The Islamic State has discovered blockchain.
The technology that powers cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum promises to revolutionize almost all facets of society, from payment processing to online voting.
Now ISIS is actively testing a blockchain-based messaging app that could provide everything it needs to thrive: secure, anonymous communication, a tamper-proof repository for beheading videos and other ISIS propaganda, and perhaps most ominously, the ability to transfer cryptocurrency anywhere in the world.
The app in question, BCM, is among a number of trials ISIS is conducting on niche messaging platforms such as TamTam, RocketChat, Riot, and Hoop, but the anonymous and encrypted nature of BCM makes it ideally suited to a group looking to avoid detection by law enforcement.
“The app’s core features of anonymity, encryption, and large group-chat sizes also pose a great risk for adoption,” Brenna Smith, a researcher specializing in investigating disinformation and the illicit use of cryptocurrencies, wrote in her Cryptosint newsletter this week. “Extremists covet technologies that can get their message out to thousands all while concealing their identity.”
Until recently, Telegram was that platform, offering terrorists high visibility while requiring very few identifying characteristics. But at the end of November, an international law enforcement operation led by the European Union dismantled the huge network of accounts and channels ISIS had established on Telegram.
Initially, it looked like the little known Russian messaging app TamTam was going to provide refuge for ISIS’ online activities. While it still maintains a presence on this platform, the administrators have acted aggressively to block many of the accounts.
‘Because Communication Matters’
BCM — which stands for Because Communication Matters — is pitched as “a highly secure communication platform” where “each message is strictly encrypted, and no third party can decipher the content.”
The company did not comment on the presence of ISIS channels on its platform or whether it would be removing them.
But some experts remain skeptical about the claims made by the app’s developers in relation to cryptography and security.
The company’s background is also a bit of a mystery. CEO Lanny Yuan, the lead author of the white paper detailing the technology that underpins the app’s features, is based in Guangzhou, China, but the company has been incorporated in the British Virgin Islands — known for its lax financial regulations.
A spokesperson for BCM told VICE News that the company’s aim is to provide “ a secure channel of communication and to safeguard the freedom of digital communication for our users. It said it would abide by laws and regulations of local governments but “under no circumstances will we compromise to any requests to provide decryption and back doors to content monitoring.”
ISIS supporters began testing the app last week, according to experts who track the terror group’s activities online. So far it remains an experiment but one that could grow into something much more dangerous.
“Could it be lethal, and better than anything previously? Yes, that’s possible,” Raphael Gluck, co-founder of Jihadoscope, a company that monitors online activity by Islamist extremists, told VICE News.
“I think we’ll see more of those as conventional social media (Facebook) also tries to get in on the cryptocurrency rush,” Gluck said. “I would say if someone has an app where communication is fully encrypted and crypto payments are an option and it works as well as it says, then that’s a danger.”
Cover: In this photo illustration, the Islamic State flag is seen displayed on an Android mobile phone. (Photo Illustration by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
