Re: CRIME FW: Militants wire Web with links to jihad

From: Michael Smith (codeyeti@private)
Date: Fri Jul 12 2002 - 06:19:05 PDT

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    It doesn't make sense to me.  If you're going to
    have secrets, why keep them
    out in the open?
    
    It's like this:
    
    Alice wants to know how to send money to buy
    explosives for Bob.
    Bob puts it on his website where everybody in the
    world can see it.
    Alice gets the information.
    Greg, the government, can see everything too.
    Bob changes the location of the webpage, telling
    all the members where the new
    location is.
    Greg goes to the new site because he's a member too.
    Bob doesn't really accomplish anything because
    Greg is always watching what he
    does, and Alice's friend Charlie can't find out
    where to send money because the
    web page is always changing locations and he has a
    crappy dialup connection and
    only checks his email once a week.
    
    Odds are they keep getting kicked off service
    providers because they're not
    very popular.  It's like warez sites... they keep
    moving around too.
    
    There are better ways of keeping secrets than web
    pages.  The whole idea behind
    the web is that you share information with people.
     In fact, you have to try to
    keep people out of the private parts of your web site.
    
    I just don't get it, I guess.  It all sounds
    reactionary to me.  Sure, people
    are going to put up sites talking about how they
    are feeling oppressed by the
    system because of their race.  Sure they are going
    to have anti-american
    rhetoric.  Sure they are going to call on
    everybody in their "movement" to make
    their own site.  Traditionally, intelligence
    analysts overestimate what the
    intent and popularity of stuff like this is.  It's
    because their job is to
    never underestimate anything.
    
    But planning any sort of military attack through a
    web site, and you've got to
    be kidding yourself.  Encrypted mail would be a
    better method.  Some sort of
    VPN would be a solution.  But there is no
    substitute for getting together in
    one room and working out the details.
    
    --Mike
    
    "Searl, Ken" wrote:
    
    > > Militants wire Web with links to jihad
    > >
    > > By Jack Kelley, USA TODAY
    > >
    > > ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - One Web site urges Muslims to travel to Pakistan to
    > > "slaughter American soldiers." Another solicits donations to buy dynamite
    > > to "blow up Israeli Jews." A third shows new videotape of Osama bin Laden
    > > and promises film clips of American casualties in Afghanistan. As the
    > > United States and its allies hunt them in caves, mountains and jungles,
    > > al-Qaeda, Hamas and dozens of other militant Muslim groups are
    > > increasingly turning to the Internet to carry on their jihad, or holy war,
    > > against the West, U.S. law enforcement officials and experts say. It has
    > > become one of al-Qaeda's primary means of communication, they say. The
    > > groups use their Web sites to plan attacks, recruit members and solicit
    > > donations with little or no chance of being apprehended by the FBI or
    > > other law enforcement agencies, officials say.
    
    --
    "Ask a Soviet engineer to design a pair of shoes
    and he'll come up with
    something that looks like the boxes that the shoes
    came in; ask him to make
    something that will massacre Germans, and he turns
    into Thomas *Fscking*
    Edison."  --Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
    



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