THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Over 40 social media accounts in which Keralites are actively participating are under the police scanner as the state cyber police stepped up the vigil on cyber space in view of the suspected attempts to woo youths by extremists outfits. The state police are also tying up with IT firms on developing decrypting tools to deal with end-to-end encryption by some social media messaging services.
According to police sources, nearly 42 groups, each having members ranging from 50 to 200, were found to be involved in active discussions of extremist topics. Such closed groups are suspected to be the first line of sensitising the prospective recruits. While many groups are communicating using Malayalam language itself, other groups under the scanner use English. But most of the members in the group are located in Kerala only.
“We are not certain whether any of these groups are actively supporting extremism. But as a precaution, these groups are under the scanner,” a cyber police official said. Meanwhile, the cyberdome is roping in the service of some local IT firms engaged in developing encryption tools as well as some government institutions to develop tools to crack into the encrypted messages being sent using popular social media communication tools like WhatsApp and Telegram.
“Even in the recent case of over 20 Malayalis' mysterious disappearance, though some of them had sent messages to their relatives through Telegram, the location of the sender could not be traced as Telegram uses end-to-end encryption. This is an issue of international concern,” police sources said.
