About a month in the past, it was revealed that an encrypted telephone firm was truly a entrance for a gargantuan FBI operation known as “Trojan Shield.” The firm, which was actually a regulation enforcement honeypot, offered a product known as “ANOM,” an encrypted chat software put in on particular, hardened telephones that the bureau was secretly distributing to trace and monitor organized crime teams.

Criminals thought they had been getting a safe, impenetrable communication platform however, in actuality, their networks had been owned by the FBI and different regulation enforcement companies—the units having been designed by the bureau in collaboration with a high-level legal informant who had beforehand offered such hardened, encrypted units to underworld networks.

Now it’s being reported by Motherboard that these telephones are weirdly being resold on the secondary market, popping up on Craigslist-like boards and on-line retailers.

Online boards dedicated to Android merchandise have been abuzz with speak about how these telephones, stripped of their unique powers, now appear to be circulating as low-cost, used merchandise on on-line retailer websites.

“I bought this phone online, for ridiculously low price, now I understand why,” one second-hand purchaser advised Motherboard. “Probably this phone was used by some drug dealer :D,” they added.

“This is a phone the used with that FBI ANON [sic] application to read the message with the users,” one other discussion board person helpfully wrote, in a poorly worded PSA.

For probably the most half, the telephones don’t appear to work anymore and plenty of of them have largely been wiped of their creepy options. It’s additionally unclear who’s promoting these units, although one may assume they’re being peddled by former customers making an attempt to evade the warmth—or a minimum of simply get a few of their a refund.

Motherboard truly managed to get ahold of one of many telephones, procuring it from one of many individuals who had purchased it second-hand. Thus, the outlet has revealed some actually attention-grabbing particulars in regards to the machine and, suffice it to say, it’s fairly bizarre.

Upon first look, the telephone appears regular: A person inputs a PIN to log in, taking them to what appears like a reasonably regular residence display screen. But the machine comes outfitted with what are, basically, decoy apps—stuff like Netflix, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tinder—that, should you click on on them, don’t truly work. Instead, to get a functioning interface, a person has to reset the telephone and kind in a distinct PIN. Doing this resets the house display screen, leaving solely a clock and calculator app and the machine’s settings. If the calculator app is clicked on, it delivers a brand new login display screen, prompting the person to enter an “Anom ID” and a password. From there, the telephone’s actual function—to behave as an encrypted, clandestine communication channel—is ostensibly opened.

The telephone additionally apparently gives “a shortcut for what appears to be a wipe feature on the phone, with an icon showing a piece of paper going through a shredder,” Motherboard studies, in reference to an obvious knowledge wiping characteristic.

So, yeah, pretty cloak-and-dagger stuff. Anyway, should you see an affordable, bizarre telephone on the market on some obscure internet discussion board that matches this description, most likely finest to steer clear. You’re both being offered a ineffective, former honeypot machine or perhaps stumbling into the subsequent federal sting operation, each of which sound like dangerous occasions throughout.