A senior Turkish official said Turkish intelligence cracked the app earlier this year and was able to use it to trace tens of thousands of members of a religious movement the government blames for last month’s failed coup.
Members of the group stopped using the app several months ago after realising it had been compromised, but it still made it easier to swiftly purge tens of thousands of teachers, police, soldiers and justice officials in the wake of the coup.
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Starting in May 2015, Turkey’s intelligence agency was able to identify close to 40,000 undercover Gülenist operatives, including 600 ranking military personnel, by mapping connections between ByLock users, the Turkish official said.
However, the Turkish official said that while ByLock helped the intelligence agency identify Gülen’s wider network, it was not used for planning the coup itself. Once Gülen network members realised ByLock had been compromised they stopped using it, the official said.
But intelligence services are policing agencies are still ‘Going Dark’…
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