U.S. military social media accounts apparently hacked by Islamic State sympathizers

Hackers claiming allegiance to the Islamic State took control of the social media accounts of the U.S. military’s Central Command on Monday, posting threatening messages and propaganda videos, along with some military documents.

The command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts were eventually taken offline, but not before a string of tweets and the release of military documents, some of which listed contact information for senior military personnel. A Centcom spokesman confirmed their accounts were “compromised,” and said later that the accounts have been taken offline while the incident is investigated more.

“CENTCOM’s operation military networks were not compromised and there was no operational impact to U.S. Central Command,” a military statement said. “CENTCOM will restore service to its Twitter and YouTube accounts as quickly as possible. We are viewing this purely as a case of cybervandalism.”

Military officials added in the statement that their initial assessment is that no classified information was posted, and that none of what was released came from Centcom’s server or social media sites. The command will notify Defense Department and law enforcement authorities about the release of personally identifiable information and make sure that those affected are notified as quickly as possible, Centcom said.

Virtually all of the documents posted appear to already have been publicly available online, but the incident is nevertheless embarrassing to the U.S. military. Centcom oversees the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and frequently posts videos of airstrikes on the same accounts attacked Monday.

The United States and the Islamic State have waged a propaganda battle online for the better part of a year, after the militants rose to prominence and seized broad swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. Twitter accounts sympathetic to the militants have distributed graphic images of beheadings and other violence along with threats, while the Defense Department and State Department have sought to expose the Islamic State as an oppressive group willing to slaughter innocent men, women and children.

The first rogue tweet Monday was posted about 12:30 p.m. and the account was not suspended for about another 40 minutes. The background and profile photo of the Twitter account were both changed to show an apparent militant and the phrases “CyberCaliphate” and “i love you isis,” using one of the acronyms for the militant group.

“AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING, WATCH YOUR BACK,” one tweet said.

The YouTube and Twitter accounts of U.S. Central Command were suspended after apparent hacking by Islamic State sympathizers. (Reuters)

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the Obama administration is “examining and investigating the extent of the incident.”

“This is something we are obviously looking into and something we take seriously,” he told reporters Monday, adding he didn’t have a lot of information. He said that there is a “pretty significant difference” between “a large data breach and the hacking of a Twitter account.”

The Centcom YouTube page also appeared to have been hacked, with two Islamic State propaganda videos added to the page and the same “CyberCaliphate” banner posted. The YouTube account was eventually “terminated due to repeated or severe violations” of YouTube’s guidelines, the website said.

Central Command also maintains Facebook accounts, but it appears they were not affected.

It is not clear whether the hackers are actually with the Islamic State, sympathizers with the militants, or simply pulling a prank on the Pentagon. But J.M. Berger, an analyst and non-resident fellow with the Brookings Institution, said there is reason to believe it could be someone affiliated directly with the Islamic State.

“ISIS has a team of hackers who are very deeply involved in ISIS the organization,” said Berger, author of the forthcoming book “ISIS: The State of Terror.”

“They have been practicing and recruiting for a while, and this has been going on for months and months,” Berger said.

But analysts added that just because the Islamic State hacked two social media accounts, it does not mean they threatened classified computer networks. Other hacker organizations, like the Syrian Electronic Army, have seized control of websites, and a group using the same “CyberCaliphate” name and photo seen in the hack against Centcom on Monday hacked the Twitter accounts of the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico and the WBOC TV station in Salisbury, Md., last week.

“Let’s remember this is a social media account,” said Peter Singer, a strategist and analyst with the New American Foundation in Washington, of the attacks on Monday. “This is not a military command and control network. This is not a network that moves classified or even non-classified internal information back and forth. Essentially what they did is for several minutes take control of the megaphone.”

But Singer said the incident does amount to a public relations victory for the Islamic State, even if they were not directly involved. Embarrassing the U.S. government “is a feather in their cap in terms of pulling off something that other groups have not been able to do, no matter how silly it is at the end of the day.”

It is not clear what level of security any of the organizations affected have on their social media accounts. Twitter offers a two-step verification process to sign into an account that makes it secure, but it is not required. Without it, a Twitter account typically requires only an email address and a password.

A look at some of the rogue messages sent. The first shows a U.S. soldier with what appears to be a black goat in a military office:

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Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.

