
“Turkey coup plotters' use of 'amateur' app helped unveil their network” - scandox
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/03/turkey-coup-gulen-movement-bylock-messaging-app
======
sasas
From the app description [1]

 _Extreme security with your fingerprint . Your fingerprint encrypts your
call. Use this application for secure communication. This application uses
industry leading encryption techniques .. Super Secure Free Calls available_

TFA states that the app author was listed as 'David Keynes of Beaverton,
Oregon'. Looking at the text from the author's Wordpress site [2] and app
description, one could possibly come to the conclusion that the author is not
a native english speaker (or has substandard grammar skills). 'David Keynes' a
non native english speaker? Putting that together with claims of 'Super Secure
Free Calls'. Something doesn't add up here..

[1] [https://apkpure.com/bylock-secure-chat-
talk/net.client.by.lo...](https://apkpure.com/bylock-secure-chat-
talk/net.client.by.lock)

[2] [https://bylockapp.wordpress.com/](https://bylockapp.wordpress.com/)

~~~
CameronBanga
I don't want to get all tinfoil, but have read many who have insinuated that
this may have been an inside job by president of Turkey to get rid of
dissenting voices.

This sort of thing kinda lends credence to that sort of idea.

~~~
yompers888
It's my understanding that he's been putting his own people in high military
positions for a while now. So it's not surprising that he could have short
circuited the coup mechanism.

Having said that, I stayed up watching the whole thing, and it never felt very
real. There's no way you're going to fire on people in the streets with a
helicopter but not shoot down the president's plane. Hell, they didn't even
arrest the Parliament.

~~~
afsina
Very few of the army generals were his supporters. From now on surely numbers
will go up. But it is clear that for more than 20 years it was Gulen who put
his followers to police force, army and all state departments (especially
justice) semi-secretly. It was a network of people who collected information
and kept things moving according to their agenda.

Besides, there are sensible explanations why his plane was not shut down etc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt#Reasons_for_failure)

~~~
Ressuder
I get scared when I hear how many Turkish people talk about the Gülenist
movement. The similarities to communism in the US during the 50s and 60s is
striking. Sure, based on a "true story" but in the same way that the movie 300
is.

~~~
gkya
The Gulenist movement was very involved in education. They had maybe hundreds
of schools in every category of Turkish education system, and they have some
Turkish language schools abroad too, and also provide loads of scholarship.
The general opinion is that through these schools they were raising loyal
members of the movement who'd go into all sorts of public and private
institutions as high-rank employees. This opinion exists at least since 90's,
and is vastly popular. It's known that members pay a fixed amount (AFAIK a
percentage of their monthly pay) monthly to the organisation. Most members are
conservative celebs, conservative enterpreneurs and white collar types.

After their break-up with AKP, when the corruption scandals showed up, the
movement quickly became the scapegoat of the ruling party, accused of having
formed a "parallel statal system". IDK if Gulen himself organised this coup
(how can I know), but I can say that, reasoning on the Turkish public's view
of the movement, including third party stories I've heard over the years (tho
I've never met a member), they certainly have the network, hierarchy and the
power to do it. It may also be someone in their hierarchy below Gulen that
organised it. Time will show us the reality, I think.

~~~
mda
The break-up happened before the corruption scandal, things soured because of
political disagreements (Gulenists were not happy that government was trying
to initiate talks with Kurdish groups. Everything about these talks collapsed
later on.) Corruption scandal was their attempt to take down Erdogan who
clearly had became an enemy element according to them.

Interesting tidbit: The officials who went to kill/capture Erdogan was told
the group of soldires that they were to "pick up a high level PKK operative (A
Kurdish terrorist organisation) in Marmaris."
[http://www.milliyet.com.tr/-gerekirse-olun-ama-
gundem-228033...](http://www.milliyet.com.tr/-gerekirse-olun-ama-
gundem-2280330/)

~~~
gkya
I've never heard that Gulenists were not fond of Kurds. I'm from Turkey BTW.

