Federal investigators have charged a US-based college student for trying to help ISIS spread the terrorist group's propaganda over social media.

On Thursday, the Justice Department announced it had arrested 20-year-old Thomas Osadzinski of Chicago, Illinois for creating a computer program that was devoted to copying official ISIS propaganda and re-posting it.

Allegedly, his computer script relied on automated bots saving the propaganda ISIS had posted on social media before spreading it elsewhere. The affected social media platform was not named, but the criminal complaint against Osadzinski suggests he was targeting Facebook.

The major social media platforms already take down posts from ISIS with the help of computer algorithms that can recognize the content. But according to investigators, Osadzinski's program still posed a threat because it could automate the transferring of video-based ISIS propaganda from one platform to another, when currently it has to be done manually.

The same program was also capable of re-posting the propaganda in thousands of social media messages per minute, despite anti-spam safeguards in place.

According to the complaint, Osadzinski's goal was to share the computer program with ISIS supporters and pro-ISIS media organizations. However, he ended up divulging the plans to undercover federal investigators, starting with an agent in June 2018 who had infiltrated a pro-ISIS online chatroom.

Osadzinski was initially translating ISIS propaganda videos from Arabic to English. But in March, he told one of the undercover agents he was developing a custom Gentoo Linux OS for ISIS supporters capable of running on any computer. The same OS would also be spy-proof from "crusader intelligence agencies" Osadzinski allegedly told one of the undercover agents.

In August, Osadzinski then disclosed he was building the computer program to preserve and spread the ISIS propaganda over social media. At the time, he had already collected and indexed his own trove of official ISIS media releases that eventually contained over 700GB of material.

Osadzinski eventually sent a document to the undercover federal officers describing in detail how his computer program worked. It was apparently capable of copying ISIS videos and re-posting them to another channel within minutes.

"This process sorted and categorized large volumes of official ISIS media content according to specified criteria," the complaint alleges. In addition, the program also allowed users to view videos based by on resolution. "Thus, people with slower internet connections could find and view lower resolution (smaller file size) videos," the complaint adds.

To verify his involvement, federal investigators also point to a secret informant who met Osadzinski in person, and was shown the computer program in action. Following his arrest, Osadzinski was brought before a judge, and then ordered to be held without bond. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison. According to a LinkedIn page, Osadzinski appears to be enrolled at DePaul University in Chicago, and briefly worked at the security firm Cylance as a software tester. However, Cylance says it has no record of Osadzinski ever working at the company as an employee or contractor.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated with comment from Cylance.

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