DUBAI: Telecom operator Mobily denied claims by a software engineer that the company had asked him to build surveillance tools to intercept customers’ messages on Twitter and other services.

Matthew Rosenfield, who uses the pseudonym Moxie Marlinspike, published e-mails on his blog purporting to be from Mobily which included a request for help in intercepting traffic over applications such as Twitter, Whatsapp, Viber and Line.

Marlinspike said the company wanted to be able to monitor or block mobile data on these applications and that Mobily had provided him with design documents to produce computer code — known as SSL certificates — that the company could use for interception.

Marlinspike said on the blog he declined to help.

Mobily, formally known as Etihad Etisalat and an affiliate of the United Arab Emirates company Etisalat, said the contents of the blog post, which have whipped up a storm of comments on social media, were false.

“Mobily or its employees never communicated with the author of this blog,” the company said. “Mobily communicates with information security companies only based on legal and lawful requirements. We never communicate with hackers. Moreover, it is not our job to spy on customers.”

Marlinspike is the co-founder of Whisper Systems, a company that makes software to improve security and privacy for smartphones and other mobile devices and which was acquired by Twitter in 2011.

In an e-mail to Reuters, Marlinspike said he thought Mobily contacted him because of his expertise in SSL certificates.

He declined to provide copies of the e-mails purported to be from Mobily. His blog states he received e-mails from Yasser D. Alruhaily, Executive Manager of the Network & Information Security Department at Mobily.

A Yasser Alruhaily is listed on social networking website Yatedo with a similar job title.