~~~
afsina
IMO, even though in general movement has nationalistic tendencies, It cannot
be said "they are not fond of Kurds" (as an ethnicity). However, their
agencies were making a lot of negative press on the last peace process. Also,
they were quite likely behind exposing secret peace meetings and mass
detaining of kck members in (if I recall correctly) 2010. Apparently Kurdish
problem was one of the main issues of conflict.

------
aaron695
VIA Reddit -

Turkish Television shows secret codes from the coup which are actually GTA IV
Cheat Codes

[http://i.imgur.com/D96MaPw.gifv](http://i.imgur.com/D96MaPw.gifv)

I'm not sure stories from the region are always accurate....

~~~
sasas
Do you have a link to the reddit thread to share?

~~~
krasin
[https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4vupn6/a_turkish_tv...](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/4vupn6/a_turkish_tv_channel_made_an_exclusive_story/?st=irfvvs8j&sh=bf10af6e)

~~~
darkhorn
And yesterday they said "we are sorry"
[https://redd.it/4w0c10](https://redd.it/4w0c10)

------
fsniper
It's so curious that, the coup attempters were advertised as using whatsapp on
the 15th and the days following that. There were many screenshots of the
aforementioned communications with hints to the events of the night, like,
"Can someone get to the çamlıca and bring down all the anntenas?". These were
probably true and were on the phones of the captured soldiers.
[http://www.ilgisel.com/uploads/8/2016/07/16/_578a394ac9c92.j...](http://www.ilgisel.com/uploads/8/2016/07/16/_578a394ac9c92.jpg)

And now, they started using another app byLock? This smells like another
attempt at falsifying data and diversion, which IMHO means they are creating
false evidence for apprehending people they deem rivals. Currently there is an
ongoing witch hunt in Turkey.

~~~
fatihpense
As far as I know, whatsapp group was between soldiers planning coup. Other app
was used by a larger audience and has longer history.

------
ivoras
It's important to remember that Turkish military in the post-empire had
practically a mandate of rebelling against unconstitutional and Islamist
governments. Their power to do so was largely removed recently (
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Armed_Forces](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Armed_Forces))

~~~
macspoofing
Why is it important to remember that right now? I dislike Erdogan, but it
isn't that simple. Did Erdogan really set up an unconstitutional Islamist
government? Really really?

You sound like you read the Wikipedia page last week.

------
Roritharr
I guess the next Coup attempt will need a CTO...

~~~
joshpadnick
I'm really curious. What is the wise CTO's recommendation for a coup's way to
securely message?

As one of the other commenters said, WhatsApp and Signal still rely on third
parties to host the system. But doesn't Signal simply have each device
generate a private key that it claims it never knows about so even if the
Signal server were hacked it still wouldn't compromise existing keys?

PGP (or Keybase.io) seems like too much work for non-techies.

I'm not as familiar with Telegram.

In the end, could you do any better than a trusted third party providing a
protocol it claims generates keys on your device and doesn't share them?

~~~
Spooky23
> What is the wise CTO's recommendation?

Shut the fuck up and wait for instruction.

When you're in the conspiracy stage, you need a cell like structure to protect
the conspiracy against double agents and detection.

When you go live, you decapitate the local flavor of secret police, arrest the
leader, and start rounding up or killing the key players.

Then talk.

~~~
realkitkat
Oldie but goodie - Robert Heinleins 'Moon is a harsh mistress' gives anyone
interested a nice introduction into coups, cells and other things conspiracy.

~~~
pjc50
Nonfiction: "Coup d'Etat, a practical handbook". Out of print and rather
pricey, but an excellent read.

------
dovdov
And don't forget the GTA codes!!

[http://i.imgur.com/D96MaPw.gifv](http://i.imgur.com/D96MaPw.gifv)

I wonder how much this Guardian article have cost.

