[old] The article describes many many arrests made by producing or compromising fake insecure dark web systems. I wonder if there is news on the freeing of victims of human trafficking somewhere. The below quotes relate to possible differing goals between law enforcement and encrypted web3 apps.
However, beyond arresting bad guys, the point of these operations was to make criminals feel that there is no safe platform or a method of communication for them, hopefully dissuading them from ever partaking in illicit activities in the first place. The move was a very smart one by the FBI as the organization essentially managed to break encryption without having to actually break encryption.
From now on, criminals will be forced to wonder whether an encrypted chat service <https://interestingengineering.com/11-cryptographic-methods-that-marked-history-from-the-caesar-cipher-to-enigma-code-and-beyond> is actually legit or just another FBI honeypot. And that should have all of us sleeping a little sounder at night.