I assume it's inaccurate wording by the BBC. That he was connected to the Wi-Fi when he sent the message. "Picked up" may not mean intercepted.
What is highly likely is that Western agencies are scanning messages for threatening statements and using algorithms to rank the likelihood of something being said as a joke or as a true sentiment.
There may be things we don't know. Perhaps there were legitimate threats to planes out of that airport and this was a terrible coincidence.
In any case the fact remains that the government would not have been able to see his message and would not have put him through this ordeal if he and his friends were using end to end encryption.
Computing power and algorithms are getting effective enough to scan the world's data in real time. The only way to protect yourself is to stay invisible.
Comments
I assume it's inaccurate wording by the BBC. That he was connected to the Wi-Fi when he sent the message. "Picked up" may not mean intercepted.
What is highly likely is that Western agencies are scanning messages for threatening statements and using algorithms to rank the likelihood of something being said as a joke or as a true sentiment.
There may be things we don't know. Perhaps there were legitimate threats to planes out of that airport and this was a terrible coincidence.
In any case the fact remains that the government would not have been able to see his message and would not have put him through this ordeal if he and his friends were using end to end encryption.
Computing power and algorithms are getting effective enough to scan the world's data in real time. The only way to protect yourself is to stay invisible.