I have been targeted by a malicious campaign of misinformation.
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Debunking Ford Nickelson’s Medium posts about me.
by Geoff Green, Myntex Inc. President and CEO
I started writing on Medium with one goal in mind, to help educate and bring awareness to the cybersecurity sector. My blogs will continue that path, but today I’m going to write about something that has been personally bothering me for years.
I’ve been the target of misinformation and defamatory comments by a blogger here on Medium. I tried to solve the matter behind-the-scenes, quietly. Direct emails went unanswered and legal action was ignored. So, I’ve decided, what better platform to set the record straight on than the forum that allowed someone to maliciously try to ruin my reputation in the first place.
Disclaimer:
As an advocate for privacy, the communications revealed in this document were sent through non-encrypted channels. I am sharing these from my personal emails to provide context and to substantiate my story.
A bit about me and my company
My passion for technology is matched by my fervent belief in privacy and security. I am a self-taught, full stack software developer, system architect and hands‑on manager. I’m the President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Myntex Inc., a trusted provider of encrypted solutions.
Our private data centre is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada — the home of our company headquarters. Myntex has a growing, global clientele, built on our reputation as an industry leader of reliable mobile communication solutions and open, honest policies.
Myntex is respected for our solid integrity and for the transparent way we conduct our business. My partner and I meet with, fully vet and train our Certified Executive Partners. In turn, our CEPs carefully select the distributors for our products. The recruitment and management of our authorized resellers is handled by our distribution network in more than 20 countries.
We originally planned on doing business as Mynt E-Currency Exchange Inc. Pivoting, in 2011, we launched Myntex Inc. from Canmore, Alberta, offering our customers white label solutions for Blackberry devices with PGP encryption.
with this drawing, from 2010, which hangs in the headquarters of Myntex.
Educating our customers and the public, about the need for privacy and security, is the backbone of our corporate culture. I invite you to read my other Medium posts as well as the blogs on the Myntex and ChatMail websites, which are filled with enlightening information relevant to our business.
How Myntex got involved with EncroChat
In November 2013, one of our suppliers mentioned a new product that was coming to market and we indicated we would be interested in learning more about it. The company was EsoCrypt, which later changed its name to EncroChat.
Shortly after that conversation with our supplier we got an email from Ryan, a representative at EsoCrypt. He explained the product and a little bit about their distribution model.
This was an exciting opportunity as we were thinking about creating our own Android product at the time. We were inspired by the Silent Circle phone from Philip Zimmermann — creator of PGP encryption — which launched in 2012. Since EsoCrypt already had the beginnings of a great product, we thought this was an excellent opportunity to serve our clients and grow our network.
We received our first email on November 20, 2013, from Paul Krusky — whom we understood to be the main developer and owner of the company. He sent us an overview of the EncroChat Security Model.
We had a few questions after reading their offerings and replied.
There ended up being a delay of about six months, before we were able to begin marketing the product, while the first offering of EncroChat was being enhanced.
We finally met Krusky for dinner, along with his sales and marketing associate, Kevin, when they visited Calgary on June 11, 2014. We were prepared with many questions. (I kept my notes.)
“What kind of penetration testing was done?” (None yet — we plan to.)
“What is the MSRP?” (It hasn’t been priced yet.)
“How many people have tested this product?” (40)
“How many units have you sold? (50)
“Do we install the phones, or do they come pre-installed?” (You get a preloaded Raspberry Pi.)
“Is there any possibility of a backdoor?” (No, none.)
My final question — and biggest concern — was:
“What guarantee will we have, if we get our clients to switch over to EncroChat, that they won’t be left without service if you jump off the face of the earth?” (You will have a contract.)
Our dinner ended and we left the meeting feeling excited. We were impressed by Krusky, who was a very intelligent man and was a pleasure to talk tech with. We took a couple days to think about their offerings prior to signing the agreement for Myntex to become an EncroChat reseller.
The EncroChat we knew
After signing our contract to become EncroChat resellers we got straight to work. I was personally trained by Krusky on how EncroChat worked, inside and out, utilizing the encryption protocol for Off-the-Record Messaging.
Not many people knew this, but the original product offering was based on multiple open-source projects, which at the time I believed were immensely beneficial to have the developer community contribute to the security and success of the product. The encrypted PGP email client was based on K-9 Mail and both the messaging client and operating system were based on the Guardian Project. The messaging client was based on ChatSecure (which is now defunct) for Android and the operating system from the Guardian ROM.
We were provided with EncroChat marketing materials and we added the product to our website. Shortly thereafter, we traveled to Europe and spent a month introducing the phone to our established distributors. Everyone loved EncroChat! Gradually, we transitioned our clients over from PGP BlackBerry to EncroChat.
While we were enjoying great success, we noticed Krusky had started to become distant. EncroChat features, that were promised from the beginning, weren’t being created and his replies to our emails weren’t as prompt. We assumed it was because his business was booming and he was having a hard time catching up.
In July 2016, while away at a family reunion, I received a phone call from Krusky who said the company had been sold. We were shocked as there had been no indication this was being considered. He wouldn’t tell us who the new owner was. We were, however, assured our contract as resellers would be honoured.
When we got back from our vacation, my partner called Krusky to find out more about the new owners and how we would move forward. We also wanted to know why we weren’t given an opportunity to buy EncroChat? We didn’t get any answers. When we finally did get a message from the new owner, on our EncroChat phone, no identity was revealed as to whom the owner was. Instead, we were simply told our cost had gone up. We were surprised and concerned with such a big price increase. Reaching out to our distributors, we informed them of the new ownership and pricing. Gratefully, they accepted the rate hike.
That same month, we received another message from the new owner stating Myntex was in competition with EncroChat, without providing any proof. Instantly, my EncroChat phone was wiped and our product portal was blocked. The new owner demanded we remove all our EncroChat advertising from the Myntex website within 48-hours.
