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A car explosion near the iconic Red Fort in New Delhi claimed 13 lives on Monday night. The shockwave of the blast jolted the heart of India. After the blast, the Union Cabinet’s order came straightaway. A thorough nationwide investigation started within hours.
Now, more skeletons are popping out of the box as new information reveals suspected perpetrators and their secret communication channels. It also raises critical questions about how such attacks are planned right under the noses of security agencies.
Investigations suggest that terrorists had allegedly used a private messaging platform called Session to discuss their plans. Compared to mainstream messaging platforms, Session provides an end-to-end encryption between senders and receivers.
The app’s feature allows only the sender and receiver to read messages on the platform. No one, not even the company, hackers, or investigators, could intercept these communications. The app also provides anonymity, as it is not necessary to provide a phone number or a default email address to use the service.
Instead, a unique Account ID is issued to each user. This makes it very hard to associate messages with actual people. Additionally, Session runs on a distributed system of thousands of nodes located all over the world. These nodes are under the control of a group of experts and not a single company or server. The decentralized design also makes it harder for law enforcement to follow the trails of messages or users.
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The Session case symbolizes a growing problem that law enforcement agencies face in the fight against terrorism: How to neutralize the abuse of sophisticated tools of privacy created to protect users but hijacked by criminals.
While Session was the main app used during communication, the investigation also found connections to another popular messaging app, Telegram. Accused doctors have reportedly been part of two Telegram groups, ‘Umar Bin Khattab’ and ‘Farzand Darul Uloom,’ which were reportedly linked to the propaganda network of the banned terrorist group JeM.
These groups regularly shared speeches and writings of JeM founder Maulana Masood Azhar, besides the operational plans. The investigation has discovered a potential ‘hybrid doctor module’, whose origins may also be linked to these Telegram channels.
