4 ms·

My guess is that the real comms already do happen outside of Twitter, and that Twitter is simply a recruitment platform/loudspeaker

by volkk 9y ago

make3 9y ago
Indeed. I would be very surprised if any real planning happened on twitter DMs. That would be unbelievably stupid, with the NSA stuff now being so well known
- module0000 9y ago
  It's a great way to plant false plans. You don't have to carry them out unless the threat was never mitigated(if it wasn't taken seriously, then you can carry it out for 2x damage: part being the attack itself, the second part being that "they knew and did nothing!").
  - supergreg 9y ago
    How would you know if they did know and chose not to do anything to avoid showing they did know?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - im3w1l 9y ago
      Well ISIS must have some form of intelligence of their own? Although I have no idea how advanced it would be.
- proofofstake 9y ago
  While not quite planning, announcements do occur. Found a large number of accounts connected to the attackers from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Culwell_Center_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Culwell_Center_attack when it was ongoing. Minutes before the attack: > #texasattack: "May Allah accept us as mujahideen." Minutes after: > Allahu Akbar!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire. Also saw Salafists retweet an old cartoon by Charlie Hebdo of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hours before the Charlie Hebdo shooting occurred. I'm divided about this issue. One the one hand, I've seen accounts that glorify the Paris attacks and link to bomb making materials, on the other hand, I've seen lots of video's from Syria and Palestine which does indeed radicalize youth, but is also not directly terrorist propaganda (a lot of this is newsworthy, but does not end up in the news, so it is valuable to share on social media). Should linking to an Anwar al-Awlaki video be grounds for a ban? Remember, these videos are on Youtube. I like to think back 10-15 years when people had to self-host their websites. Stuff that, back then, would surely get you a knock on the door, slips through daily on social networks. I say: If you can't host it yourself, you can't rely on a third party to host it for you and protect your anonymity. So yes, chase them underground, and apply more serious tracking to those that are acting more seriously (someone on Telegram writing about terrorism is way more serious than someone on Twitter writing about terrorism). Try to keep social media free of war propaganda. And be careful to not overdo it. America is a country where writing a Facebook post about Apple interspersed with quotes from Fight Club can get you SWATted [1]. [1] http://nyconvergence.com/2011/06/ny-man-uses-fight-club-quote-on-facebook-charged-with-terrorist-threat.html http://nyconvergence.com/2011/06/ny-man-uses-fight-club-quot...
katastic 9y ago
Your guess would be 100% correct. We built huge spy networks only to find out that the terrorists don't even use the internet for their plans. They use burner phones and other non-tech solutions (paper?! omgawdwtf.) because (surprise!) they're harder to track on a systematic level.
- astura 9y ago
  Before he was killed Bin Laden communicated with his inner circle only by USB drives transported by sneakernet - his bunker lacked Internet connection but his communications were electronic. I think some of his communication was re-transmitted by his couriers over the Internet though but not through locations that were physically near where he was hiding.
  - Pxtl 9y ago
    Really, he didn't have internet? I remember his final video and it was so laden with modern political jargon I'm really surprised - I kind of figured he'd spent the decade in hiding surfing political forums.
    - astura 9y ago
      His communication was two way, not just one way. It was just really slow and labor intensive. I typed my last comment going from memory. I looked it up and my memory served me well, his bunker didn't have Internet. Looks like his USB drives weren't encrypted though, rookie mistake. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/how-bin-laden-emailed-without-being-detected-1.998842 http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/how-bin-laden-emailed-without-b...
      - gertef 9y ago
        https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html """ I am careful in how I use the Internet. I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see git://git.gnu.org/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (using konqueror, which won't fetch from other sites in such a situation). I occasionally also browse unrelated sites using IceCat via Tor. Except for rare cases, I do not identify myself to them. I think that is enough to prevent my browsing from being connected with me. IceCat blocks tracking tags and most fingerprinting methods. I never pay for anything on the Web. Anything on the net that requires payment, I don't do. (I made an exception for the fees for the stallman.org domain, since that is connected with me anyway.) I also avoid paying with credit cards. """
BartSaM 9y ago
Then ghosting would make much more sense, in my opinion, to keep the data just in case some information will get shared that could lead to catching terrorists/recruiters.
- fiblye 9y ago
  Just what I was thinking. Reddit and HN shadowban people without them ever knowing. Twitter probably should too, and allow things like current location/potential plans to be farmed.
agumonkey 9y ago
It's already common practice for criminals to use encrypted chat system. You may get noobs and fresh recruits but anything serious would happen elsewhere.

