[mcphilip]

Interestingly enough, stenography was already being decried pre 9/11 as a tool used by terrorists [1]:

>"Uncrackable encryption is allowing terrorists — Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaida and others — to communicate about their criminal intentions without fear of outside intrusion," FBI Director Louis Freeh said last March during closed-door testimony on terrorism before a Senate panel. "They're thwarting the efforts of law enforcement to detect, prevent and investigate illegal activities."

So law enforcement is fine with encryption so long as it's crackable...

[1]http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-02-05-binladen...

[dmix]

The consensus in the infosec community seems to be that most (real) Islamic terrorists haven't been using email or cellphones since ~2003. So any mass-surveillance/SIGINT sales pitch about catching terrorists is mostly bullshit. If they do catch anyone, they are likely not the type of people who could have accomplished anything. It seems to be much more useful for catching other nation-state intelligence spies at work or catching aloof criminals.

[jorgem]

Interesting... source?

[dmix]

Here is one interesting discussion:

https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/399352954060144640

The author has cited terrorists training manuals elsewhere on his blog, that are apparently available publicly online, dated from as early as 2003 with security guidelines to not use email or talk on cellphones.

TLDR: The adversary can easily stop using email/cellphones to discuss plans. Do they still use email/cellphones for other reasons? Sure most likely, as was shown in Zero Dark Thirty, but not in any meaningful way that can be usefully gleaned from a mass-surveillance approach. Therefore the large investment and privacy trade-offs to the greater society isn't worth it.

[nodata]

What do they use? Trusted couriers?

[dmix]

"Terrorists use web forums and couriers."

From same source as previous comment: https://twitter.com/thegrugq/status/407662098093580288

[jorgem]

Silly... seems like forums would be easier to snoop than phone calls.

[ma2rten]

I was thinking the same. Maybe they don't really use forums to plan and coordinate plots, but only to recruit and spread propaganda.

[simbolit]

i am also interested in what they use?

[bramcohen]

There was a CIA contractor who outright defrauded them claiming that he had tools which were detecting steganographic messages used by terrorists on the internet. He didn't get prosecuted because they were too embarrassed to admit that they'd been completely bamboozled.

[phil_2-0]

> "Uncrackable encryption is allowing terrorists — Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaida and others — to communicate about their criminal intentions without fear of outside intrusion,

You succeeded to put 3 different ethnic groups - I should say 2, the last one being an US product - in the same bag and doing then, a misleading association, fucking idiot!

[DigitalJack]

It was a quote.

[dinkumthinkum]

:( Are you one of those people that doesn't like to call things what they are? I have noticed many problems in life are due to people know wanting to call things what they are.

[onetwofiveten]

Are you one of those people who thinks he knows an obvious truth that everyone else ignores for some reason?

[dinkumthinkum]

No.