Redhack announces election software as its next target

Nisan Su Aras ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

With regard to the upcoming elections, Redhack will 'take the necessary steps to ensure a fair election,' a group representative told the Hürriyet Daily News. DHA photo

Redhack, the highly secretive hacker organization that has launched numerous cyber-attacks against official Turkish institutions, has identified the Computer Supported Central Voter Registry System (SEÇSİS), the official computer software program used in elections, as its next big target.

The group says it will “take the necessary steps to ensure a fair election,” a Redhack representative told the Hürriyet Daily News.

“There are elections which will appear before us, and we have decided to take the necessary steps at least to have a fair election,” the representative said.

“In the name of having a fair election and supervising this freak system called SEÇSİS, we have announced and will continue to announce who must be given the shoulder through social media, by giving support to IT experts and civil initiatives,” he added.

However, Redhack stressed that it would not be intervening in SEÇSİS in terms of altering the election results, as this would only play into the government’s hand. “We care more about supporting those who are experts on IT, digital information platforms and electronic infrastructure throughout the election process,” the group added.

Redhack is composed of 12 core members, and decides on which online targets to attack based on its ideology, which it defines as “Marxist/Leninist.”

“Our sole criterion is to select the institutions that cause events that hurt the public conscience; in other words, the institutions and capital groups that determine the oppressing attitude of the current system. Attaining the information, sharing this information and questioning the system by taking the public good into account are decisive in target selection,” the representative explained to the HDN.

‘Private Kalı did not leak Reyhanlı documents’

Redhack also denied any affiliation with Private Utku Kalı, who is currently being tried on terror charges for leaking intelligence documents on the Reyhanlı attack, in which 53 people were killed in Hatay province in late May. Redhack published these sensational whistle-blowing documents, indicating that a possible attack by al-Nusra was notified to the authorities in advance, but was not averted.

“We are not acquainted with Utku, he has never had any connection or contact with us,” Redhack said, while arguing that he was declared a “scapegoat.”

“Utku was rendered dependent on medical support due to heavy pressure, naked torture, and the inability to give a meaning [for the leaks] because of his innocence,” it added.

Classified info flows after Gezi

Redhack increasingly came under the spotlight during the recent Gezi protests, and confirmed to the HDN that there had been a significant increase in information and documents sent to them after the Gezi incidents started.

“Without a doubt, almost every day tens of people get into contact saying they wish there was something they could do,” Redhack said.

Redhack had previously not accepted information from outside the organization, but it had a change of heart after seeing the “manipulations of the media, the pressure on media laborers and disinformation tools.”

It described its position during the Gezi protests as “information spreading.” “We ensured that the messages of other components could spread to a wider mass. All this caused us to become quite prominent,” it said.

The group has become more well known on an international level too, after Jeremy Hammond, a hacker/activist controversially imprisoned for publicizing the internal files of private spying agency Stratfor through Wikileaks, sent a letter to them saying “I like your attitude, brothers. I love you. Please keep on, sail strong.”

Redhack was most notably involved in cyber-attacks against the websites of the Finance and Interior Ministries, the Religious Affairs Directorate and, most recently, that of the police department. It has also published e-mail exchanges between public and business figures, Reyhanlı intelligence files, and the telephone numbers of deputies and chiefs of police.