PhantomSecure's $80M Revenue
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A story about how the FBI took down a secure messaging app used by criminals and then created their own version to catch more criminals.
"There was this app called PhantomSecure that was marketed as an app where you don't want anybody to see what you're writing. Criminals thought 'that's interesting' since they'd rather use that than Gmail where records can be subpoenaed.
PhantomSecure at its peak had 20,000 users and made $80 million. Users would pay $4,000 each - for comparison, WhatsApp makes $2 per user. What you got wasn't just an app - you got a phone that was wiped clean of all other apps, with only this secure messaging app that would self-destruct under certain conditions like if you're arrested or someone messes up the password 3 times. It was a burner device designed for criminal communications. You could only get into the app through referral.
After they arrested the CTO, the FBI had an idea - two detectives were out to lunch and thought 'why don't we create another PhantomSecure, but we own the back channel?' They created an app called Anon, put it on 12,000 phones, and let it operate for 18 months. They let it spread like a virus throughout criminal organizations, with every message going to FBI's secure servers. Then they just took everybody down."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.