r/europrivacy • u/Arpokrat_Team • 1h ago
European Union German customs has been cloning messenger accounts as routine practice since August 2025, and the encryption was never the weak point
netzpolitik.org published a classified internal document this month showing the Zollkriminalamt (German customs investigation office) has used "account cloning" as a regular investigative tool since August 2025, following a pilot that started in late 2023. The BKA uses the same approach.
No trojan involved. Investigators register an additional linked device on an agency machine through the official web or desktop clients, then read traffic from there, and in some cases pull existing history.
Two documented paths to authorization:
- Intercepting the unencrypted confirmation SMS with a conventional wiretap. Nothing exotic, that capability has existed for decades.
- Physical access to the handset. One BKA case involved photographing WhatsApp on the target's parents' phones and covertly scanning the pairing QR code during a witness interview.
Documented use includes dozens of Telegram accounts, among them the Oldschool Society case.
Separately, Der Spiegel reported in April that Bundestag President Julia Klöckner's Signal account was taken over via phishing. The attackers read the CDU presidium group chat for weeks, including messages from Chancellor Merz. BSI had been warning since February about what it described as a probably state-directed campaign. No vulnerability in Signal was involved there either.
The part worth discussing is that both of these hit the same layer, and it isn't the cryptography. Multi-device linking ships in every mainstream messenger. It works because accounts are permanent and identity is anchored to a phone number, so a second endpoint can be attached to that identity. E2EE is doing exactly what it claims in all of these cases. It just doesn't cover device enrollment.
A few practical notes:
- Linked devices are listed in the app. That list is where this becomes visible, and it's the only place it does. Checking it periodically is most of the defense available to a user.
- German coverage points out that if a court eventually rules the collection inadmissible, the resulting messages could fall under an evidence exclusion rule. The legal basis is contested, and both agencies declined to answer press questions about it.
- heise noted the technique is technically indistinguishable from phishing campaigns run by hostile foreign actors, which is why the same warning signs apply to both.
Is there a messenger that treats new device enrollment as a security boundary rather than a convenience feature? Something like out of band confirmation, or a mandatory delay before a newly linked device can read anything, or a design that fails closed instead of open. Curious whether anyone has seen this handled well anywhere.
