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ISIS Supporters Abandon U.S. Encryption Tools As Apple-FBI Fight Rages
blottsie writes: Islamic State militants and supporters are promoting strong encryption tools from outside the United States that the American government cannot touch with legislation. In the last month, Islamic State supporters have promoted security software from Finland, Romania, America, France, the Czech Republic, Canada, Panama, Germany, Switzerland, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and other nations, a Daily Dot review found. The international availability of encryption technology, of which Islamic State militants are well aware, underscores FBI Director James Comey's long-held desire to build an international legal regime to deal with the problems posed by encryption, what he calls "going dark."
Especially if the terrorists are posting geo-tagged selfies from a bunker on Twitter.
Israel's bombing of an iraq nuclear reactor basically started the weaponized nuclear program in iraq: http://972mag.com/the-myth-of-...
Same goes for politicans demanding to ban encryption because terrorists could use it. The paris terrorists didn't use encryption. But ISIS now will make sure they will use encryption from now on.
The international availability of encryption technology, of which Islamic State militants are well aware, underscores FBI Director James Comey's long-held desire to build an international legal regime to deal with the problems posed by encryption, what he calls "going dark."
Almost all of the data the FBI is interested in was already supposed to be inaccessible to them. So maybe encryption should be called, "going legit".
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
FBI must be desperate, trying to lump people who believe in security with terrorists...
Sometimes I wish slashdot permitted embedded images, cause things like this just beg to for a nice big Nelson HA HA.
The current one is shaking his fist at a storm. Why can't we hire someone who has some common sense about technology?
You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, encryption is here to stay--and there's nothing you can do about it.
Islamic State supporters have promoted security software from Finland, Romania, America, France, the Czech Republic, Canada, Panama, Germany, Switzerland, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and other nations, a Daily Dot review found.
For the people that love (falsely) claiming that they came up w/ the number system and zero, it's fascinating that they have to promote encryption software from the above countries - ALL non-Muslim - to protect their jihad-plotting communications from being broken into. Can't they get encryption software from Islamic paradises, like Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Emirates, Iran, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, et al? Or (gasp), even roll their own in their labs in Raqqa, Mosul, Sirte...
If you outlaw good cryptography, then only outlaws will have good cryptography
Speak for yourself.
The insertion of the America in the list is the result of a successful operation by an American information warfare unit. Mission accomplished and ISIS sales guaranteed!
the entire premise seems doubtful. we are feed disinformation. wmd comes to mind.
That's exactly what America needs to worry about. If our government is only going to be able to spy on us but not our adversary, then it makes sense that they'll be shooting their missiles at us instead of our adversaries. We'll have no defense, unlike ISIS. We The People need to keep up with ISIS and make sure that we are at least as hard to spy on, as they are.
So I think that means we need to get our computers and software from overseas. And if that means US economy shifts from tech jobs to McDonalds jobs, then I guess we are getting the policies that we wanted back when we decided to vote for Democrats and Republicans, instead of serious real-life politicians.
It always comes back to the same thing: we met the enemy, and it was us. America is America's biggest problem.
Not to mention that they included "America" in the list. Despite America being the name of a continent (or up to 3, depending on the criteria, or lack thereof) there is only one nation that commonly goes by the name "America".
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
Before the big commotion between the FBI and Apple, they (the FBI) at least had a chance of breaking into a phone (made by Apple) that was used by an ISIS member (by the help of Apple, through legal means). Now the FBI has essentially shot themselves in the foot. Their demands have basically been a loud horn warning ISIS to stay away from the very technology (phones by American companies) that they could actually get access to... 'cause... well, good luck getting foreign companies to make backdoors for you.
ROT13 is still uncracked by the US government and will forever stay safe to use.
Even the worlds best encryption experts can not break ROT13.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Thank God! Anonymous Coward is the worst member of this site... always stirring up trouble! I'll be glad to see him go!
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Oh, thats right, those terrible people (the TERORISTS) that want to kill all of us for no reason. Hold on, maybe there is a reason after all. Maybe they are fed up of US,UK bombs dropping on their heads over the last decades.
