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1. Smugglers Blues (2024 Edition)
   Great modern day true crime read. Makes one wonder about the future of privacy and criminal human behavior.The largest sting operation barely made a dent into transnational crime.

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2. Really interesting but a bit hard to follow
   I bought this book after reading an online review stating it read like a novel. It’s all true, which makes the content utterly fascinating and mind boggling BUT it’s a bit hard to follow if you put the book down and return to it later. I almost need a glossary of main character names and position/timing in this story. A good read with some rough sentences that could have been helped by a stronger copyeditor, but all in all a really interesting read and very strongly researched and annotated.

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3. Quite the story- well told!
   Dark WireJoseph CoxI admit, I am a sucker for true-crime stories, especially one where the good guys win. Dark War was a hit with me. It was a fun read about a topic I enjoy.=== The Good Stuff ===* I don’t like to spoil a book for any potential reader, but suffice it to say it is a story that, if it were fiction, would be accused of being unrealistic. It tracks an FBI sting operation that become bigger and more successful that anyone would have ever imagined.* Joseph Cox does a great job in telling the story. The book is easy to read, full of just the right amount of detail and avoids getting caught up in trivia or details that do not advance the story. Rather that trying to relate everything that happens, the author pick and stays with a few threads throughout the book.* It is tough to tell from the draft version I was reading, but everything seems well referenced.* Cox captures a few dimension of the story. You can see the difficulties, both legal and technical, that a US law enforcement agency faces in setting up an operation of this type. There is a feel of a “tech startup” as the sting grows, and finally a sense of the accomplishment and pride the members of the team felt in conning some of the world’s more cunning criminals.=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===* You can almost feel the author struggling with how much detail to include and edit out. I would have been interested in more technical detail, but I am sure other readers would have wanted more details on the international legal and law enforcement aspects. It is simply too complex a story to please every possible reader-without writing a 900 page doorstop.== Summary ===I enjoyed the book, both the topic and the way it was told. Cox captures just enough of the personal and technical sides of the story, without getting bogged down in trivia and needless detail. I would have liked the book to be another 100 pages or so, but understand that sometimes less is more.I’d definitely recommend this book to fans of true-crime and law enforcement, and it would almost stand-alone as a business book on technical startups!Disclaimer: I read an advance copy of the book provided by the publisher. My opinions are my own.

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4. What An Unbelievable True Story
   This book is one of the few books I have read that lived up to the hype on the cover page. While I usually read police procedurals, this book covers actual crime and law enforcement agencies worldwide who work to break up drug smuggling and money laundering activities by attacking their critical infrastructure, i.e., their secure communications.The first chapter provides the story of an ex-USC football player, Owen Hanson. As he got into performance-enhancing drugs at USC in around 2004, he started to deal with them as well, with a list of clients that included professional athletes. Before long, Hanson moved on to selling recreational narcotics like cocaine and ecstasy. After the 2008 financial crisis, he was at the helm of his illegal gambling enterprise. This case was chosen because it introduces the use of an encrypted phone service to shield criminal activities from the authorities. The phones were modified Blackberries, with the camera, microphone, and GPS removed. These phones only had texting available.Subsequent chapters provide the details of numerous encrypted phone networks worldwide and their expansion of use globally. The measure of the effectiveness of encrypted phone use increases the probability of even larger shipments of illegal drugs. These aspects of the novel were eye-opening for me. I’ve seen news about how drug traffic was increasing but not how encrypted phone use facilitated this growth.Then, the unbelievable occurs. A person fundamental to developing a successful encryption phone wanted to do something different. Before, all phones were based on modifying commercially available cell phones. He designed one from the ground up, providing text, voice, and camera capabilities. To help, he asked the FBI for funding in exchange for allowing the FBI to provide a module that would send all transmissions to the FBI. The question is, can the FBI spend money on developing an encryption phone for criminals? What the FBI could and couldn’t do and why were interesting. What foreign law enforcement agencies could join with the FBI at the start and when the sting progressed were also interesting.The rest of the book was quite detailed on the operations of the drug dealers and smugglers as it was based on their texts, conversations, and videos. See how law enforcement affects criminal operations and how the criminals adapt. I found it fascinating how steadfast the criminals were to these new encryption phones. This part of the book was the most interesting for me.The remaining chapters provided the events of the international sting on which the critical infrastructure the drug dealers and smugglers relied was turned against them. These are the chapters that I enjoyed reading the most. If you want to read about a very successful international sting and insight into how drug dealers and smugglers work, this is a book to read. I recommend reading this book. I rate it with five stars.The last chapter covers the announcement by the FBI and the mass arrests that followed. The authors report that two significant criminals were not arrested. The events in this book end around September 2023. I used the Internet to discover if their status had changed. I found that both were arrested in October 2003. I could not find any extradition or prosecution against them.I received this novel’s free prepublication e-book version through NetGalley from Public Affairs. My review is based solely on my own reading experience of this book. Thank you, Public Affairs, for the opportunity to read and review this novel early.

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5. Very Interesting
   Detailed chronology of the use of technology to foil criminals. Also a sad testimony to the limitations imposed on prosecutors and law enforcement by bureaucracy and excessive focus on the “rights” of criminals. The detail is fascinating.

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6. Fascinating story told by a great storyteller
   If any part of this book sounds the least bit interesting, definitely take the dive. Such a wild story. The work put into this book is incredibly evident. Much respect and highly recommended.

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7. Surprisingly Dull
   Strange how little interesting stuff there is in this book. It just grinds along the timeline. Weird to feel so meh about such a big worldwide operation. It is intelligible.

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8. A world you never knew existef
   Dark Wire is a fast-paced read into the dark world where drugs, law enforcement and technology collide. It’s a world you never see, but should definitely think about.

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9. An excellent book written in a very readable style that kept you wondering what was going to happen next.The FBI sting was audacious and brilliantly carried out.However, apart from the true life story of the sting and the people who ran it and the criminals brought down by it, it raises some very serious questions about the ethics of law enforcement agencies spying on citizens. If criminals now migrate to publicly available encrypted platforms, e.g. Signal, what happens to the messages of “civilians” if such a platform is targeted by law enforcement agencies.It is also worrying that despite the operation being very successful it barely made a dent in the activities of the major players in the illegal drug industry.I thoroughly recommend this book.

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10. An amazing written story on how underground dark world of drug lords works. A cat and mouse between law enforcement agencies and criminal world.

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11. Joseph Cox was one of the journalists whose work I followed on Vice News. He specialises in information security related journalism and turns out the kind of features that would have been a cover story on Wired magazine back in the day. With the implosion of Vice Media, he now writes for his own publication: 404 Media. Dark Wire follows the story of four encrypted messaging platforms, with the main focus being on Anon. Anon is a digital cuckoo’s egg. An encrypted messaging service designed for criminals, ran as an arms length front company for the FBI. Cox tells the complex story in a taunt in-depth account that brings it all to life. But the story isn’t all happy endings and it does question the threats posed to services like Signal and WhatsApp if law enforcement see criminals moving there.

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12. I understand that sources must be protected but some claims seemed overblown or unexplained. After all, the author admits at the end that the whole exercise had no impact on the availability and volume of drugs. And there is a complete absence of references to UK or GCHQ which have well established intelligence relationships with USA, Canada, Europe and Australia. A better researched more detailed book surely awaits.

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