~~~
ersinesen
It is apparent who pays for reports or articles:

[http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mp-paid-by-group-linked-
to...](http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mp-paid-by-group-linked-to-turkey-
coup-88x0s07vc)

Do you have a secret agenda? What is your evidence or reasonning for such a
claim?

------
throwaway7811
For those under opression from the government it is not so easy to adopt the
secure, but obscure solutions like GPG. The problem is that just installing
GPG or setting up a secure communications hub can make you a target for
further investigation.

This discussion highlights how important it is that the normal messaging
applications we use on daily basis become secure and protect the messages and
identities of those communicating. This is not because you or I have something
to hide or protect, but because other people in other countries do. And in
order to keep themselves under the radar, they need to be using the same tools
as we do.

------
BadassFractal
I was semi-certain they were going to talk about Telegram, turns out I was
wrong though, phew.

~~~
cm3
Doesn't really matter. If you're doing something that's risking your or
someone else's lives, you better be sure about the security aspects of a tool.
Neither WhatsApp nor Signal are it because you're still trusting a 3rd party
way more than is healthy for an operation like a coup. I've read some of the
alleged chat logs, and the whole event looks haphazard and little planned.
Therefore, it's no wonder that they would coordinate in an unsafe medium
(WhatsApp). If what we're being told is the truth, that is.

~~~
darawk
So, you think they should have rolled their own secure messaging app before
starting their coup?

~~~
cookiecaper
They probably should've gone old-school and kept their plots strictly to
meatspace. It's a lot simpler that way. Any digital supplementation should've
been seriously restrained, relying on pre-determined, inconspicuous code
phrases buried within an otherwise innocuous conversation.

~~~
cm3
Yeah, and assuming the chat logs are real, they now have a hard time to
construct plausible deniability after the fact. But, what the people of Turkey
seem to ignore is that soldiers are trained to take orders, and there aren't
many around who would refuse, even if they're opposed to the action.

------
hokkos
For the WhatsApp part here is a detailed analysis
:[https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/07/24/the-
turkey-c...](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/07/24/the-turkey-coup-
through-the-eyes-of-its-plotters/)

------
smaili
For those wondering, it's an app called byLock -
[https://bylockapp.wordpress.com](https://bylockapp.wordpress.com)

------
pknerd
Note for future coup plotters

Next time either don't use technology or study a bit about the software
security first before using it as a main communication channel.

~~~
dharma1
Chat groups, even if p2p and encrypted, are vulnerable. A single group
member's unlocked phone can be captured, thus compromising all group
communication

~~~
TeMPOraL
Shiny hipster chatapps from SV do not make the need for tried-and-true
century-old OPSEC techniques disappear. Encryption in apps is not a
replacement for compartmentalization, dividing into cells, using codenames,
etc.

~~~
fatihpense
The thing is they were divided into cells, they were using codenames. I hope
they made a mistake that reveals whole organisation in the app.

------
denfromufa
So is this the evidence that is going to be submitted to US for extradition of
Muhammed Fethullah Gülen?

~~~
madaxe_again
Well, he's definitely guilty, so that should be fine - the TV said so, it's
never wrong.

You may be on to something there.

------
bitbanksy
No wonder why Turkish police have raided the offices of the national science
research council... The Scientific and Technological Research Council of
Turkey (Tubitak) research projects in universities and the private sector and
employs more than 1,500 researchers...

------
al_chemist
I wouldn't trust Turkish proofs. They have a history of submitting fake
evidence: [http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2012/10/did-
mi...](http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2012/10/did-microsoft-
steal-its-fonts-from-the-turkish-army.html)

~~~
vintermann
While you are at that blog, you might want to read Dani Rodrik's more recent
discussions. FWIW, he does think Gulen was involved in the coup.

------
ersinesen
For those who claim the coup attempt was a theatre please watch:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUBUInQK2us](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUBUInQK2us)

till the end if you can.

~~~
yread
It says CANLI but this wasn't actually broadcast LIVE during the coup, right?

~~~
ersinesen
The program was broadcast live yesterday, not the video captures.

