Chicago student charged with writing code to spread ISIS propaganda

US authorities arrested Thomas Osadzinski, a student at DePaul University, because he allegedly built a custom Gentoo Linux distro for ISIS.

Thomas Osadzinski (20), a student at DePaul University, Chicago, was arrested because he allegedly built a custom Gentoo Linux distro for ISIS, he could now face up to 20 years in prison.

The Chicago student is suspected to have provided propaganda content that supports the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS).

Osadzinski developed a Python script to that allows supporters and members of the organization to automatically save ISIS propaganda material shared through social media. The student shared his script with members of the organizations in order to help spreading the ISIS’ propaganda, he also offered them the use of bots to automate the process on a large-scale.

Osadzinski also began developing a lightweight Gentoo Linux distro for the terrorist organization.

“I will began a new and very valuable project, I will be developing a custom Gentoo Linux version designed for ansar [ISIS supporters] it can run on any computer and will be very lightweight, fast and secure.” the student told to an undercover FBI agent in an online discussion in March .

The student aimed at hardening the Linux Gentoo distro to prevent hacks from the intelligence agencies that he defined as “crusader intelligence agencies.”

Osadzinski provided another FBI undercover agent a screenshot of the Gentoo Linux distro he was preparing, promising that it would be “available for the ansar [ISIS supporters] very soon.”

“It will be very secure, in sha allah it will only browse [Social Media Platform 1]. When there are less things installed the operating system is harder to hack,”

The student was not able to complete his work because of the difficulty in studying for hardening the Linux distro.

According to Cyberscoop, to Osadzinski also worked for two months as a software tester for Blackberry Cylance.

The student, if will found guilty for distributing propaganda material to support ISIS, will dace up to 20 years in prison.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – ISIS, Gentoo Linux)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.