Why does everyone think this article is only talking about Muslim terrorists. It specifically refers to a Nazi sympathizer. Not all terrorists are muslim, and not all Muslims are terrorists. I can't believe the prejudice in what i'm reading. Most muslims are just as good or bad as any christian.

SHellie, Chicago, USA

Surely if they didnt want to draw attention to themselves if they are passing information they would not use child pornagraphy but something far less innocent, something not quite right with this story in my mind

adrian pedley, oldham,

i believe the story but i dont think it has anyhtng to do with hidden messages or the like. many muslim terrorists act more out of rage and confusion at their own sexual abuse and identity. the sexual abuse of children in islam is widespread and documented. when these boys become man they act out.

jamie glazov, NYC,

Don't forget some parts of the islamic world they marry girls as old as 7 to men as young as 80... This makes perfect sense that islamic terror cells use kiddie porn pictures to pass their evil agenda around with.

Miker, NEW YORK, USA

This makes as much sense as to hide some crack in a bag of marihuana.

Savior, Vienna, Austria

This is garbage. The investigation of child pornography is subject to international police cooperation and faces the scrutiny of every law enforcement agency in the world. Why would terrorists use such a means to 'hide' their communications? They would use a completely legal activity.

Stephen, Kent,

To the rest of the world, it seems like everyone in Briton is obsessed with child pornography. Doesn't anyone there have a healthy sex life? You've got to be the most repressed people on the planet. Well maybe not the most, but your working on it.

Bruce Tingey, Monterey, United States

Sounds made up to me

Michael, NY, USA

i find this hard to believe.

to cut a long story short, it's the most stupid thing i've ever heard, yet it's well acknowledged that the threat we face is far from stupid.

lowest form of propaganda i've ever come across yet!

richard, gibralter,

Kevin.... just what I though.
Encryption is best done in plain view..... why hid it in something that police will investigate.

Adrain, Surrey,

Is it me or does this seem like an Orwellian announcement rather clumsily combining the two most despised types of person in order to maximise public emotion?

For once am I less than impressed with a Times article.

Dave C, Belfast,

Reminds me of Capt. James Yee & Guantanamo Bay when CIA cooked up false child pornography charges and later on admitted they were fake. Under no circumstances is anything like this even remotely allowed in Islam, and every single muslim knows this no matter what. All lies ...

kashan, london, UK

Terrorism is the exploitive pornography of violence, so why should we be surprised by the fact that islamists are attracted to sexually exploitive images?

mazaluk, London, UK

Who to believe...who to believe...? Our age of lies, secrets, treason and worse. Always has been, always will. The Darkness of Man.

lionel, ny,

This article is rubbish. If you know any better, Muslims are not allowed to see the hair or detailed figure of a woman's body. If the examples given above are real (which I highly doubt) then something is wrong with the caught people. Also, don't generalize all Muslims in the title. False message

Abdo, Ottawa, Canada

I seem to remember that the man from Barking who sued the police for wrongful arrest and a bullet graze a few years ago was also found with child porn. The charges were dropped and he thousands in compensation and a year in a hotel at our expense.

Mike, Denham,

I dont trust any governement,, not mine or yours, but, its amazing that some of you actially are comparing them to terrorists. Your minds are warped!!!!

Sean, New Yprk, USA

Yeah sure....whatever you say...paint them as black as you can! These claims are undoubted made by the same team that insisted that there's weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq!

george, houston,

If you read the sayings of the founder of this ideology, and look at his behavior (remember his wife, Aisha), then this behavior comes as no surprise. It may not be the smartest strategy for the terrorists to communicate in this way, but they don't strike me as particularly artful or intelligent.

Gary , Lindale, GA, USA

"Islamist terrorist secretly communicate trough childpornograpy."

sounds like:

"Aliens taking over earth by poisoning urinal deodorizer blocks."

I wonder which strategy would be more lame.

Marko, Berlin, Germany

It is totally rubbish, western intelligence and hawkish media links Muslims with every obnoxious thought. This process is alienating even the liberal Muslim and pushing them into the lap of fundamentalists.

Manzoor, Peshawar, Pakistan

I have never in all my born days read a more ridiculous load of drivel.

bill, bristol, uk

I also agree with Kevin. It would be so much easier and safer for them to distribute ordinary images on Flickr for example. T West - you are completely missing the point - it is easy to add encoded data to an image file so that all you or anyone would see is the image.

Andy, London,

So all terrorist are now pedophiles, BS!
We are being manipulated.

edwren, york,

This is the most blatant propaganda piece I have yet to read. It neatly wraps up words 'Muslim', 'terrorist' and 'paedophile' into one bundle. So as well as being extremely insulting to one billion people, it is priming us for the necessity of the 1984 database to come. Smile, you're on CCTV.

Jim, London, UK

I seem to remember the government saying that they had proof the IRA had been involved in child porn. I also recall a newspaper report that said that the police never found porn of any type on Islamic terrorists computers.
I'm not sure I believe this story.

Roger B, Norwich,

Why would any sane terrorist attract attention to himself by encoding traffic into illegal images?
Why not use "hoilday snaps"?

pedro, Stratford,

I don't grasp how child pornography can be classified as "Western decadence." Explain.

Martha, Toronto, Canada

It really isn't surprising that these two things can be linked. They both involve a secretive addictive thrill. The point JW was to use the up to the minute encryption of kiddiporn sites. Jihadis would then assume that if found the cops would assume the crime had been discovered and not look again

Craig, Peterborough, UK

I don't see why the authorities would need an "excuse" to "spy" on paedophiles - I would hope that they are hunted down and prosecuted with at least as much vigor as terrorists. They are after all preying on that portion of society that needs the most protection.

