The myth of the ISIS encrypted messaging app
dailydot.com
dailydot.com
There was an article on the front page of HN recently about this "glorified RSS reader." This article actually described that functionality, and made no mention of any encrypted messaging. Despite that, it was submitted with a title that indicated it was an encrypted messaging app, and the comments were full of discussions about encrypted messaging and the eternal conflict between privacy and anti-terrorism efforts.
It really confused me. I guess this is an app that people really want to exist.
I believe the title was changed afterwards to better reflect the article's content. You can see lots of comments that think it's a chat app.
or propaganda in this case.
Really ridiculous stories taken as fact at the time and people still believe even though historians now discount.
We keep getting played.
The idea of it certainly poses an interesting dilemma, especially if you are invested in being for strong encryption and against Government surveillance. How well will those idea hold up if it ever turns out that evil terrorist armies really are using strong encryption to carry out mass murder and acts of War in the West?
"Encryption" to "math" should be the next popular browser extension.
A lot of this necessarily happens in the dark, so we may not know for sure exactly what's happening until decades after the fact. You don't exactly want to advertise to the enemy that you can or cannot intercept their communications - that would tell them how to be more effective in attacking you.
Many national governments do indeed use strong encryption to protect their communications, and the outcome of many battles, and arguably of some entire wars, has hinged on the ability to crack that encryption, or lack thereof, and the ability to keep the fact that you have done so secret from the enemy.
I suggest listening to Jacob Appelbaum's explanation of this point (and related topics).
> The idea of it certainly poses an interesting dilemma, especially if you are invested in being for strong encryption and against Government surveillance. How well will those idea hold up if it ever turns out that evil terrorist armies really are using strong encryption to carry out mass murder and acts of War in the West?
I would definitely still support encryption. People who are willing to break the law have many more possible avenues for private communication than people who are just trying to stay secure and protect themselves. Encryption is just one method of secure communication, it's just the only viable one that most people can use. And we know that some terrorists didn't use encryption (see: Paris and the terrorists communicating using the PS4 network), and the government still didn't (with all of their bullshit about needing even more surveillance) stop the attacks from happening. Not to mention that, in the past, governments didn't have such impunity to collect all information. Why are such abilities necessary now?
Basically, anti-encryption is complete FUD. It only hurts people who are just trying to protect themselves.
It's kinda nonsensical. But fortunately for the government, most people don't pay much attention.
At any rate, the propaganda/misinformation efforts are very real and ongoing.
Bin Laden explained the origin of the term in a videotaped interview with Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer Alouni in October 2001:
The name 'al-Qaeda' was established a long time ago by mere chance. The late Abu Ebeida El-Banashiri established the training camps for our mujahedeen against Russia's terrorism. We used to call the training camp al-Qaeda. The name stayed.[83]
It has been argued that two documents seized from the Sarajevo office of the Benevolence International Foundation prove that the name was not simply adopted by the mujahid movement and that a group called al-Qaeda was established in August 1988. Both of these documents contain minutes of meetings held to establish a new military group, and contain the term "al-Qaeda".[84]
Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote that the word al-Qaeda should be translated as "the database", and originally referred to the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen militants who were recruited and trained with CIA help to defeat the Russians.[85] In April 2002, the group assumed the name Qa'idat al-Jihad, which means "the base of Jihad". According to Diaa Rashwan, this was "apparently as a result of the merger of the overseas branch of Egypt's al-Jihad (Egyptian Islamist Jihad, or EIJ) group, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, with the groups Bin Laden brought under his control after his return to Afghanistan in the mid-1990s."[86]