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The Widely Reported ISIS Encrypted Messaging App Is Not Real
blottsie writes: Despite widespread reports to the contrary, an app created for Islamic State militants to send private encrypted messages does not exist, a week-long Daily Dot investigation found. All of the media articles on the Alrawi app showed screenshots of a different app entirely, one that is a glorified RSS reader with a totally different name. The Defense One journalist who first reported on GSG's claims about the app told the Daily Dot that he hadn't seen any version of Alrawi at all, and the subsequent reports on the app largely relied on Defense One's reporting. The Daily Dot was the first media outlet to receive, on Jan. 18, what GSG claimed was the Alrawi encryption app. The app, called "Alrawi.apk," contained no ability to send or encrypt messages. It was created using MIT's App Inventor, a plug-and-play tool meant primarily for children.
That's what they WANT you to think.
You mean AreAre dear chap. Cheerio.
and how does this help get backdoor to encryption?
But, FoxNews is telling me that ISIS has taken the whole middle east and Europe and they are marching on Russia while sending whole container ships filled with nuclear weapons and Qu'rans to the US so how could they not have an encrypted messaging app BECAUSE THEY ARE SO POWERFUL AND CLEARLY THE NEXT MAJOR SUPERPOWER??????
Please reply by messenger pigeon to my prepper bunker in the woods because the batteries are about to run out on our laptops and satcom gear down here...
When the CIA is providing you with your money, tools, and weapons.
Sending coded messages on /.
Gej03%8 gun rtf"cgd%g 3$ fhb6cf% #hk556g fjtj5 qmd6u&46:!%&'kp((
Gee false story circulating the internet. Amazing, the web is full of wannabe news people. Break the big story, get plenty of hits. Get your five minutes of fame.
People keep repeating these stories, because nobody does the verification. Then you get all the social site spread and walla viral it goes.
The Defense One journalist who first reported on GSG's claims
Claims made by German Sports Guns, GSG 9 anti-terror unit and the GSG cheramic desing. The world is what reads in the first page of Google search results. /fanatical optimism
Is ISIS real?
Since most of the sensational crap we hear about ISIS is just propaganda.
But there were weapons of mass destruction...
We need to find a way to pull in the fantasy and fantastic and
anchor the world slightly better on reality.
Tonight I wonder who the dummy is? I hear a network just
bid "Seven No Trump"/
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
With so many encryption options out there, why build your own. WebRTC in the chrome and firefox browsers require you to touch a server briefly to find the other party so to connect, and then you have a direct encrypted connection. They could easily use that or one of the many other options out there. All this talk about backdoors is a waste of time. The ship has already sailed. It is too late.
Of course it isn't real, the entire purpose of such stories are to scare us some more so as we won't object to them bringing yet more surveillance legislation.
It was created using MIT's App Inventor, a plug-and-play tool meant primarily for children.
I've always said children were little terrors and people said was "exaggerating" but now I'VE BEEN VINDICATED! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Every time we let ISIS know that their communications are not private, we lose a potential source of intel and drive them closer to actually using some proper form of communication.
/the sound of me golf clapping
What would you rather have, someone on twitter saying "Come Join ISIS" where it's easy for local/federal authorities to investigate, or something like freenet where there isn't a chance to intercept, let alone trace, the data. Don't you think that a good percent of the Pro-ISIS twitter accounts were honeypots?
aren't we all? Is it news that most western propaganda is hollow and without substance?
We've been goosed by a proper gander.
Funny thing this time is that it's propaganda about a propaganda application that doesn't exist because there's plenty of other ways to get propaganda out.
There plenty going wrong in reality without making shit like this up. It's as insane as the false report about Iraqi atrocities in a Kuwait hospital when there were far worse atrocities being committed in reality (only without handy sound bites provided by actors).
I just can't believe a company who used to be part of Anonymous (Ghost Security Group) would EVER troll anyone ever! Now their backtracking on it, and GSG blames it on the media "Clearly, other organizations were interested in breaking news about another app that may have been developed by IS to reduce the group's reliance in popular apps like Telegram, whose creators may be able to disrupt IS's exploitations of their tech". I love how they said this via a PDF who's link is embedded in a tweet. Not on their front page, or even on any pages that I can see. Talk about obfuscation. Did their new paymasters inspire this fubar? Or is this just another "we have no real leader, each member does whatever" style project operating in the same way Anonymous acts?
