Interesting article about the expiration date of Saudi-binladin-group.com.
Although the site may be down, Google caches information from sites, and
many pages from the site are available through Google. Enter
"site:www.saudi-binladin-group.com arab" and you get many hits back. Click
on "Cached" for an item, and you can see the pages. Interestingly, Google
doesn't cache the pictures.
I've tried various keywords, and all that show up are pretty innocuous,
business-oriented pages. I am not equipped to look for encoded messages
(steganography). I would think the expiration date was a coincidence, except
for the fact that the domain name was not renewed. Renewal is generally done
well in advance of the expiration date, so lack of renewal probably has
little to do with wanting to avoid publicity due to the 9/11 attacks.
The business of the expiration date being "intentional" seems like a red
herring. You sign up for a domain for one year, and it automatically will
expire on the date of registration plus one year. So what "Antonette" (with
the truly suspicious employee ID of 001) said seems spurious.
Mike Ellsworth
Stratvantage Consulting, LLC
8273 Westwood Hills Curve
St. Louis Park, MN 55426
952-525-1584
mellsworth@private
www.stratvantage.com
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Ben Franklin, ~1784
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-crime@/var/spool/majordomo/lists/crime
[mailto:owner-crime@/var/spool/majordomo/lists/crime]On Behalf Of Tao, Greg
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2001 3:21 PM
To: 'crime@private'
Subject: Web site cert used as a countdown timer to 9/11 attacks?
Check out the story below. I looked into the Verisign registration info,
and it appears to confirm the details in the story.
Registrant:
Saudi Binladin Group (SAUDI-BINLADIN-GROUP2-DOM)
Prince Abdullah Street
Jeddah, 21492
SA
Domain Name: SAUDI-BINLADIN-GROUP.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Billing Contact:
Lumsden, Philip (PLP239) philip@private
Arq Limited
The Old Post Office
George Street
Bath, BA1 2EB
UK
01224 312 391
Record last updated on 11-Sep-2000.
Record expires on 11-Sep-2001.
Record created on 11-Sep-2000.
Database last updated on 19-Oct-2001 06:34:00 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS0-S.DNS.PIPEX.NET 158.43.129.83
NS1-S.DNS.PIPEX.NET 158.43.193.83
Perhaps another example of the ancient art of steganography...
Greg
from http://citypaper.net/articles/101801/sl.howcol.shtml
---------- BEGIN STORY ----------
October 18-25, 2001
pretzel logic
Date with Destiny?
by Howard Altman
It is a matter of public record that the bin Laden family has vociferously
disavowed their wayward 17th child. And who could blame them?
No mere wanton wastrel, the world's most wanted man has brought great shame
upon this wealthy family. Even worse than shame, though, Osama's actions
have endangered the clan's coffers.
So it is not surprising that the bin Ladens have cut ties to "the evildoer,"
as George Dubya likes to refer to him.
Or did they?
A web domain registered to the Saudi Binladin Group (the megabucks
corporation uses the alternate spelling of the family name) raises questions
about what role, if any, the family has played in the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.
The domain was registered on Sept. 11, 2000, with a preset expiration date
of Sept. 11, 2001, according to a technician with VeriSign, an Internet
domain registry service formerly known as Network Solutions.
Coincidence?
Or was this website set up to start the countdown on the most devastating
attack in U.S. history?
Like a lot of information that has been pouring in to me since shortly
before 9 a.m. Sept. 11, the tidbit about www.saudi-binladin-group.com was
amazingly tantalizing.
Unlike a lot of the tidbits, however, this morsel, delivered last week by an
anonymous source I will refer to as Deep Spore, has a paper trail attached
to it.
The paper trail began with a web search of the Binladin Group that revealed
the aforementioned website. A check of that site showed that it no longer
existed. A quick "whois" check on VeriSign's website - which lists who set
up a particular site and when - showed that, unlike Binladin-related sites
that were taken down right after the attacks on New York and Washington,
saudi-binladin-group.com expired on the day of the attacks.
This was no accident, according to a VeriSign technician in Mountainview,
Calif.
"This was timed so it would expire on that date," says the technician, who
identified herself only by her first name, Antonette, and by her employee
number, 001. Antonette also verified that the information listed in the
whois search was accurate and not tampered with by an outside party.
Antonette added that VeriSign had already been contacted by law enforcement
about other attack-related domain names the company had registered.
"I had a call from the L.A. police," she said. "He was also asking about a
domain name that expired on Sept. 11. I can't remember the name of it, but
it had something to do with the WTC."
The Binladin website was created by a company called Arq Limited, a U.K. web
design firm. The administrative, technical and billing contact listed on the
whois search is a man named Philip Lumsden.
After several calls to the U.K., I learned that Arq Limited went out of
business, replaced by a company called Active 8 Solutions, which shares the
same Bath, England, mailing address and a telephone number that is only one
digit off from Arq Limited's old number.
I learned one more interesting thing.
"Mr. Lumsden left a week ago," said a man who answered the phone at Active 8
Solutions. "I am not aware of why he left."
The man, who would not give his name, added that he had "no clue" about the
saudi-binladin-group.com website.
A half-dozen odd calls Tuesday, October 15, to the Saudi Binladin Group's
headquarters in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, turned up little other than assurances
that if I called back in 20 minutes or a half-hour, then somebody would be
able to give me some information about the website.
Each time I called, I explained that I wanted to ask somebody at the company
why the website expired on Sept. 11, 2001, a rather significant date in
world history. Each time I was told to call back until, finally, I spoke
with someone who could answer my questions.
But not for long.
"You can check with VeriSign," said a man who did not identify himself.
"VeriSign has all the details."
The man then asked me to hold on because he had to take another call. Then I
was disconnected. I called back, only to be disconnected again. When I
called back a third time, another man answering the phone asked if I could
send an e-mail listing my questions.
"It is already after 6 p.m. here," said the man. "Nobody is in anymore."
The next day, I called again and again was told to call back later. By
deadline, neither of the two emails I sent seeking comment were answered.
If the attackers did use this website, the FBI, which is tracking down
thousands and thousands of leads, may be interested.
"I am not aware of [the website], and I do not know whether the FBI is aware
of it, but I can't speak for the entire FBI," said Joe Valiquette, spokesman
for the FBI's New York office. "Generally speaking, we would be interested
in something like that."
---------- END STORY ----------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun May 26 2002 - 11:28:26 PDT