Like Al-Qaeda, ISIS Hides Messages in Porn

LOS ANGELES—Terrorists concealing communications in porn is hardly new. Even before 9/11, national security officials were onto the use of porn by various terror groups, including al-Qaeda, which for years after the attacks in New York and Washington continued to use porn as a way to hide messages, as AVN reported on in 2012. But even in 2008, officials were also warning that "terrorists might be occupying virtual worlds, including Second Life, to meet and share ideas." Now it turns out that old terror tricks die hard. A recently updated book on the Mossad reveals that Israel's famously effective spy agency "has been decoding secret messages sent by the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda via eBay and pornographic files," breakingisraelnews.com reported earlier this month. "Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad was first released in 1999, but a new edition out this year includes two additional chapters on Israel during the Arab Spring," added the site. "In the excerpt, author Gordon Thomas discusses the importance of cyberwarfare to the Mossad. He claims Israel was responsible for the Stuxnet computer virus which wreaked havoc on Iran’s nuclear program in 2010. He explains how the Mossad’s most skilled cryptographers discovered that al-Qaeda was using a technique called steganography to encrypt messages within digital files, hiding them in items offered for sale on eBay." The use of steganography is also nothing new for the terrorists, as is the use of porn sites to hide their tracks. This writer wrote about official warnings about the use of steganography in December 2001, adding in the same article, "AVN Online spoke with several adult Webmasters regarding this matter, and while none would confirm anything specific—and no one wanted to be quoted for this story—one source said they knew of people in the industry who were working very closely with federal law enforcement agencies to track suspicious behavior on adult sites." A large billing company in the adult space also worked closely with federal officials in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 to identify the use of credit cards to access porn sites by some of the hijackers in the days leading up to the attacks. And of course, the world is well aware of the porn stash discovered by Navy Seals in the Abbottabad hideout of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Following such an active history with porn, one would think that these groups would have moved on to other means to avoid detection, and while these Islamic terrorists seem to have a soft spot for porn, Gideon’s Spies reveals that in fact they have. Not only did agents discover that al-Qaeda was using steganography to encrypt "messages in goods offered for sale on eBay," but "several other Mossad operatives spent their time tracking the Internet message board Reddit. More than once, it had led an operator to a terrorist using hexadecimal characters and prime numbers. Decoded, they sometimes indicated an attack was being planned or even about to happen." There are relatively recent developments, as well. According to the NY Post, "Mossad and MI5 are investigating how, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, both ISIS and al-Qaeda are concealing messages to their followers. Both Mossad and MI6 confirm there has been an increase in traffic." It was in part from those investigations that agents discovered that ISIS, in addition to al-Qaeda, has adopted the years-old techniques that, as one intelligence source told the Post, use “X-rated pornographic pictures which conceal documents and orders for the next target." In this deadly global cat-and-mouse game, intelligence services are reportedly ratcheting up their human and technology resources for the long haul. "MI6 and Mossad have recruited linguist specialists in Arabic, Urdu and Pashto to translate the online magazines that both al-Qaeda and ISIS are publishing with instructions," reports the Post. "When it appears an attack could take place in a certain country, Mossad sends details to that nation’s intelligence service’s cyber-command." Despite dire warnings about the use of such techniques before 9/11, the attacks went off under the nose of agencies tasked with preventing any such occurrence from happening on American soil. Now that everyone knows that al-Qaeda, ISIS and probably other terror groups continue to use the methods not only via porn but on places like eBay and reddit, let's hope that greater awareness and the use of cutting-edge tools can identify the terrorists' murderous plans before they occur. For a more detailed explanation of stenography, go here.