Anom

The FBI ran its own encrypted phone app and let criminals trust it for 18 months

After arresting the Phantom Secure founder, the FBI launched its own encrypted app, Anom, on ~12,000 phones, let it spread by referral through criminal networks for 18 months while reading every message, then took everyone down at once.

“So they created this app called Anon, like Anonymous, and they put it on 12,000 phones and they let it be out there for 18 months for criminals to use and start to trust and refer other criminals onto it. And the whole time every message is going to the FBI's secure servers, but they just waited.”