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| Behind the dating prompt: How porn Apps became terror’s new messaging line ? | | | Atul Sharma
Early Times Report
Jammu, Aug 30: Barely months after security agencies exposed how terror groups were exploiting online gaming platforms to communicate with recruits, a fresh investigation has uncovered an even more insidious tactic — handlers are now turning to pornography websites and obscure encrypted applications to pass on instructions while staying a step ahead of surveillance, officials said on Sunday.
According to security officials, terror outfits operating out of Pakistan, working in tandem with the country’s intelligence agency ISI, have begun routing communication with recruits in Jammu and Kashmir through these covert channels precisely because they fall outside the radar of conventional social media monitoring.
The mechanics of the tactic are as simple as they are effective. Several pornography platforms now come built with real-time chat features, ostensibly designed to help users find dates nearby. Handlers have found in these tools a ready-made messaging system — one that carries none of the red flags associated with mainstream apps, yet allows them to broadcast instructions and coordinate with contacts on the ground.
Layered on top of this is a growing dependence on niche, privacy-first applications that route traffic through the Tor network, bouncing encrypted data across volunteer-run relay nodes scattered around the world to mask both the sender and the recipient. Investigators say handlers have also gravitated toward apps that require neither a phone number nor an email address to register, and toward platforms developed overseas — including one built in France that offers end-to-end encryption without a SIM card, and others traced to Vietnam and suspected Chinese origins — all designed to make user identification extraordinarily difficult. Several of these applications remain officially inaccessible or banned within India, but users are routinely bypassing those restrictions using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which mask a device’s location and encrypt its traffic.
Officials noted Layered on top of this is a growing dependence on niche, privacy-first applications that route traffic through the Tor network, bouncing encrypted data across volunteer-run relay nodes scattered around the world to mask both the sender and the recipient.
Handlers have also gravitated toward apps that require neither a phone number nor an email address to register, and toward platforms developed overseas — including one built in France that offers end-to-end encryption without a SIM card, and others traced to Vietnam and suspected Chinese origins.
Several of these applications remain officially inaccessible or banned within India, but users are routinely bypassing those restrictions using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which mask a device's location and encrypt its traffic.
What has alarmed agencies most is the deliberate shift away from mainstream platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Signal, which are now considered too exposed to law enforcement scrutiny. In their place, handlers are turning to applications engineered for maximum concealment — some offering only basic encryption, others featuring end-to-end encryption, self-destructing messages, and advanced cryptographic safeguards that process data locally on the user’s device without passing through any third party. Investigators say several of these apps remain functional even on slow 2G or EDGE mobile networks, making them viable across the more remote and connectivity-poor pockets of the Valley — a factor believed to be deliberately exploited in recruitment efforts.
The shift comes even as agencies continue battling the parallel challenge of foreign-generated virtual SIM cards, which allow a phone number to be created and used entirely through an app, leaving next to no digital footprint behind. The scale of this threat first became apparent during the investigation into the 2019 Pulwama attack, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed. The National Investigation Agency’s probe into the bombing found that the Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber and his accomplices had used more than 40 virtual SIM cards to plan and execute the strike.
Officials said security agencies are continuously recalibrating their cyber-surveillance frameworks in response, working to map and intercept these increasingly fragmented, off-grid communication channels before they can be exploited further.
The broader concern, they added, is less about any single app than about a pattern: as fast as one channel is identified and choked off, handlers appear ready to migrate to the next. |
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