Sky Global is a Canadian company, with servers in Canada and France, and most actions against groups using Sky ECC appear to have been in Europe. The CEO does not appear to be connected with the...
Sky Global is a Canadian company, with servers in Canada and France, and most actions against groups using Sky ECC appear to have been in Europe. The CEO does not appear to be connected with the US. Is the argument by the US here that, because there existed Sky Global customers in the US, that it has complete jurisdiction over everyone involved, and that people not connected to the US should be extradited and potentially imprisoned for the rest of their lives for breaking the law in a country they appear not to have been in? Or is this a indictment meant to allow seizures of some sort within the US, and coordinated action against the company's employees will take place in appropriate jurisdictions?
"just as criminals know no borders, neither does federal law enforcement."
What is that supposed to mean? Surely American laws do have borders? I feel like there's been a recent uptick in these sorts of imperialist statements by the American government recently, and it has been rather dismaying.
This is the same Sky ECC from articles earlier discussing how the encrypted messaging app was cracked by Europol which led to raids all across Europe [1]. Another article from Computer Weekly...
This is the same Sky ECC from articles earlier discussing how the encrypted messaging app was cracked by Europol which led to raids all across Europe [1]. Another article from Computer Weekly discusses the indictment of two Canadians in connection to Sky ECC [2].
It seems like the big issue here was their employees' use of Bitcoin to help people launder money. It does seem (based on the reporting here) that they were actually helping organized criminals in...
It seems like the big issue here was their employees' use of Bitcoin to help people launder money. It does seem (based on the reporting here) that they were actually helping organized criminals in a way beyond just having an encrypted chat app.
That said, I do kind of worry about this and what kind of precedent it might set. The US government doesn't like secure, encrypted communications for the masses. They've tried many times to get backdoors put into encrypted apps and OSes.
It's unclear what they actually mean by that statement. The one concrete statement the US prosecutors appear to make with regard to money laundering is that the company accepted payment in...
It seems like the big issue here was their employees' use of Bitcoin to help people launder money. It does seem (based on the reporting here) that they were actually helping organized criminals in a way beyond just having an encrypted chat app.
It's unclear what they actually mean by that statement. The one concrete statement the US prosecutors appear to make with regard to money laundering is that the company accepted payment in Bitcoin, with the ostensible goal (even if the public ledger makes that a bit foolish) of protecting customer privacy. I would not be surprised if the argument the US is making is that, simply by accepting payments in Bitcoin, since the Bitcoins may have been obtained illegally, the (actual, not fake for the purpose of laundering) purchases constituted money laundering, as it allowed the use of illegal funds. That would suggest that any company accepting payments in Bitcoin without customer information and diligence on source of funds is facilitating money laundering (this is the case for some cash transactions in the EU, but I'm not sure if it also applies to Bitcoin, and it's unclear why the US, rather than Canada, would have jurisdiction here). I have some annoying personal experiences with the US making these sorts of interesting interpretations, with the interesting interpretation that taking a scheduled flight on a commercial airline (in South America...) could constitute an illegal drug-related financial transaction.
There is also, however, the claim that Sky Global itself was evading something—either taxes or scrutiny—through shell companies around these payments. That would be another matter entirely.
Sky Global is a Canadian company, with servers in Canada and France, and most actions against groups using Sky ECC appear to have been in Europe. The CEO does not appear to be connected with the US. Is the argument by the US here that, because there existed Sky Global customers in the US, that it has complete jurisdiction over everyone involved, and that people not connected to the US should be extradited and potentially imprisoned for the rest of their lives for breaking the law in a country they appear not to have been in? Or is this a indictment meant to allow seizures of some sort within the US, and coordinated action against the company's employees will take place in appropriate jurisdictions?
What is that supposed to mean? Surely American laws do have borders? I feel like there's been a recent uptick in these sorts of imperialist statements by the American government recently, and it has been rather dismaying.
This is the same Sky ECC from articles earlier discussing how the encrypted messaging app was cracked by Europol which led to raids all across Europe [1]. Another article from Computer Weekly discusses the indictment of two Canadians in connection to Sky ECC [2].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/10/police-raids-across-europe-after-encrypted-phone-network-shut-down
[2] https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252497791/Arrest-warrants-for-Candians-behind-Sky-ECC-cryptophone-networks-used-by-organised-crime
It seems like the big issue here was their employees' use of Bitcoin to help people launder money. It does seem (based on the reporting here) that they were actually helping organized criminals in a way beyond just having an encrypted chat app.
That said, I do kind of worry about this and what kind of precedent it might set. The US government doesn't like secure, encrypted communications for the masses. They've tried many times to get backdoors put into encrypted apps and OSes.
It's unclear what they actually mean by that statement. The one concrete statement the US prosecutors appear to make with regard to money laundering is that the company accepted payment in Bitcoin, with the ostensible goal (even if the public ledger makes that a bit foolish) of protecting customer privacy. I would not be surprised if the argument the US is making is that, simply by accepting payments in Bitcoin, since the Bitcoins may have been obtained illegally, the (actual, not fake for the purpose of laundering) purchases constituted money laundering, as it allowed the use of illegal funds. That would suggest that any company accepting payments in Bitcoin without customer information and diligence on source of funds is facilitating money laundering (this is the case for some cash transactions in the EU, but I'm not sure if it also applies to Bitcoin, and it's unclear why the US, rather than Canada, would have jurisdiction here). I have some annoying personal experiences with the US making these sorts of interesting interpretations, with the interesting interpretation that taking a scheduled flight on a commercial airline (in South America...) could constitute an illegal drug-related financial transaction.
There is also, however, the claim that Sky Global itself was evading something—either taxes or scrutiny—through shell companies around these payments. That would be another matter entirely.