Turkish plotters coordinated via social media. But then, so can everyone else.

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Turkish coup plotters’ cyber fail: Not turning off Internet
Plotters, including an army cyber expert, got tripped up by social media.
by Sean Gallagher - Jul 18, 2016

A failed coup attempt in Turkey, which began during the evening of July 15, was apparently coordinated using the WhatsApp mobile messaging service, according to reports from Turkish media. And among the apparent plotters was a Turkish Army colonel who was considered an expert in cyber-operations. Ahmet Zeki Gerehan, a Turkish infantry officer, was head of the operation and intelligence department at the Turkish Army War College and co-author of a number of articles on cyber-warfare.

According to video reports, officers involved in the coup gave moment-by-moment status reports in a WhatsApp group chat entitled "We are a country of peace" ("yurta suhl b iziz"), as the faction moved to shut down the bridge over the Bosporus connecting the Istanbul region to the rest of Turkey and conceal their operations from official communications channels.

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But even as the coup planners were using encrypted consumer-grade communications as part of their operational security, they failed to take into account that Internet messaging would be used against them. While some social media channels were slowed by apparent network bandwidth throttling early in the coup attempt, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was able to use Apple's FaceTime video chat app to reach at least two television stations and call for citizens to take to the streets to counter the coup attempt. Erdoğan's message also reached mosques, which used their public address systems normally used for calls to prayer to rally supporters and get them out onto the streets to confront the units involved in the coup.

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~~~~~ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT: ~~~~~

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/07/turkish-plotters-used-whatsapp-to-coordinate-coup/