Michael, Newport Beach, US

I wonder why terrorists would use sites which they must know are receiving greater than normal police attention as a vehicle for sending terrorist related communications. Surely, you'd set up a site which looks completely inane, and encrypt your messages on photos on that site?!

Jahangir, London, UK

Are these the same security services who were adamant about WMD's and Saddam's one hour bomb.

And does this mean that all those catholic priests are also terrorists!

naveed Ali, Streatham, UK

#1) Why use child porn when you could, with much less trouble, use something else that nobody will ever be suspicious of? #2) It's quite obvious that "terrorist" group will already have secure communication, so such things won't be necessary. Government needs to stop watching cheesy spy flicks.

John, Colorado Springs, U.S.

Why on earth would anyone use images such as these which will always attract the attention of the authorities? Surely it would be better to use ordinary everyday images which won't attract anyone's attention? Just an excuse to spy on the rest of us IMO

JW, Spalding, England

It is offensive the gov't think we'll swallow this tripe. If GCHQ know terrorists are using child porn for clandestine communication the last thing they'd do is leak it to media. All very convenient, combining the public’s two greatest fears when lobbying for £12bn. They should be ashamed!

Jack Widdup, Guildford, UK

I'm not sure what is harder to believe. That terrorists are stupid enough to hide messages in specifically targetted images or that cynically manipulative government would concoct this story to justify further destruction of our liberty. Given their track record I'm inclined to think the latter.

James, Edinburgh, UK

This Government has shown by the way that it has used anti-terrorism laws to prevent heckling from one of its own labour supporters to the freezing of assets of another country in the case of Iceland. The process is always the same be it weapons of mass destructionor databases. Spin with the media.

Smith, Swindon, UK

The message is hidden in the background noise/grainy bits of an image so regular websites wouldn't know it was there, but they record where the image came from and who's looked at it. It's these links terrorists are trying to avoid being recorded.

quentin, Reading, uk

What proof is there that these pictures contain messages? If they do they can be found. More likely the suspects had the images for other reasons than encryption. Who would hide a message in a way that will guarantee police attention? This is propaganda to justify more government intrusion.

Tony Volpe, Newcastle upo Tyne, UK

The whole "terrorist" thing is just being shown up for what it is-tell the sheeple something and they'll believe it. Kevin is bang on. What's next-ETs/Terror link? Or maybe the "intelligence" services should be listening in on The Whales who have been subjected to genocide.Or the trees.....

pete, wolverhampton, uk

Wouldn't be less obvious to use public picture sharing sites like flickr, smugmug ?

Kenny, London, UK

Whats the one subject matter to get people to 'agree' to a big brother computer system. oh yes, this government is not stupid. Devious, dodgy and down right untrustable, but not stupid.

Arthur, Newcastle,

Inspect ALL Internet traffic? I don't see how that is possible.

C'mon, if you're not up to anything illegal, what's the problem? I'm sure the Government is going to be interested in my emails detailing the utter mediocrity of my everyday life.

Aren't we getting a little paranoid?

Darren Ward, Manchester, UK

Better have a big database then.

Ubi, Edinburgh, UK

They would use the child porn network system, in the hope that the police would not guess in a million years that encoded messages of terrorism would be sent that way. It was the Italian Police that discovered it. They are not PC bound like this silly country is.

Andrew Balmbra, NEWCASTLE ON TYNE, ENGLAND

I agree with Dan, furthermore if the police have found evidence of terrorist communication using these websites then surely that will speed up the process of getting these people to trial, thus possibly reducing the apparent need for 42 days detention...?

Jon, London,

also, surely if these people can be found guilty of visiting these sites, at least they will be imprisoned even if we can't find solid proof that they have a terrorist plan up their sleeves... that is surely a good thing!

Jon, London,

Nice comment Gibo, probably true. However any propaganda war against the root of essentially all modern issues is surely a good thing?

Dan, Bournemouth,

Interesting - at least this throwws up the possibility if you can't get these people under the weak terror laws in the UK could use the child pornagraphy laws to put them away and safeguard society. Very Al Capone.

John, London,

Isn't it a bit crazy for these terror groups to even think of using something so heavily policed as child porn to pass messages?
I suspect that there is a strong element of just boosting investigaton into child porn - totally needlessly as those involved in this porn should be locked up for life.

PB, Plymouth, UK

Sounds like a made up spy story in the propaganda war against Islam?

gibo, Sydney, Australia

this is all part of the softening up to get us to let them inspect all internet traffic... all in the name of protecting us from terrorists and kiddie porn...

paul cooke, gloucester,

I agree, Kevin. I can hardly believe this. It's like they WANT to be caught, and give the government and media a field day by linking the two mostest baddest ever things, ever, in one big fat super-crime.

Tsema, Ox, UK

This is nothing new.It's been known for over10 yrs that people use "steg" for this sort of thing.It used to be credit card scammers-now it's "terrorists".Fact is,the Big Brother database will do nothing to stop covert comms-and everything to remove basic civil rights from the law abiding majority.

mark, brussels (uk xpat), belgium

Kevin - my guess is porn networks will allow you to send whatever you want through them, including encrypted messages. But if you sent a wedding photo through them, that would stick out like sore thumb. And if you try sending encrypted photos through google or facebook it probably wouldn't let you.

T West, Budleigh Salterton, UK

Yeah Right! Terrorist are really dumb embedding messages in pictures that always capture the police's attention instead of pictures of say a wedding which would pass without comment. And we are dumber if we believe it.

Kevin, Workington, UK