The phones were stripped of all functions other than the calculator that was a front for the messaging system.
The operation came into being after the FBI took down a Canadian-based encryption service called Phantom Secure. Phantom Secure was marketing its services to criminal elements, offering secure communications through the encrypted cellphones that the company provided to syndicates. When the company was dismantled in 2018, the FBI sought to fill the void in the black market for secure criminal communications.
The app went into operation in October 2018 when the informant offered encrypted phones to three distributors in Australia. “Anom devices were cellphones that had been stripped of all normal functions,” the New York Times. “Their only working app was disguised as the calculator function: After entering a code, users could send messages and photos with end-to-end encryption.
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