Heres a thought... a logical one I think... instead of trying to monitor all communications and create a great deal of internet collateral damage, we just STOP FUCKING BOMBING OTHER COUNTRIES!!!!!!! then maybe we won't need to watch our backs all the fucking time. We'll also regain the ability to talk without 10 stooges listening and judging us at every turn.
Its funny isn't it. The very thing the west does to stop """"""TERORISM""""""" is exactly the thing that causes it. to them we are the terrorists!! And we have done are far worse to them then they have managed to do to us.
Fuck I hate idiot governments. but more so the people that are indiferent to bombing other countries.
The only entity ISIS doesn't want to destroy is itself, and that is debatable.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
the US is a country spending nearly 1.4 trillion dollars per year on defense. It dwarfs the spending of the next 7 largest countries combined. Americans endured this sort of breakneck spending for 50 years under the guise that, once communism fell, we would embrace a newfound wave of peace in the west.
instead we've invented boogeymen by hook and by crook. We invented ISIS by the iraq war. We invented the iraq war by weapons of mass destruction. we invented the war on terror by 9/11. we invented 9/11 by founding and training al-quaeda. we invented al-quaeda by funding an training the mujahadeen. we invented the war in afghanistan by proxy through our desire to defeat russias communism. we invented communism as a threat through the implicit desire of our oligarchy and capital class to disarm any real objection to capitalism by any means necessary.
now we're faced with a guerilla enemy, as we were when we created most of our proxy wars in central and south america...but the rules have changed. our "wars" before were innocuous as they werent winnable or loseable, only profitable. we would fight until public opinion turned, then broker a peace deal and leave. Sometimes with oil contracts, other times with infrastructure contracts. Now with the advent of a perfect shield by which our newly created enemy can conceal their intent, we are all but on a level playing field. an actor needs no longer obtain advanced weapons or tactics to defeat us, they merely need to plan extensively.
the solution is to step back from the carter doctrine of foreign policy, and deprecate our dependency on defense economy.
Good people go to bed earlier.
just saying
How about if they start posting selfies with geotags spoofed with the location of the nearest MSF hospital? Or just go there, post a few pics saying you've moved to a new hideaway, then run like hell.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I don't think the US intelligence or law enforcement community is going to win this one. They may try, but there's too many ways around this.
Unfortunately, it won't prevent them from trying, which could be a problem, but its going to go the way of the RSA "weaponized" encryption.
Ultimately, when faced with perfect or even really, really good encryption, your only real choice is to change tactics. It doesn't matter how good their encryption is, if you have a spy on the other end or you're able to survail the message after it was decrypted. We need more and better human intelligence, and we need people thinking out of the box. No law or regulation is going to stop criminals from using something that is outlawed, especially if those items are freely and legally available anywhere else.
How about if they start posting selfies with geotags spoofed with the location of the nearest MSF hospital?
Analysts will double check the location to verify that the target is legit before sending off a drone. After all the blown up wedding parties in Afghanistan, the military is trying to avoid those mistakes.
FBI must be desperate, trying to lump people who believe in security with terrorists...
Not desperate. Just self interested and politically savvy. Accusing someone you oppose politically of being soft on or aligned with crime/terrorism is one of the oldest plays in politics. It's how we end up with absurd things like mandatory minimum and three strikes laws that do nothing to prevent crime. It's how we end up with a prison camp in Cuba, extraordinary rendition, torture, etc and the government doing nothing about it. Speak out against those things and you just feed ammo to your political enemies.
The FBI wants their job to be as easy as possible. They'll pay lip service to observing the constitution but at the end of the day they'll take making their job easier over your civil rights every time.
Its not just a loud warning horn to our enemies... It's a loud warning to all foreign companies, that data stored in the US, or protected by companies based in the US, may be intentionally weakened by our government someday in the future. It's an undisputed fact that many US based 3 letter agencies are actively seeking to break, route around, and weaken every encryption model they can, whether publicly, or secretly. This is absolutely driving away foreign business, and is going to hurt US business interests immensely in the long run, since foreign IT people can come to the same obvious conclusions on whether using broken encryption is a good idea for their business.
but they still happen.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Analysts will double check the location to verify that the target is legit before sending off a drone.
