ISIS Help Desk Assists In Covering Tracks (cnn.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The ISIS terror group appears to have 5 to 6 members offering 24-hour support on how to encrypt communications, hide personal details and use apps like Twitter while avoiding surveillance. It's kind of like a 'help desk,' though not an actual call center hiding in the hills. It is a group of IT specialists answering questions from locations spread out all over the world, according to Aaron Brantly at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. It has been find out that the advice is largely being relayed on an ISIS channel on Telegram, a messaging app that has become popular among members of the group because it allows for special secret chats. The jihadi help desk has lengthy training manuals, and Brantly has reviewed over 300 pages of training documents and roughly 25 YouTube videos that provide tips to evade intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

Comments

Encryption is a weapon

[mi]

Libertines and Libertarians fighting the notion of "encryption is a weapon" are wrong. It certainly is a weapon — and their fight should be targeting attempts to take (all) weapons away from citizens instead. There is no meaningful difference between an "assault rifle" and strong encryption — both have ample legitimate purposes and both can be used to perpetrate heinous acts.

We all may want to study ISIS videos to learn both the actual techniques as well as how to better find and kill these assholes.

The trouble is they're right

[rsilvergun]

If we're going to have a world where the conversations of private citizens cannot be eavesdropped on then it's a natural by product that criminals and terrorists will also benefit from this. You can't have one without the other. If we knew the terrorists from the legit citizens we could block them from using encryption, but if we knew that we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we?

What I've found is that it's mostly right wing folks who want these laws. In America the solution is to point out that encryption control and gun control are basically the same thing. They don't like gun control, so it shuts them up. I'm largely indifferent either way. I'm more concerned about economic issues like H1-B and guest worker programs and the high cost of my child's education.