Traveling Cyclists have been killed by ISIS in Tajikistan

Following is a summary of an article in The Australian

Traveling cyclists from the US and and Europe were killed and others were injured when they were attacked by ISIS militants in Tajikistan, where they were rammed by a car and then attacked by a gang armed with guns and knives.  Four people were killed and three others were injured.

Jay Austin with Lauren Geoghegan, Markus Hummel with Marie-Claire Diemand.
Tajikistan is northeast of Afghanistan.

Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, who were killed in the attack, were a couple from the US who were on a trek bicycling around the world that they were documenting on their blog SimplyCycling.org.  Jay Austin was a “tiny house” aficionado who was featured in a 2015 Washington Post article as well as being featured in an online documentary.

Rene Wokke, a psychologist from the Netherlands, was killed, and his partner Kim Postma, a hospital administrator, was also injured in the attack.  Wokke was maintaining a blog of their journey as well.

Also Swiss cyclist Markus Hummel, who was killed, kept a blog of his journey with another Swiss national, Marie-Claire Diemand, who was injured in the attack.

The “Stingray” device allows all cell phone conversations to be listened to in an area

[Article updated December 7, 2021]

In this video, John McAfee explains how anyone with a device called a “Stingray” can listen to all cell phone calls that are made within a quarter of a mile of where the device is located.

I posted this video a few years ago, but YouTube took it down.  I’m very concerned about talking on cell phones, and it hated it when I had to enter information such as account numbers on the keypad.  Supposedly your conversations cannot be listened to using that device if you are using an encrypted VOIP app on your phone, however.  Such an app can also allow you to converse over your home internet connection rather than over the air as well.

(Note that John McAfee was recently killed in prison after he was arrested on tax evasion charges.)