That's a good one...their check will be, "Are they brown and in the Middle East? Then we're good to go."
After all the blown up wedding parties in Afghanistan, the military is trying to avoid those mistakes.
They're only trying to avoid the publicity.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
They did. Used it, too, until Snowden announced to the world that NSA had broken it.
Best Slashdot Co
And they are doing such a swell job, too! /sarc
So they are promoting some particular encryption tools but to whom and for what purpose? It doesn't make sense to endorse these particular encryption tools for high security purposes. Actual terrorists would want to add on extra encryption from a third party and not rely on any built-in encryption from any service or software. What does make sense is for ISIS supporters to promote these particular tools to the general public for two reasons. First, the more widespread strong encryption becomes, the less likely any particular message will be flagged as suspicious simply because it is encrypted. In other words, it helps to make the really sensitive data look less conspicuous. Second, this helps to counter the possibility that potential recruits will be detected as someone who could be radicalized before ISIS even has a chance to try and recruit them. In other words, it counters the thought police approach to anti-terrorism.
Then we should definitely outlaw government snooping on people. Then they'll only snoop on bad people, which ... well, isn't that bad.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fortunately /. consists more of comments than articles and, and this is a rare thing these days, there is no comment removal going on.
In other words, any kind of propaganda posted here WILL backfire. Badly. Like this one.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not Geography, Achmet - just rattled off a list of Muslim countries from the top of my head, most of which have enough people supportive of ISIS
Sure, you can argue that the government insisting on crippling United States industry will only make United States corporations go dark and that unbreakable encryption is certainly a capability of industry outside the United States. But you are foolish if you do. That would simply allow the government to continue to pretend this is about ISIS. Clearly it isn't, it is about the government's war against its own citizens.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
'aldousd666' is modded as 'funny' when he should be modded as 'insightful'; we see in TFA exactly what I and others have predicted, well in advance, fortunately, of it actually affecting anyone: You ruin encryption for everyone, then the Bad Guys will just get their own, non-ruined encryption, and you're back where you started from.
o Making speeding against the law doesn't stop people from speeding.
o Making pickpocketing illegal doesn't stop people from pickpocketing.
o It being against the law to drink under the legal drinking age doesn't stop underage drinking.
o Requiring technology companies to have a 'backdoor' in their encryption won't stop criminals from using non-compromised encryption.
How much more clear does this have to be for anyone to understand it?
Memo to FBI, NSA, and other overeager, overreaching, anal-retentive, power-hungry types: You're being stupid, and your stupidity will be everyone's undoing. Or do you want to give up now and admit to the World that the so-called, self-styled 'islamic state' is smarter than you are?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
They can probably try adding that to a hadith, or a Reliance of the Traveller, or something from one of their zillion seminaries worldwide
They have Malaysia, which loves coming up w/ 'Islamic innovations' like the Proton car. So maybe they could have gotten the Malays to design and fab a chip that they could then use? Instead of relying on Infidel built chips?
Encryption has been a hot topic since 1776 when Paul Revere used his lantern to pass a coded message to his fellow terrorists from a church tower. we can all decrypt this message now, likely because we are descendants of those terrorists that the message was meant for "One if by land. Two if by sea"
were we criminals? well, history is written by the victor...
Canamerica?
No, it's juts short for "United States of America", and chosen to not be ambiguous with "United States of Mexico".
The continents are "North America" or "South America" (or collectively The Americas). As far as I'm aware the only other Americas would be the family of the cartographer.
US acronym agencies like the CIA, NSA, FBI, IRS, etc. have had things their own way for far too long. It's made them lazy, incompetent and stupid.
Remember the Secret Service yahoos who were too busy screwing Colombian whores to do their job? They're the tip of the iceberg. Now the FBI and the rest of the lazy bastards want back doors into every phone and computer on the planet because they refuse to do the hard, slow, dangerous work of infiltrating groups like ISIS, or turning existing members into willing and unwilling spies. They imagine they can snap their fingers and corporations like Apple will just roll over. And they imagine there won't be another hero like Phil Zimmermann around the next corner.
