Behind South Korea’s “Room N”: Is encryption security really safe?

Telegram is currently recognized as one of the most secure instant messaging tools, with strong end-to-end encryption and chat content protection, but it has also become a tool for some gray areas and even criminals.

Author: Joyce Source: Blockchain Frontier

On March 25, the South Korean police conducted a rare public parade against a criminal, who was one of the operators of South Korea's "Nth Room" "Dr. Cho". He operated a series of sex chat rooms on the instant messaging Telegram, filmed and uploaded various perverted videos, and obtained hundreds of millions of won in cryptocurrency from as many as 260,000 people.

It is reported that "Dr. Cho" was originally named Cho Ju-bin, 25 years old. From 2014 to 2018, Cho Ju-bin majored in information and communications at a university in Incheon. From October 2017 until recently, he has been volunteering at an orphanage in Incheon. He had been operating a chat room on Telegram from the end of 2018 until his arrest.

South Korean criminal suspect Cho Ju-bin (center) is surrounded by reporters as he is transferred to the prosecutor's office at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Station on March 25, 2020. Photo: AFP

In this case, as many as 74 women are known to have been killed, 16 of whom are minors, and the youngest victim is only 11 years old. More than 5 million people have signed at least three petitions on the official website of the Presidential Brothel, demanding the public disclosure of the names of Cho Ju-bin and the subscribers of his so-called "nth room" chat group.

"Thank you for ending my unstoppable life of a demon," Cho said outside Seoul's Jongno police station on Wednesday. "I apologize to those who were hurt because of me." The National Policy Bureau tracked down and arrested 124 people suspected of being involved in the Telegram porn ring.

Since both parties used cryptocurrency transactions in this incident, the South Korean police provided search warrants to several Korean cryptocurrency exchanges, including Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit and Coinone, to find those who paid to watch illegal sex videos. According to current information, these paying members include professors, popular artists, sports stars and startup CEOs.

Have encrypted communication tools become a “paradise” for criminals?

In Telegram's "Doctor Room", there are three public personal cryptocurrency wallet address accounts, one of which has a balance of 3.2 billion won (about 18.39 million yuan). In order to hide his identity and avoid searches, Zhao used Telegram and cryptocurrency as "shields" and only conducted one-on-one secret chats with members who wanted to enter the high-value chat room, and told the members his cryptocurrency wallet address.

For many people in China, Telegram may not be familiar to them. Unlike the commonly used WeChat and QQ, this social software focuses on encryption and security. The content of secret chats will not be stored on cloud servers, and users can only access these messages from the devices of both parties in the secret chat.

Telegram uses a new MTProto encryption protocol to protect user information from being hijacked and cracked during transmission. After a user initiates a one-to-one encrypted chat, they can set the validity period of each message.

Telegram provides users with a "private chat" feature, in which chat messages can only be accessed on the device that initiates the secret chat and the device that receives the secret chat, and the messages can be deleted at any time. According to Telegram, after the key has been used more than 100 times or for more than a week, the system will regularly change the encryption key and the old password will be destroyed.

Telegram's default messaging app is cloud-based and can be accessed on any device that is connected. Users can share photos, videos, audio messages, and other files, and can send messages to other users individually or to groups of up to 200,000 members.

Telegram is natively supported on mainstream platforms such as Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, and IOS, and its functions are basically the same. In March 2018, Telegram claimed that it had reached 200 million active users per month, with at least 700,000 new users joining every day, including people in the cryptocurrency circle.

Cryptocurrency is a field that is on the edge of regulation. Telegram's high privacy is relatively friendly to this type of field, which is also one of the important reasons why many exchanges and investors use Telegram.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov, a talented programmer and a strong defender of freedom. Image source: Internet

In 2018, Telegram plans to launch the blockchain project TON and sell tokens. In March, Telegram successfully raised $1.7 billion through ICO, becoming the project with the highest financing amount in history. It is reported that Laurene Powell, the widow of Steve Jobs, invested at least $5 million.

The good times did not last long. In October 2019, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requested a temporary restraining order against Telegram, prohibiting them from providing, selling, delivering or distributing GRAM to any person or entity. The TON blockchain project was forced to postpone its launch to April 30 this year.

On March 24, a federal judge in New York ruled that Telegram’s distribution of GRAM tokens violated U.S. securities laws, and held that “taking into account the Howey test, the resale of Grams into the secondary public market without a registration statement would constitute a sale of securities.” Currently, Telegram has filed a notice of appeal with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and its developers plan to launch TON without Telegram’s participation.

Is it really safe?

Telegram is currently recognized as one of the most secure instant messaging tools, with strong end-to-end encryption and chat content protection, but it has also become a tool for some gray areas and even criminals.

According to Planet Daily, a gray industry for information trafficking has emerged on Telegram, where inquirers can send keywords to specific robots to query account information related to express delivery, hotel reservations, ID cards, mobile phones, etc.

After querying, after entering the QQ number, multiple personal information such as the mobile phone number, password, real name, home address, etc. bound to the account will appear, but the key information is hidden. The inquirer can pay to query specific privacy data, 5 points each time; query the account binding to other accounts, 80 points each time; and can also block and delete the information in the system to prevent others from viewing it, 100 points each time. The robot supports BTC and ETH to purchase points, 0.358 ETH or 0.00654BTC can be exchanged for 260 points.

In addition to the criminal risks, the widespread availability of encryption technology also raises new political issues for legal access. Under the law, companies must hand over all information they possess. But if this information is encrypted and the company does not have the key, there may be no way to restore the original data.

In 2018, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) required Telegram to hand over the access to encrypted messages to the government to prevent foreign terrorists and improve national security. However, Pavel Durov insisted on not providing the encryption key, saying that this would infringe on the privacy of users. Then, in addition to exerting pressure in the form of fines, the two sides also continued to sue.

Telegram's lawyer said: Telegram cannot hand over encrypted messages because the key used for conversation information in Telegram's "Private Conversation" application changes every few minutes, and all information is not stored, so user information cannot be provided.

Finally, the Russian Federation government announced a complete blockade of Telegram.

Conclusion

A report released by digital currency research organization Chainalysis stated that crypto crime is showing a clear growth trend, such as the doubling of dark web activity. Crypto crime is still a major problem that needs to be solved in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace and chairman of the Global Anti-Cybercrime Organization, said that current crypto crimes are mainly related to fraudulent activities.

End-to-end encrypted chat software such as Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, LINE, KakaoTalk, etc. were originally created to protect people's privacy, but now they have become a weapon in the hands of criminals. In particular, "encryption software + cryptocurrency" has become a "base" for criminals.

Perhaps, what we should think about next is: how to effectively combat crime under the premise of encryption security.