Katie Zezima and Craig Whitlock contributed to this report.

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U.S. police struggle to uncover threats on social media

 

SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. law enforcement agencies are a long way from being able to effectively track threats of the kind a gunman posted on Instagram before his execution-style murder of two New York City policemen last weekend.

Police need more data analytics and mining software to monitor social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter , as well as trained personnel to make sense of what could be a deluge of data, say law enforcement officials and security experts.

"You can buy all the technology you want, but if you want to figure out clever stuff, you better have smart people able to use it," said Christopher Ahlberg, co-founder of Recorded Future Inc, which helps clients analyze social media feeds. The company is partly backed by In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm that serves U.S. intelligence agencies.

According to the New York Police Department, Ismaaiyl Brinsley posted anti-cop slurs on the Instagram photo-sharing site hours before walking up to two officers in a parked squad car in Brooklyn and shooting them dead on Saturday.

Baltimore police said they discovered the Instagram posts after Brinsley shot and wounded his girlfriend earlier that day. But the NYPD did not learn of the posts - which included a photograph of a silver handgun and the message "I'm Putting Wings On Pigs Today. They Take 1 Of Ours...Let's Take 2 of Theirs" - until it was too late.

Monitoring social media for out-of-the-blue threats may be beyond the capabilities of most police forces including even the New York Police Department, which has a relatively extensive and aggressive intelligence operation, experts say.

Analysts at the New York and Los Angeles police departments routinely crawl through social media to keep tabs on individuals on their radar, such as gang members, or to prepare for high-profile events. But in an era of shrinking or stagnant budgets, buying high-end software and hiring trained data analysts can be costly.

Many police departments utilize fairly rudimentary tools. The NYPD uses common search engines, experts say. It is possible to program an algorithm to pick up threatening messages, but the sheer volume of data and the potential number of "false positives" would impede its effectiveness.

"It is like trying to take a sip from a fire hydrant," the non-profit Police Executive Research Forum said in a 2013 report.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

In monitoring social media, most local police forces lag U.S. intelligence agencies, which despite their vast surveillance networks still struggle to prevent attacks such as the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

The National Security Agency had raw intercepts pointing to a person matching the 2009 "underwear bomber's" description, but failed to stop him from boarding a plane.

The Department of Homeland Security monitors about 100 social media sites, but there are restrictions that keep their agents from sharing all the information that they collect directly with local law enforcement.

Social media monitoring by police tends to be reactive: analysts hit the Internet when someone phones in a tip. Investigators use social networking sites to identify victims, look for witnesses and perpetrators, generate leads or search for evidence in the aftermath of a crime.

"Most of the stuff, honestly, we get is when people send it to us," said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman, Commander Andrew Smith.

That's not to say there have not been some successes. The LAPD, which employs around 40 people to monitor social media manually, uses software from a startup called PredPol Inc, which stands for predictive policing. The software analyzes LAPD and other internal police databases to identify crime-ridden areas and determine the best times to patrol.

PredPol marketing manager Benjamin Hoehn said crime dropped around 20 percent within 10 months of deploying the system in Modesto, California, in January.

The LAPD is also exploring the use of Geofeedia Inc, which incorporates user-location data as it crawls through sites from Twitter and Facebook to Google Inc's YouTube and Yahoo Inc's Flickr.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

Sophisticated services provided by the likes of Palantir Technologies Inc, which aids intelligence agencies in counter-terrorism, can track a person's movements, identify anonymous messages from writing patterns, or establish an individual's daily routines based on social media activity, experts said.

Ahlberg said Recorded Future can predict areas where social unrest will erupt with a high degree of accuracy, based on online commentary and other data, offering a glimpse of what may be possible.

Rights organizations have criticized the increasing use of social media crawling by law enforcement as a potential violation of privacy. Others argue anything posted on social media is fair game.

"You can call it infringing on their Frist Amendment rights but these are the 21st century tools available," said ex-FBI agent Kenneth Springer, who runs investigations outfit Corporate Solutions Inc.

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How social media is changing the way we see conflict

Sharing images through social media has armed a new generation of citizen witnesses to challenge our perception and awareness of human rights crimes. 

A destroyed ambulence sits in Shujaiyeh, one of the many images that made up the social media war that erupted this summer during Israel's military offensive into Gaza. Wikipedia/Boris Neihaus. Some rights reserved.  