The new owner emailed all our distributors, telling them Myntex was no longer a reseller and that they were not allowed to talk to us anymore if they wished to continue to sell EncroChat. The owner also said any distributor caught selling our products would be cut off.
Within the blink of an eye, we lost CAD 5.2MM in annual revenue, along with our entire distribution network. As this breached our reseller agreement, we contacted our lawyer who found the EncroChat company no longer had any presence in Canada, making our chance of winning a legal battle slim to none.
While planning the new Myntex headquarters Grand Opening, with over 200 guests expected, we were suddenly scrambling to keep our business running.
We contacted a few other encrypted communications companies we knew to inquire about their reseller programs and tested a few devices. If we found a product we liked, we would start over.
However, we just couldn’t see ourselves signing another reseller agreement. We felt we had no other choice but to create our own encrypted solution.
On November 3, 2016, we hired an exceptional software developer — our first employee — and in early 2017, with our savings, we started developing our flagship product, ChatMail, the first solution to successfully parse PGP email into chat.
The truth about EncroChat
Around the world, EncroChat phones were used for legitimate businesses purposes. Customers included: lawyers, journalists, accountants, activists, governments, executives, sports teams, and celebrities. Even royalty and political leaders were reportedly amongst the 60,000 EncroChat subscribers. Although these law-abiding citizens were using their encrypted phones to protect their privacy for all the right reasons, it was later found that hundreds of criminals in Europe’s underworld took advantage of the platform for nefarious purposes.
According to the National Crime Agency in the United Kingdom, EncroChat was being targeted since 2016, along with other encrypted platforms, in a giant European sting to crack down on criminals. In the spring of 2020, it resulted in the seizure of over £54 million in cash, 746 arrests, 77 firearms and over two tonnes of drugs … the largest bust of its kind in the UK.
Computer Weekly reported, “French and Dutch investigators obtained millions of supposedly secure messages from EncroChat phone users between April and June 2020 after being granted a court order to place a data interception device on an EncroChat server which was uploaded to tens of thousands of handsets.” 30,000 phone users, in 122 countries, were hacked through the server; based in France.
A story on Vice noted, “In the Netherlands alone, the investigation has so far led to the arrest of more than 100 suspects, the seizure of drugs (more than 8,000 kilo cocaine and 1,200 kilo crystal meth), the dismantling of 19 synthetic drugs labs, the seizure of dozens of (automatic) fire weapons, expensive watches and 25 cars, including vehicles with hidden compartments, and almost EUR 20 million in cash.”
In every life, there comes a day of reckoning
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve decided to wait 5-years to go public on this story. Part of it was a change in culture and public perception. But, mostly, it’s because I’m tired of all the misinformation being spread, especially online. If I’m going to help fight against marketing hype and false claims in the security industry, it only seems right that I address the false information directed at me and my company.
The sudden and pointed personal assault aimed at me and my associated business, through blog posts on Medium (linked to a flurry of tweets under the Twitter handle @fordnic1) by Ford Nickelson, starting and ending abruptly in 2016, should be enough to show this was targeted defamation.
In March 2016, the first Ford Nickelson Medium blog was posted. It falsely claimed I was the main owner of EncroChat and tied in a URL, which had nothing to do with EncroChat.
Further nonsense, claimed by the author, accused me of helping the NSA and FBI with a giant surveillance operation. If there was an investigation in Canada, it would have been conducted by Canadian authorities. This proves the author was fabricating the story.
As a young owner of a Canadian company, reading these ridiculous accusations, I didn’t know how to respond. I sought professional advice and was told not to comment on the blog as it would only elevate the story. Instead, I posted an article on a competing blog to divert attention. This only infuriated my antagonist, who attacked again.
In July 2016, Nickelson started to harass me by email, which he posted simultaneously on his Medium blog stream. I replied directly to him by email.
My legal team sent numerous requests to Medium asking them to retract the posts, all of which went unanswered. My partner also attempted to reach out by email. Medium replied to our request noting,
“I’m sure you are very disappointed in this. However, we do not fact-check or vet Medium posts before or after publication. As a platform, we are in no position to assess the truth of what is posted.”
A subsequent email in October 2016 (asking for the opportunity to set the record straight) sent directly to Nickelson, by my partner, also went unanswered.
I was interviewed by the Daily Beast, in 2017, about investigations into cloak-and-dagger encrypted phone companies. Certainly, if I was operating a shady company or assisting with investigations into competitors, I wouldn’t be putting myself out there to shed light on the problem with unscrupulous businesses.
When the news broke in June 2020 that EncroChat had been infiltrated, the defamatory Medium blog posts started to get attention again. No one knew who the owners of EncroChat were, so I was the target again. We even received threats! Journalists, businesses and individuals reached out asking if there was any truth to the rumour about EncroChat being owned by Myntex. (Obviously, not.)
We spent months scouring the internet and contacting media outlets to set the facts straight. But no one wanted to hear the truth. Everyone, it seemed, was just interested in clicks for their online reports. Numerous demand letters to remove the slanderous stories were sent by our lawyer to no avail.
A Medium Corporation, the owners of this website, were asked by our lawyers to take these defamatory posts down a year ago and this past February, but they ignored the demand letters. It is shameful how my brand and I continue to be the target of this fake news stemming from the Medium blog.
Considering these posts were written five years ago and all that has come to light about the true EncroChat story — I assure you — if I had any involvement in this scandal, I wouldn’t be sharing this information here.
Obviously, these allegations made against me are totally fictitious. Myntex continues to enjoy robust growth with lawful businesses and individuals as clients, who recognize data security and privacy is more important today than ever.
Everyone has the right to privacy, as do I.