My guess is that the real comms already do happen outside of Twitter, and that Twitter is simply a recruitment platform/loudspeaker

by volkk 9y ago

My guess is that the real comms already do happen outside of Twitter, and that Twitter is simply a recruitment platform/loudspeaker

make3 9y ago

Indeed. I would be very surprised if any real planning happened on twitter DMs. That would be unbelievably stupid, with the NSA stuff now being so well known

module0000 9y ago
It's a great way to plant false plans. You don't have to carry them out unless the threat was never mitigated(if it wasn't taken seriously, then you can carry it out for 2x damage: part being the attack itself, the second part being that "they knew and did nothing!").
- supergreg 9y ago
  How would you know if they did know and chose not to do anything to avoid showing they did know?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - im3w1l 9y ago
    Well ISIS must have some form of intelligence of their own? Although I have no idea how advanced it would be.
proofofstake 9y ago
While not quite planning, announcements do occur. Found a large number of accounts connected to the attackers from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Culwell_Center_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Culwell_Center_attack when it was ongoing. Minutes before the attack: > #texasattack: "May Allah accept us as mujahideen." Minutes after: > Allahu Akbar!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire. Also saw Salafists retweet an old cartoon by Charlie Hebdo of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hours before the Charlie Hebdo shooting occurred. I'm divided about this issue. One the one hand, I've seen accounts that glorify the Paris attacks and link to bomb making materials, on the other hand, I've seen lots of video's from Syria and Palestine which does indeed radicalize youth, but is also not directly terrorist propaganda (a lot of this is newsworthy, but does not end up in the news, so it is valuable to share on social media). Should linking to an Anwar al-Awlaki video be grounds for a ban? Remember, these videos are on Youtube. I like to think back 10-15 years when people had to self-host their websites. Stuff that, back then, would surely get you a knock on the door, slips through daily on social networks. I say: If you can't host it yourself, you can't rely on a third party to host it for you and protect your anonymity. So yes, chase them underground, and apply more serious tracking to those that are acting more seriously (someone on Telegram writing about terrorism is way more serious than someone on Twitter writing about terrorism). Try to keep social media free of war propaganda. And be careful to not overdo it. America is a country where writing a Facebook post about Apple interspersed with quotes from Fight Club can get you SWATted [1]. [1] http://nyconvergence.com/2011/06/ny-man-uses-fight-club-quote-on-facebook-charged-with-terrorist-threat.html http://nyconvergence.com/2011/06/ny-man-uses-fight-club-quot...

katastic 9y ago

Your guess would be 100% correct. We built huge spy networks only to find out that the terrorists don't even use the internet for their plans. They use burner phones and other non-tech solutions (paper?! omgawdwtf.) because (surprise!) they're harder to track on a systematic level.

astura 9y ago
Before he was killed Bin Laden communicated with his inner circle only by USB drives transported by sneakernet - his bunker lacked Internet connection but his communications were electronic. I think some of his communication was re-transmitted by his couriers over the Internet though but not through locations that were physically near where he was hiding.
- Pxtl 9y ago
  Really, he didn't have internet? I remember his final video and it was so laden with modern political jargon I'm really surprised - I kind of figured he'd spent the decade in hiding surfing political forums.
  - astura 9y ago
    His communication was two way, not just one way. It was just really slow and labor intensive. I typed my last comment going from memory. I looked it up and my memory served me well, his bunker didn't have Internet. Looks like his USB drives weren't encrypted though, rookie mistake. http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/how-bin-laden-emailed-without-being-detected-1.998842 http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/how-bin-laden-emailed-without-b...
    - gertef 9y ago
      https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html """ I am careful in how I use the Internet. I generally do not connect to web sites from my own machine, aside from a few sites I have some special relationship with. I usually fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program (see git://git.gnu.org/womb/hacks.git) that fetches them, much like wget, and then mails them back to me. Then I look at them using a web browser, unless it is easy to see the text in the HTML page directly. I usually try lynx first, then a graphical browser if the page needs it (using konqueror, which won't fetch from other sites in such a situation). I occasionally also browse unrelated sites using IceCat via Tor. Except for rare cases, I do not identify myself to them. I think that is enough to prevent my browsing from being connected with me. IceCat blocks tracking tags and most fingerprinting methods. I never pay for anything on the Web. Anything on the net that requires payment, I don't do. (I made an exception for the fees for the stallman.org domain, since that is connected with me anyway.) I also avoid paying with credit cards. """

BartSaM 9y ago

Then ghosting would make much more sense, in my opinion, to keep the data just in case some information will get shared that could lead to catching terrorists/recruiters.

fiblye 9y ago
Just what I was thinking. Reddit and HN shadowban people without them ever knowing. Twitter probably should too, and allow things like current location/potential plans to be farmed.

agumonkey 9y ago

It's already common practice for criminals to use encrypted chat system. You may get noobs and fresh recruits but anything serious would happen elsewhere.