How do you market an encryption platform exclusively to criminals?
Apparently through word of mouth and suggestions by undercover agents.
innocents that downloaded this as a secure messaging system
The app wasn’t made available for download. The FBI bought a few thousand Pixels, flashed a custom ROM onto them, and then installed the messaging apps. In theory they cost thousands of dollars to buy.
It’s entirely possible some innocents used the system, but it’s unclear how selling rooted hardware to alleged criminals would induce them to commit crime.