Traditional media have long held the monopoly over the way war and catastrophe is visually represented. Until recently, what we saw was essentially the preserve of a handful of brave photographers who dipped in and out of warzones, and the iconic image selected by editors most likely to capture the viewer’s attention (and therefore sell more newspapers.)

Today, things look very different: 350 million photographs are uploaded to Facebook every day, 27,800 photographs are shared on Instagram every minute, and 20% of all pictures in the history of the photograph were taken in the last two years. It is safe to say we are living in an electronic age dominated by visual, rather than written, communication.

Granted, much of this means banal snapshots of everyday life. But increasingly, ordinary citizens are using imagery–via their social media accounts–to document and raise awareness of conflicts, atrocities, and the suffering of distant others–and in turn, changing the way we visualise conflict. Smartphone technology has enabled so called ‘citizen camera witnesses’ to use their mobile phones to “produce incontrovertible public testimony to unjust and disastrous developments, in a critical bid to mobilise global solidarity through the affective power of the visual.” And social media has enabled the billion-plus social network users to take on their own editorial role: to ‘share’ witness by sharing, tweeting, and re-posting images that have caught their attention, and interact with these images in new and innovative ways.

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been particularly susceptible to this phenomenon. In Gaza, western interests, an engaged global audience, and the active use of photos by Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces to push their respective causes collide to produce a fertile visual ecology of the war.

In August 2014, when violence erupted yet again, more than ever before an all-out online image war broke out. The weapons of this war were the images of dead children like Shamia, a newborn who survived her mother’s death, only to die 4 days later when Israel is said to have cut electricity supplies to Gaza. They were the images of Israeli civilians gathering on hillsides to watch and cheer on the air strikes like a spectator sport, decked out with chairs and beers and snacks for the event. And they were the images of the ‘victory album’ distributed to Israeli soldiers, containing before and after scenes of Gaza City’s ravaged Shujaiyeh neighbourhood (subsequently leaked to the public).

The soldiers of this war were millions of social media users who saw these pictures, sharing them with their friends and followers, and weighing in with their opinions to create a parallel battlefield that gained a life of its own parallel to the more sanitised version of events that tend to be presented by traditional media. It was a war that gained traction when celebrities jumped on board, such asAntony Bourdain, who tweeted a picture of a dead child on a Gazan beach, which was subsequently re-tweeted over 15,000 times.

Whilst Israel might have won against Hamas’s rocket arsenal, if the battle was to visually promote the plight of the Free Palestine movement, it feels like the international army of socially networked citizens has won. As Professor Karma Nablusi recently said:

On this bloody international battlefield over truth…where with images, eyewitness reports and videos sent direct from the killing fields of Gaza, anyone in the world with a phone, a laptop or even just a neighbourhood cafe with a television can experience the hourly atrocities that a high-tech occupying army is capable of imposing…Israel has lost. 

But in the aftermath of this flurry of internet activity, one can’t but help wonder, what do these 21st century cyber victories actually mean?

The notion of bearing witness–usually by photographs–has long been regarded as integral to the representation of violence, conflict and humanitarian disaster. Arguably, documentary imagery of suffering bodies is instrumental not only in revealing truths, but in supporting reform movements shaping our perception of poverty and underpinning the work of NGOs. Such usage of imagery tends to be premised on the assumption that knowledge is power; that if people only knew what humans were capable of doing to each other, they would intervene. The exposure that images get on social networks must therefore offer enormous new opportunities to galvanise the international community’s support to right some wrongs.  

Conversely, however, there is persuasive evidence suggesting that the relationship between knowledge and action is not so simple. South African sociologist Stanley Cohen’s seminal studies of the psychological and political mechanisms used to avoid uncomfortable realities found that mediated awareness of the suffering of others engenders not much more than ‘denial’ or desensitisation–whether by blocking out, turning a blind eye, shutting off, not wanting to know, or seeing what we want to see. These sorts of responses make us file our knowledge away, and allow initial awareness (and even distress) concerning an issue to go no further.

Granted, this research was conducted before the advent of social media and camera phone technology. In fact, the emotional response to images people are exposed to online is a largely unstudied field–which is strange given the increasing prevalence of sharing witness.

