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The State Secret That Never Was

  • Writer: Justus Reisinger
    Justus Reisinger
  • 19 hours ago
  • 2 min read

After years of litigating in criminal trials all over Europe, investigators have found out how the French ‘gendarmerie’ was able to hack EncroChat.


1.         First, they used a (worldwide) known vulnerability in Android systems to be able to ‘open the doors’ of EncroChat-devices.

 

2.         Second, Frida was downloaded, open source software, to run inside the phones and to be able to check on, interrupt or even change any action.


It is difficult to understand that this truth only comes out after thorough investigation of a Czech company, an investigation that costed a lot of time and money, followed up by a further analysis of Duncan Campbell and Bill Goodwin. Even more so, the past years, prosecutors throughout Europe have been telling judges (and lawyers) that they could not give any more information on the hacking of EncroChat because that was done by the French ‘gendarmerie’, while making use of one or more military State secrecies…

Now, in the year of 2026, it turns out that at least for the way of getting in the EncroChat-devices and getting the data out of those phones in the way described before – by using a commonly known vulnerability and open source software – there is in so far no military State secrecy, nor has it ever been possible!

Therefore, it now also turns out that refusing criminal defence lawyers all over Europe the possibility to test and challenge the lawfulness as well as the reliability of the EncroChat-data, is highly unjustly, at least as far as this refusal is based upon the stated French military State secrecy. But maybe it goes even further, as the ‘mutual trust’ appears to go at the expense of not only fair trial rights, but also of the truth and credibility of the international legal system?


Currently the lack alleged lack of (procedural) judicial control of obtaining data like the one in EncroChat is part of debate in several cases at the European Court of Human Rights (https://www.joint-defense-team.com/post/skyecc-ecthr-norway-silgir-germany-anom-encrochat-fair-trial)




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