Hackers Broke Into Syria's Secret Police Computers And Found... Porn

An exiled Syrian hacker has claimed to have cracked the systems of the country’s brutal secret police to find evidence that intelligence officers spent their working days watching pornography.

The computer expert was a leading member of a youth wing of the Syrian opposition, and fled to Europe in fear of his life after several of his colleagues were arrested by the Mukhabarat, Syria’s feared intelligence agency. The Syrian conflict has become increasingly bloody this year, with a number of chemical weapons atrocities and vicious attacks on civilians. It has also featured many cyber assaults, such as the global actions of hacking groups like the Syrian Electronic Army.

 Before leaving his home country last year, the Syrian hacktivist and his colleagues had been probing the systems used by spies to snoop on the population of Syria. They found not only found records of millions of online communications, but also details of hard-core pornography watched by the secret police, which is known for its sadism and brutality.

“It was easy to look at the secret police’s systems, which were left wide open to public view. The information they held was scary,” our Syrian source said. “But despite the amount of data kept on the Mukhabarat systems, the security was extremely lax and unsophisticated. We were able to observe the different pornographic habits of each of the agents’ bases, as well as records of the web traffic of much of the Syrian population. What we found was that agents would watch pornography whilst at work.”

The hacker claimed to be involved in exposing the Syrian regime’s use of deep packet inspection hardware made by the U.S. company Blue Coat. The American company has denied giving the machines to Syria, where they are used to filter the internet and identify dissenters. Back in 2011, Blue Coat said it was “saddened by the human suffering and loss of human life” in Syria and claimed it did not know how the devices ended up in the country.

Opposition activists take great care to avoid the attentions of the state. Our source revealed that Syrian hackers do not use Tor to carry out secure communications, fearing that the encryption protocols are not tough enough to protect users’ identities. Instead they rely on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to access the uncensored internet and communicate securely.

It’s little wonder Syrians are paranoid, because getting access to secure, reliable communications is a huge problem in the Middle Eastern country, particularly among the large population of refugees. Recent research by the media non-profit Internews found a widespread distrust of media outlets in the country and fears that much of the information disseminated on the web, in newspaper or across the airwaves is falsified government propaganda.

Refugees are terrified to access the internet, for fear of being arrested, while many are too scared to even register with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, because they worry their names will somehow get back to the secret police.

To make sure the most vulnerable people of Syria are kept informed about what’s happening in their war-torn nation,  global humanitarian agency the International Rescue Committee has teamed up with Internews to launch a new service called Tawasul, which means connection.

This new service aims to send “reliable and actionable information to counter the current climate of rumors, misinformation and propaganda” using the social media and radio. It will start operations at the beginning of next year.

David Miliband, the former Foreign Secretary of Great Britain and president of the IRC, said: “In the face of a humanitarian crisis that is getting worse by the day, it is vital that innovative collaborations like this help us find new ways of solving old problems. By combining traditional and high-tech approaches to exchanging information with the people we aim to help, we can save lives and bring hope to a region that is in desperate need of cutting-edge approaches to aid delivery.

“It is a tragedy that Syrian refugees and displaced communities are confused about how to get the help and support where it is available to them – from immunization and health services, to refugee camp management and registration in neighboring countries. This confusion only serves to further disempower, and further traumatize, already fragile communities.”