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

ISIS help desk prompts

[JoeyRox]

I have to break out my ISIS helpdesk post again:

Welcome to the Daesh hotline. Please listen carefully to the following message as our options have changed.
Press 1 for information on how to encrypt messages sent to members of your terrorist cell
Press 2 if you're a suicidal bomber and are having trouble detonating your device
Press 3 if you're an oppressed female who would like to sign up for our next Perl Programming Bootmap
Press 4 for tips on how to write terror and/or hate messages in 140 characters or less
Press 5 to voice your displeasure with systemd
Or Press 0 to speak with a member of the Bush family for further assistance

Re:ISIS help desk prompts

[PopeRatzo]

Welcome to the Daesh hotline.

"My name is Brad. First, let me say I'm sorry that you're having trouble with our service today. To whom am I speaking?"

Re:ISIS fighters can get paid up to 700 USD/month

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys are running a solid business.

The overwhelming majority of their revenue is acquired through theft.

I'd hardly call that a "solid business."

Wall Street would beg to differ!

ITCrowd

[esperto]

ISIS member: "hello, my bomb vest won't explode, what do I do?"
ISIS Hotline: "have you tried to turn it off and on again?"
ISIS member: "no, wait----" BOOOOM
ISIS Hotline: "God dammit, everytime..."

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.