1. Write a messaging app with bad encryption targeted at Arabic speakers.
2. Claim to have super seekret encryption
3. Give the NSA the back doors in exchange for $$$
4. Profit
5. Sell ad space to companies pushing sex toys aimed at 72 virgins when the app is on the decline for more $$$.
I suspect a lot of this propaganda, the "BE AFRAID OF BIG SCARY ISIS" is agent provocateur stuff designed to drag UK/US into attacking. Which would make it from Assad and Israel rather than ISIS.
ISIS themselves are just a minor regional force that does the occasional shooting over here. Nothing that is a big threat to us, so it takes a lot of propaganda to drag countries into yet another pointless war. Remember "weapons of mass destruction?"
I doubt they're honeypots because I don't see how they could attract terrorists.
Why does this mean ISIS isn't using such an app? Perhaps other screenshots were inserted because they hadn't actually seen or been able to take screenshots of the app? That happens all the time in reports of actual apps, why not for an app that's probably very hard to locate. Note, too, with Enterprise developer licenses the app could be privately distributed; isn't that how it'd be done?
AIM and ICQ. No one uses that shit anymore so it's as good as encrypted to the feds.
"What the dang hill is this traffic?"
"OMG.. IT's.. ENCRYPTED."
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Organisations such as ISIS have release crypto software. This might not be one but they are real and but they do exist and have done for several years. The security services are aware of them. Mostly they seem to be re-skinned / re-branded versions of old open source systems (complete with their original licences). The major changes they have made are to the documentation.
As far as we can tell, their creation is more about user-"friendly"-ness (ha ha) and branding / PR than about crypto or OpSec. One might even suggest that they are 'creating' (such as it is) these *because* of the media hysteria around "oh my god the super-bad, scary terrorists are using ENCRYPTION". Thus they are doing this to conform to the media stereotype and thus be as bad and scary as people claim.
Want a fun afternoon? Acquire some of these (if I have to tell you how, you shouldn't be playing this game) and compare the protocol versions with older OS apps. When you've found the right version, check for security updates. Either release exploits or add support to wireshark to flag them. Be the first person to do this publicly!
What we need to do is proffer aid and anything else needed under the condition of a strictly secular government being set up in the area, pointing to the troubles they are having with sectarian violence because the government is the government of a religious sect different from a large number of the citizens.
If they set up secular governments, all sects have equal say in the laws and procedures. Neither gets what they want, but neither is subservient to the other.
If they want to split up and move people based on their sect and produce religious government, then they can do so themselves. If they don't want to do either and want to "own" land that the "wrong" religion lives on as well as their own people, then this problem is THEIR FAULT and helping either is something to keep out of, even if it's a humanitarian crisis.
Point them to the USA, even, where, though there's a huge amount of hate from christians against muslims, mostly the law is protecting the muslims from the christians, therefore more stable than, say, Syria, for both christian and muslim.
If they set up the end point as secular government in the area, then this won't flare up anywhere near as often and it won't be wasted effort.
You can't prove something doesn't exist because you didn't find it when you looked.
i.e. Aliens
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
why introduce unnecessary moving parts? oh, forgot - gotta have a pretty ui & emojis...
says the AC who knows all of this high speed stuff, but somehow needs help from others to do anything. Gotcha.
Unless ISIS suffers from it too, why wouldn't they just use existing solutions?
And ISIS is certainly already aware that were they to build a "special app" that has any kind of unique protocol the following would occur:
1) Spies would be paid off to report who's got it installed on their phones, so they can connect usage to names.
2) Every choke point the NSA controls for traffic monitoring would be programmed to recognize the protocol signature of the ISIS App communicating.
Sure they'd love to know the content of the messages going back and forth, but they develop excellent intel from building a web of who is communicating with whom as long as they have a positive starting point. That's what holding metadata is all about, whether you agree with the practice or not.
So, wait, did you just claim that MIT released a tool to create fake apps out of screenshots of other apps? Or am I reading too much into your statement?
Rumour has it that both friend and foe (daesh,anonymous,...) are mostly using ICQ (stupid), Telegram Messenger (a bit less stupid) and PkTron Chatstream (smarter) via Tor browser or vpn.
Telegram is no longer considered a strong or even safe protocol.
By the way, I think that Telegram's and PkTron's owners/administrators/sysops are the real weak links. Even better than a backdoor is an inside man...
Having said that, I guess they use pkTron for the anonymity and obfuscation. Hiding / cloaking possibly beats encryption anyway.
Ariel.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/artsbeat/2015/10/15/homeland-graffiti-racist/