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Saturday, January 30, 2016

The ISIS encryption app that doesn't encrypt at all

Despite widespread media reports to the contrary, an app created for Islamic Statemilitants to send private encrypted messages does not exist, a Daily Dot investigation found.

On Jan. 12, Defense One reported that the Islamic State allegedly built a new Android app called Alrawi for exchanging encrypted messages, based on claims from self-proclaimed online counterterrorism outfit Ghost Security Group (GSG). The claim was quickly reprinted by Newsweek, Fortune, TechCrunch, and the Times of India—the largest English-language newspaper in the world—among many others.

However, it seems as though hype and fear, rather than concrete evidence of a genuine tool for orchestrating terrorists attacks, played the primary role in propagating word of its existence.

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