Terrorists May Use These Household Items to Communicate
Amid the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, there's a new concern that terrorists may be using social media apps and video game consoles to send messages in order to avoid government interception.
"It's what we would call industrial strength encryption," said Steve Beaty, Computer Science professor at Metropolitan State University Denver. "The data exchanged cannot be apprehended, cannot be read."
Apps well-known for being used to encrypt messages include Telegram, WhatsApp, and Signal, which Beaty himself says he uses to communicate with colleagues. Gaming consoles like PlayStation 4 can also be used to encrypt messages.
According to Belgium's federal home affairs minister, PlayStation 4 messaging is more difficult to intercept than messages from WhatsApp.
"The Xboxes and the PlayStations have more graphics capabilities, and as it turns out, that does help in the encryption, because you can use those strong graphics cards to do encryption faster," said Beaty.