great films handpicked from around the globe. It's cinema that stays with you. Try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash search engine. That's MUBI.com slash search engine for a whole month of great cinema for free.
Whatever you do for work, if you do it long enough, you'll probably experience a moment where a new piece of technology shows up and overnight just changes your job, even in my field. When I started out in radio before the podcast boom, the big semi-recent invention everyone was still talking about was just editing audio on computers. The veterans who I learned from loved to talk about how just a few years before, interviews were still being recorded onto actual physical tape. And they'd tell me how they used to edit that tape by cutting it with a razor blade and sticky taping it back together. It had all been so different, so much less efficient, so recently. They were still marveling at it. For me, a few years later, the equivalent change was auto-transcriptions.
The weeks of my life spent typing up transcripts of other people's interviews or my own, just gone. And now I was the one telling the young producers about how it used to be. Every industry has these moments. Although technological change, as we know, is not always that good. Somebody recently told me one of these stories where a small tech breakthrough opened the door to innovations in the fields of professional violence and corruption.
How did Phantom Secure influence the criminal phone market?
Hey, Joseph, how are you doing over there? All good, all good. A little bit of a sore throat from talking constantly. I'm going to get so sick of my voice.
You're going to get book tour fever. This is Joseph Cox. He just published a book called Dark Wire. Joseph's a tech reporter, but he's not one of the normal ones. His work won't tell you how many more camera lenses to expect on the next iPhone. He does not dissect the latest outrageous tweet from Elon Musk. His interests lie elsewhere. And what's your relationship with the criminal underworld?
Kind of close, actually, weirdly. I've carved a niche in my journalism career by speaking to criminals, essentially. And that could be drug traffickers. It could be cyber criminals, hackers especially.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the story behind the AN0M phone?
0:00–3:49
2
How did Phantom Secure influence the criminal phone market?
3:49–6:35
3
What features made AN0M appealing to criminals?
6:35–10:00
4
Who was Hakan Ayik and what was his role with AN0M?
10:00–13:48
5
How did the FBI infiltrate the AN0M network?
13:48–17:05
6
What was the impact of Operation Trojan Shield on crime?
17:05–20:39
7
What ethical dilemmas arise from government surveillance of criminals?
20:39–24:03
8
What is the future of encrypted communication for criminals?
24:03–1:00:08