In the wake of Israel’s military incursion into Gaza in November 2012 when another–albeit smaller– image war took place on social media, I started investigating how people reacted to imagery they were exposed to via social media, as opposed to TV or broadsheet coverage.  

Survey data, and analysis of social media comments to a number of images that went viral, and interviews with eminent members of the photojournalism community, led to preliminary findings that, although denial and desensitisation are continuing features of our reaction to distant suffering, people do engage with images of humanitarian issues and conflict differently from seeing images in a broadsheet or on TV.

For example, it was found that social network users will often pay more attention to images on social media than images they might otherwise see on traditional media (“I take notice if an image is sent through via friends and family,”; “I definitely pay more attention to what is on social media than what is on the news,”), triggering awareness of new and different perspectives and further action–even if something as simple as reconsideration, or reading up further on an issue (“they often raise my awareness or draw attention to issues I haven’t previously considered,” “I…hope to raise awareness of protecting human rights and promoting peace through sharing.”)

Furthermore, it appeared that images seen on social media felt more real to viewers (“the images brought it closer and the vary ordinariness of some of the images made it more real”; “they seem to have more honesty about them which means they become less like media wallpaper and somehow more real”), which makes them feel closer to and empathise with distant sufferers (“images help to understand better the scale and seriousness of the issues, make me feel related to the people experiencing it.”) A not insignificant 35% of survey respondents went so far to report that the visualisation of conflict on social media made them feel like they were personally experiencing the conflict. The act of sharing witness was thus found to be a potential source of power not to be underestimated by international organisations and human rights groups alike.

Skip to 2014, however, and despite an unprecedented visualisation of the Gaza conflict online, the social media landscape has changed again. For this year marked the introduction of complex algorithm changes by Facebook and an increasing trend of organisations removing posts unhelpful to their cause–both of which alter social media’s organic reach. As Wired Magazine recentlyreported, “in 2014 the News Feed is a highly-curated presentation, delivered to you by a complicated formula based on the actions you take on the site, and across the web”, which has the unfortunate implication that “we set up our political and social filter bubbles and they reinforce themselves—the things we read and watch have become hyper-niche and cater to our specific interests.”

At this juncture only time, and further research, will therefore tell if and how the visualisation and personalisation of conflict might at last force the international community to have some sort of a cosmopolitan moment in times of crisis. But at the end of the day, #FreePalestine’s recent social media victory has not led to an ICC investigation into the war crimes it allegedly uncovered. Right now, it feels like it hasn’t led to very much at all. 

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Dozens arrested as NYC protests Eric Garner decision

Demonstrators block the West Side Highway during a protest against the grand jury decision on the death of Eric Garner, in New York December 3, 2014.(Reuters / Adrees Latif)

At least 30 people were arrested by the New York Police Department on Wednesday evening, as thousands of protesters flooded city streets after a grand jury declined to indict an officer for killing a Staten Island man via chokehold.

Following the decision, demonstrations began popping up throughout the city. Protesters disrupted traffic by blocking numerous streets – including the West Side Highway – marching into Times Square, and taking over the area near Rockefeller Center, where the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony was taking place. Streets and sidewalks were blocked, with police telling people they could only pass if they had passes to the ceremony.

Protestors gather in New York Grand Central Station on December 3, 2014.(AFP Photo / Timothy A Clary)

Demonstrators also poured into Grand Central Station by the hundreds, where they staged a “die-in” and spread their bodies across the floor. Numerous protesters told RT they wanted to “shut down” the city as a result of the decision, and traffic jams were subsequently reported at Lincoln Tunnel and Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, as well as other areas.

Approximately 30 people were arrested, according to NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, though more have been reported since he spoke around 10 p.m. So far, police have not reported any violent incidents or injuries.

While the protests were not previously planned, momentum for them began building soon after the grand jury’s decision was reported. The case involved 43-year-old African American Eric Garner of Staten Island, who was placed in a chokehold by Officer Daniel Pantaleo for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. Garner was taken to the ground with the help of several others. Despite repeatedly complaining that he couldn’t breathe, Garner ended up going into cardiac arrest and dying.

People take part in a protest against the grand jury decision on the death of Eric Garner in midtown Manhattan in New York December 3, 2014.(Reuters / Eric Thayer)

People take part in a protest against the grand jury decision on the death of Eric Garner in midtown Manhattan in New York December 3, 2014.(Reuters / Eric Thayer)

The July incident was caught on video by a civilian bystander and ruled a homicide by the city medical examiner, but the grand jury did not indict Pantaleo on any charges.