Even worse, they believe they actually can control the whole world, and the real innovators won't simply set up beyond the reach of the US. There is a huge demand for genuinely secure computing that has nothing to do with terrorism, and everything to do with getting out from under the thumb of corrupt, evil governments in all the major multi-national trading blocs.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Finding an encryption scheme that isn't already backdoor'd by the CIA.
AFAIK the US/CIA has corrupt deals with all the known for-profit crypto suppliers.
http://mediafilter.org/caq/cry...
https://www.schneier.com/blog/...
Wait! Don't go!
We're sorry. We can change I swear, just give us another chance!
Please?!?
Please stay. If not for us, do it for the children.
No, the Islamic State can only get good encryption technology from Israel.
Quit it with your American exceptionalism, it is wrong headed and false, America categorically is referred in a different manner by the various countries and cultures stuck with sharing that land mass with citizens of the United States of America. That is a fact, quit with the bullshit of the United States of America and it's definitions of anything being the only one there is, go away with your childish spelling and stop with any kind of claims to intellectual dominance, you numb nuts can not even manage switching to metric, lead heads (not an insult a fact, not your fault, the fault of various corrupt players and their greed, dumbing down you nation by poisoning it, mind bogglingly still to this day and still not one arrest.)
Of course if they were actually serious about terrorists, instead of just using it to implement the police state in a rich versus poor class war, they would fucking quit it with giving those terrorists a political identity to enable recruitment, this being perversely enough purposefully done by the military industrial complex to drive more fear and sell more war. They would simply call them crime gangs, with gang bosses, the crime gang would have no identity beyond being labelled as the crime gang of a particular crime boss and the various subordinate controllers. Members would not be political activist, they would simply pliable and gullible violent rapist minions, slaves to the greed of the gang bosses, nothing more than egoistic crime cults.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
translated: We're desperately afraid of ordinary people communicating privately and organizing politically, therefore we've decided to tarnish everyone we don't approve of with the terrorism moniker.
That's true. The Arabs just transported knowledge from India & China to the Byzantine Empire, via the Silk Road. Also, a lot of the knowledge that they tout, such as al Khwarezmi (after whom the term 'Algebra' originated), was done at the cusp of the conversion of Iran from Zoroastrianism to Islam: al Khwarezmi was born Zoroastrian, and probably converted to Islam sometime in his life to avoid being bullied by the Samanids, who converted Iran to Islam. The only thing the 'scholars' of Islam came up w/ were the stupid compilations of the traditions of Mohammed - the hadiths, the tafseers and other junk that they invented. I didn't claim above that the Muslims invented 0, just that they claim to!!!
But they will never abandon U.S. Dollars
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Quite the rant. A little bit of it is actually accurate. But doesn't change the fact that the continent is not called "America" and that citizens of the USA are called "Americans".
America redirects to "United States". Feel free to read the article, too, if you like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Here is "North America": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... And as a bonus, "South America": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And also from the Wikipedia intro: "A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. [...]These are (from largest in size to smallest): Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia"
I understand the end of the comment perfectly in such a light. America is America's biggest problem — Read it several possible ways:
The USA is most of Spanish-speaking countries biggest problem (because it creates a drug market and requires it to be stomped over at its production/transit places; because it imposes puppet, nondemocratic governments; because it distorts local economies; a very long etc.)
The countries in our continent are the USA's biggest problem (because of migration, lets empower Trump to fight those illegals; because of cheap hand labor, the wages are kept artificially low; because of a very long etc.)
Polysemy rules!
We were teached differently where I live. In the school, the textbooks listed Central America as a continent on its own. We also were thought different divisions of the greater land masses: Old World, New World, The Newest Wold and the Cold Continent. The Americas could be considered a single continent: America. By the way, the distinction between the continents is somewhat arbitrary: why is Europe a continent of its own and not a part of Eurasia? Or why is Europe a continent, while India is a subcontinent?
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
There is a continent called 'America': https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
The concept of a continent is slightly arbitrary, but they are just large, mostly separate land masses.... so there are 6 of them (or 7 if you consider Greenland to be big enough, which few people do). I have never seen ANY reference to Central America being a continent... it is not large and certainly not separate, disconnected, or a distinct physical area. North and South America are, independently, very large, and highly disconnected.
