“Security researchers announced Friday that they have found new evidence to bolster claims from the National Security Agency that terrorists have altered their countermeasures in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations,” David Kravets reports for Ars Technica.
“‘Al-Fajr, one of Al-Qaeda’s media arms, released a new Android encryption application [in] early June 2014 on their website, referring to how it follows the ‘latest technological advancements’ and provides ‘4096 bit public key’ encryption,'” intelligence firm Recorded Future said in a Friday report,” Kravets reports. “The report added that Global Islamic Media Front, another arm of Al Qaeda, just released a ‘new version’ of Android crypto software.”
Kravets reports, “‘Interestingly, between these two new product releases this continues the bet on mobile and Android as the preferred platform for these groups,’ the report said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Android users poorer, shorter, unhealthier, less educated, far less charitable – and, now, much more likely to be terrorists – than Apple iPhone users.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Alden” for the heads up.]
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This is non-news and effectively just click-bait based on sad emotional argumentation.
If android didn’t exist, these same groups would use windows phone, or no-name smartPhone platforms.
It simply means that they use burner phones (logical) yet are too stupid to recognize that iPhone has encryption built-in.
Again, consider the demographic – sheepherders that go *boom*.
I agree this is non-news, non-Apple-related, and click-bait. MDN, you’re better than this.
Have you read MDN before?
No, it means it is far easier for them to install unapproved apps on Android than on iOS.
Wow, the arms of Al-Qaeda (Al-Fajr, Global Islamic Media Front, Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham) and the United Hates (NSA) using Android phones for terrorism.
At least it’s a level playing field, oh no wait, that gives a massive disadvantage the United Hates of Amurderca. Oh well as long as they fight amongst each other the free world is safe.
If these groups are using android then it’s gonna be pretty easy to spot a terrorist.
Just look out for iPhones and you’ll know who the people are who aren’t terrorists.
Technically it speaks to the openness of Android. Not the lack of security. The reason different branches of the armed services prefer Android is their ability to modify things. So I would argue it is definitely news, and definitely Apple related.
It says the iPhone is probably the most secure device for the average user, however people interested in guaranteed security cannot trust what they have no control over. I.e. while I’m not worried about malware, I personally have no ability to respond if I find the NSA has found some exploit in my phone. I have to wait for Apple.
No it doesn’t speak of the openness of android.
It’s says android is such a crap half baked IOS ripoff that even terrorists can hack and use it.
No. T-Mac is right. It speaks directly of the openness of Android. A 4096-bit key encryption is essentially unbreakable for the foreseeable future. It’s well beyond the NIST (actually NSA specified) requirement for securing ‘top secret’ level documents. Since Android source code is available, an encryption implementation can be traced and trusted. On an iPhone, it’s extremely difficult to disassemble all the system calls made by the encryption routine to ensure no backdoors exist. To assume all terrorists are stupid is the hubris of the ignorant.
Cool spies use iPhones and have their drinks stirred, not shaken.
Besides those groups they mention many governments have their own NSA style programs and use the weaknesses in any platform to discredit or frame opponents, even murder them if necessary . So the word terrorist should include those governments too.
Oh my Allah!
My work phone makes me a terrorrizer?
Death to Apple!!!!
Most of the remote IED detonation apps are google play store only. You can’t get them anywhere else
And google likes that, because wen an android phone bomb goes off they can add the dead peoples identities to their Skynet over mind and push them to the top of the list for identity assimilation into their robots of death.
That’s because the app “70 Virgins Finder” couldn’t get approved on the iOS app store.
Using android? Well, the NSA loves that. The Android security flaw that allows them to download the private key which was simply stored in Shared Preferences will enable them to decrypt everything they terrorists try to encrypt. Or, the key information which was saved in an IPC Parcelable object was intercepted by a service virus that the NSA has installed when the terrorist went to a specially crafted web site that installed the app without his knowledge. (Because he left the option to install third party apps enabled). Dumb
Why don’t they just use iMessage? Even the FBI can’t crack that.
http://www.cnet.com/news/apples-imessage-encryption-trips-up-feds-surveillance/
Samsung has been terrorizing all along anyways..