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London Accused Drive-By Shooting Plotter Allegedly Downloaded Encryption Software

posted by martyb on Sunday January 24 2016, @05:37PM   

takyon writes:

The BBC reports that one of a group of four men arrested in 2014 and accused of plotting terror attacks is said to have downloaded "Mujahedeen Secrets," an Al Qaeda-linked encryption software package for Microsoft Windows:

One of the four men accused of plotting "drive-by" shootings downloaded software to allow jihadists to exchange secret messages, a court has heard. Suhaib Majeed, 21, had "Mujahideen Secrets" on his laptop, the jury heard. Mr Majeed, along with Nathan Cuffy, 26, Nyall Hamlett, 25, and Tarik Hassane, 22, from west London, deny conspiracy to murder and preparing terrorist acts. It is alleged they were inspired by the Islamic State group and plotted to kill a police officer, soldier or civilian.

The Old Bailey[*] heard that Mr Majeed liaised via Skype, the internet-based communication software, with someone overseas who helped him download the software, which the prosecution said was designed for Islamist terrorists to exchange encrypted messages. The contact abroad told Mr Majeed to "stay sharp" but unknown to either of them he was already under surveillance by counter-terrorism officers, the court was told.

The prosecution says Mr Majeed and fellow defendant Mr Hassane were in frequent contact about how to cover their tracks using false names and addresses and a variety of SIM cards. The jury also saw evidence they had set up a code to share new phone numbers but Mr Majeed did not fully understand it, leading to a string of abusive messages from Mr Hassane.

They also used Google Street View to identify targets, so put that next on the list of things to be banned.

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[*] The Old Bailey.

Original Submission

• A dose of Scheneier sanity (Score: 4, Insightful) by kadal on Monday January 25 2016, @03:47AM

  by kadal (4731) on Monday January 25 2016, @03:47AM (#294199)

  https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/08/the_security_of_9.html [schneier.com]

  if al Qaeda is rolling their own encryption algorithms, as Recorded Future reported in May. And it remains true if al Qaeda is using algorithms like my own Twofish and rolling their own software, as Recorded Future reported earlier this month. Everything we know about how the NSA breaks cryptography is that they attack the implementations far more successfully than the algorithms.

  My guess is that in this case they don't even bother with the encryption software; they just attack the users' computers. There's nothing that screams "hack me" more than using specially designed al Qaeda encryption software. There's probably a QUANTUMINSERT attack and FOXACID exploit already set on automatic fire.

  I don't want to get into an argument about whether al Qaeda is altering its security in response to the Snowden documents. Its members would be idiots if they did not, but it's also clear that they were designing their own cryptographic software long before Snowden. My guess is that the smart ones are using public tools like OTR and PGP and the paranoid dumb ones are using their own stuff, and that the split was the same both pre- and post-Snowden.

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