 THE FIFTH ESTATE SEASON 50 EPISODE 6 | | Cracked: Crimes Behind Encryption streaming on YouTube now | | | In January 2023, I received a call from a French journalist investigating a Vancouver company called Sky Global, which had developed a highly encrypted phone app called Sky ECC. He explained that Sky Global was big news in Europe because French police had managed to hack into Sky servers and decrypt up to one billion messages leading to thousands of arrests.
This case highlights the tension between our right to privacy versus our need to be protected from crime.
European police conducted this mass interception of messages of Sky ECC without knowing who the users were, treating everyone as potential criminals.
However, globally, many criminals were using encrypted Sky ECC phones to conduct their business seemingly under the radar of law enforcement.
But police managed to break in and watched as criminals freely sent each other text messages and pictures of piles of money, drugs, weapons, kidnappings and even assassination plots. This operation led to more than 5,000 criminal convictions in Europe.
So I partnered with my French colleagues and journalists from a dozen European media outlets. We got access to leaked files from a French judicial enquiry on Sky ECC that helped us find many ties between Sky Global’s top distributors and criminals. Sky Global says it expected distributors to follow the terms of service, preventing them from knowingly selling to criminals. You may be surprised to learn that Vancouver is considered among the world leaders for this type of encryption technology.
You’ll see an exclusive interview with the CEO of Sky Global, Jean-François Eap.
He’s accused in the U.S. and in France of supplying his phones to criminals but faces no charges in Canada. He denies that his encrypted devices were intended for criminal use.
Watch “Cracked: Crimes Behind Encryption” right now on YouTube and tonight at 9 p.m. on CBC-TV, CBC Gem and streaming on CBC News Explore.
Frédéric Zalac,
Host, "Cracked: Crimes Behind Encryption" | | |  | | | Coming Next Week
The Fifth Estate: 50 Years of Truth | | |  | | | We debuted in 1975 with a goal of holding power accountable. That remains a core tenet of our fearless and provocative journalism. As Canada’s flagship investigative documentary program turns 50, we go into the vaults and behind the scenes. | | | From the Files
Investigating the Montreal Massacre: Legacy of Pain (1999) | | |  | | | To mark The Fifth Estate’s 50th year of investigative journalism, we are opening up our archive.
Thirty-five years after the horrific massacre at Montreal’s École Polytechnique, we are bringing back a documentary hosted by Francine Pelletier who uncovered details about the gunman’s background and what drove him to target women. On Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine killed 14 women, most of whom were engineering students, before taking his own life. In the days after what was once Canada’s deadliest mass murder, Pelletier, a columnist at La Presse at the time, learned her name was on a list of notable Quebec women whom the gunman wanted to kill had he not run out of time.
Watch the documentary Investigating the Montreal Massacre: Legacy of Pain and more from the show’s files on YouTube. | | | GET IN TOUCH WITH US | | |  | | | Much of our best journalism starts with a tip from you.
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