14 DAY TRIAL // The religious police in Saudi Arabia has resorted to hackers in order to identify the operators of Twitter accounts that spread messages containing references to explicit online locations.
Under the legislation of the state, distributing pornography is punishable by up to five years of jail time and monetary penalty of up to $800,000 / €670,000; the same punishment is enforced in the case of gambling, human trafficking and drug dealing online.
Some Twitter account owners get arrested
The law enforcement division, called the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Haia), managed to terminate a total of 9,000 Twitter accounts promoting lewd content, which is banned in the Islamic state.
It is unclear how long it took Haia to achieve such results, but its representatives said that they were helped in their efforts by hackers, who were essential in gaining access to Twitter accounts and personal information of their owners.
According to a Haia spokesman, some of the owners of the Twitter accounts have been arrested, but no details were given about the risks they face.
Moreover, in recent raids conducted by the religious police force, a large number of Saudis and expats have been arrested because they attended parties where alcohol was served, and were engaged in other prohibited activities, gambling included.
Method used to identify offenders remains unknown
Fighting the bad habits propagated online is not an easy task for law enforcement, considering that many citizens are present on social networks and are therefore exposed to material that is considered illicit in the country.
Pornography has a very different meaning in the country, where even bare arms or legs are considered against the law and can attract a serious penalty.
The methods used by the ethical hackers remained undisclosed, and the techniques employed for compromising the identity of the Twitter account owners promoting smut online could vary from social engineering to simply sending them malicious software.
Back in May 2014, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Interior’s National Information Center announced that hackers would be recruited for the purpose of protecting the country’s network.
“These hackers will undergo training to transform their abilities into productive energy, and some hackers are proficient in hacking websites only and do not have the capability of hacking programmed networks,” said Dr. Zaidan Al-Enezi at the time.