Europe is not a continent, neither is Asia. It is one land mass with no disconnect or border at all, and trying to pretend they are separate continents is purely a political/fantasy. The name for it is Eurasia. India is not a continent- but you could consider it a sub-continent because it is on a different techtonic plate. North America and South America are on different plates. Interestingly, although Central America is NOT a continent, it *is* on a separate plate (just like the Arabian area of the Eurasian Continent is on a separate plate).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You realise that this can be read outside the US where we aren't susceptible to US flavored fearmongering?
"Today's privacy violation will be brought to you by the phrase 'because ISIS.'"
Requiem for the American Dream
Agreed; by deliberately:
* not being American or Israeli
* having an objection to American Imperialism
* being far enough away from the US and different enough (they don't wear baseball caps ffs - obviousy terrorists!) that they make good enemies-of-the-US for propaganda purposes
* then having the indecency to have children they have clearly brought this on themselves
Requiem for the American Dream
The backwards, religious nutjob-laden "islamic state" IS smarter than the FBI, NSA, etc.
Not to mention the "islamic state" is actually willing to get off its ass and do its own work...
Problem is, that tactic doesn't really work much anymore.
Like hell it doesn't. That tactic is why we have things like the Patriot Act. It's why we ended up in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's why we have this absurd and wasteful War on Drugs and the largest prison population in the world. (Hint, if our prison population is larger than China's then we are doing something wrong)
Sorry but accusations of being soft on crime are extremely effective as a political tactic. The public demonstrably falls for them each and every time and there is no evidence to the contrary.
If you outlaw good cryptography, then only outlaws will have good cryptography
Hmmm ... The usual version says "... only outlaws will have secrets". But both versions work.
(Actually, both are wrong; they should say "... only outlaws and governments will have ...". ;-)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Not on any map I have ever seen in my life. Combining the two continents of North America and South America would be just about as ridiculous and illogical as combining Africa and Eurasia.
Not everything in this world follows logic. Too many maps will show Europe and Asia as two continents. By the way, if the maps you've seen come from the US, not identifying America as a single continent is not just for the sake of logic, it's didactics; there, the country is consistently called America after all!
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
I must have not taken enough attention when or the textbooks I had did not make it clear that they treated the three Americas as subcontinents that form America. It reads so in the Portuguese language Wikipedia article on Central America: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/América_Central.
Linux is for people who don't mind RTFM.
You immediately repeat the exact same american exceptionlism, my view was derived from an excellent article that actually spoke to various academic from the various countries that form the 'Americas' you of course point to en.wikipedia again and again, so yeah Spanish and Portuguese are also languages from the 'Americas' as are many original nation languages. Let's be blunt history emphatically proves you wrong, because members of the original nation refereed to the land mass in their own way for tens of thousands of years (by far the majority of human occupation of that region) and racist white protestant they are not foreigners in their own land. You are just selectively using you definition as dominant because it is yours and ignoring everyone else's especially those who held their views for tens of thousands of years. So theirs don't count because you killed enough of them so that they don't count?
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
en.wikipedia is not usa.wikipedia, it is just English- the main language of many countries.
You are waaaaay over the top.
I don't think that word thinks what you think it means.
Oh, were you being sarcastic?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Oh, were you being sarcastic?
Not based on the story I read about.
Air Force General Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, explains how the mission was made possible. âoeThe guys that were working down out of Hurlburt, they're combing through social media and they see some moron standing at this command. And in some social media, open forum, bragging about the command and control capabilities for Daesh, ISIL. And these guys go: 'We got an in.' So they do some work, long story short, about 22 hours later through that very building, three [Joint Direct Attack Munitions] take that entire building out.â
http://www.techlicious.com/blog/isis-terrorist-selfie-bombing/
I'm making the presumption that the analysts spent some time searching for the specific location and not trying to find some misplaced bombs.
The efficiency of the US military's checking of information is well reported. http://www.doctorswithoutborde...
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"