The decision was met with fierce criticism immediately after it was revealed, drawing condemnation from all over the political spectrum. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was “a very emotional day for our city,” adding that Garner was “a man who should be with us, and now isn’t.”

Soon afterwards, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Justice Department is opening a federal civil rights investigation into the incident, one that would include a “complete review” of the evidence collected during the local investigation.

However, this news didn’t quell outrage among residents, many of whom also protested last week’s decision by a St. Louis County grand jury not to indict a white officer for killing a black teenager. People marched through the streets chanting slogans such as “I can’t breathe,” referring to Garner’s last words. They also yelled, “No Justice, no peace.”

Following the decision, Pantaleo issued an apology for what occurred back in July.

"It is never my intention to hurt anyone and I feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner," Pantaleo said."My family and I include him and his family in our prayers and I hope they will accept my personal condolences for their loss."

Protesters against the Staten Island grand jury's decision not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer involved in Eric Garner's chokehold death, walk together December 3, 2014 in New York.(AFP Photo / Yana Paskova)

Speaking alongside Rev. Al Sharpton, Garner’s widow, Esaw Garner, said she did not accept Pantaleo's apology.

"I couldn't care less about his condolences," she said. "He's still working, he's still feeding his kids. And my husband is six feet under and I’m looking for a way to feed my kids now. Who’s going to play Santa Claus for my grandkids this year? Who’s going to do that now?"

"I am determined to get justice for my husband because he shouldn't have been killed in that way,” said Esaw Garner.“My husband’s death will not be in vain. As long as I have breathe in my body I will fight the fight.”

Meanwhile, Sharpton announced that there will be a march against police brutality in Washington, DC, on December 13.

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Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites | November 2014

Here are the top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites as derived from our eBizMBA Rank which is a continually updated average of each website's Alexa Global Traffic Rank, and U.S. Traffic Rank from both Compete and Quantcast."*#*" Denotes an estimate for sites with limited data.

1 | Facebook
3 - eBizMBA Rank | 900,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 3 - Compete Rank | 3 - Quantcast Rank | 2 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

2 | Twitter
12 - eBizMBA Rank | 310,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 21 - Compete Rank | 8 - Quantcast Rank | 8 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

3 | LinkedIn
18 - eBizMBA Rank | 255,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 25 - Compete Rank | 19 - Quantcast Rank | 9 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

4 | Pinterest
22 - eBizMBA Rank | 250,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 27 - Compete Rank | 13 - Quantcast Rank | 26 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

5 | Google Plus+
30 - eBizMBA Rank | 120,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | *32* - Compete Rank | *28*- Quantcast Rank | NA - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

6 | Tumblr
34 - eBizMBA Rank | 110,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 55 - Compete Rank | *13* - Quantcast Rank | 34 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

7 | Instagram
77 - eBizMBA Rank | 100,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 49 - Compete Rank | 145 - Quantcast Rank | 36 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

8 | VK
97 - eBizMBA Rank | 80,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | *150* - Compete Rank |*120* - Quantcast Rank | 21 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

9 | Flickr
123 - eBizMBA Rank | 65,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 138 - Compete Rank | 139 - Quantcast Rank | 91 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

10 | Vine
581 - eBizMBA Rank | 42,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 237 - Compete Rank | 335 - Quantcast Rank | 1,172 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

11 | Meetup
596 - eBizMBA Rank | 40,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 791 - Compete Rank | 701 - Quantcast Rank | 296 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

12 | Tagged
702 - eBizMBA Rank | 38,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 1,082 - Compete Rank |615 - Quantcast Rank | 408 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

13 | Ask.fm
779 - eBizMBA Rank | 37,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 2,046 - Compete Rank |113 - Quantcast Rank | 179 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

14 | MeetMe
1,457 - eBizMBA Rank | 15,500,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 1,407 - Compete Rank |635 - Quantcast Rank | 2,328 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

15 | ClassMates
1,487 - eBizMBA Rank | 15,000,000 - Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 153 - Compete Rank |*285* - Quantcast Rank | 4,022 - Alexa Rank | November 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA

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