Customs and Border Protection Paid $700,000 To Encrypted App Wickr (vice.com)
- Reference: 0144855114
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/21/04/09/2053256/customs-and-border-protection-paid-700000-to-encrypted-app-wickr
- Source link: https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7ammn/customs-border-protection-wickr-dhs
> U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), part of the Department of Homeland Security, [1]recently paid encrypted messaging platform Wickr over $700,000 , Motherboard has found. The news highlights the value of end-to-end encryption to law enforcement, while other federal law enforcement agencies routinely lambast the technology for what they say results in visibility on criminals' activities "going dark."
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> The contract is related to "Wickr licenses and support," dates from September 2020, and totals at $714,600, according to public procurement records. Wickr is likely most well known for its free consumer app, which lets users send encrypted messages to one another, as well as make encrypted video and audio calls. The app also offers an auto-burn feature, where messages are deleted from a users' device after a certain period of time, with the company claiming these messages "can never be uncovered," [2]according to its website . Wickr also offers various paid products to private companies and government agencies. Wickr Pro and Wickr Enterprise are marketed towards businesses; Wickr RAM is geared specifically for the military. [...] It is not clear which specific Wickr product CBP paid for.
A CBP spokesperson told Motherboard in a statement that "The Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and other laws prohibit the unauthorized use and disclosure of proprietary information from federal government contract actions. All publicly available information on this contract has been made available at the link you have provided. Any other information is considered proprietary to the awardee (WICKR) and shall not be divulged outside of the Government."
[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7ammn/customs-border-protection-wickr-dhs
[2] https://wickr.com/security/
Is this a good thing? (Score:1)
Or should we be demanding more transparency from the government?
Re: (Score:2)
I, for one, would like to see what I am paying for.
Re: (Score:1)
In that case, I think we have to vote for different people. We won't get it from the old timers
FOIA (Score:2)
Sorry, we can't respond to the FOIA requests because the comms on this case were burned messages.
Definitely not for corruption.
backdoor? (Score:2)
> It is not clear which specific Wickr product CBP paid for.
Maybe they paid for Wickr backdoor...
Do as I say, not as I do. (Score:2)
So now the stance is that encryption is fine for the government but citizens cannot be trusted with it?
Corrupt Govt Tendering 101 (Score:2)
In tendering public money, a few things must occur. There must be value for money There must be transparency - including for the auditors and GAO Contracts over X must state what product or service was being acquired - clearly - so others can bid as well There must be competitive competition, you cant write the specifications so narrowly only one possible company or person gets the contract. When setting the contract, you normally have to tick boxes to say the output/report is unclassified or restricted. Am
Is this legal? (Score:2)
So tomorrow Whatsapp,Telegram,Signal can be cracked?