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Passive E-Mail Monitoring Leads To Arrest
www.2advanced.net writes "The world's first arrest resulting from passive monitoring of electronic communications is being reported by Globe Technology. In the article, sources reveal that 'an e-mail message intercepted by NSA spies precipitated a massive investigation by intelligence officials in several countries that culminated in the arrest of nine men in Britain and one in suburban Orleans, Ont. -- 24-year-old software developer Mohammed Momin Khawaja, who has since been charged with facilitating a terrorist act and being part of a terrorist group.'"
Though it really surprises me that the NSA would actually take responsibility for passing along tips.
Generally they just pass stuff to the other three letter organizations and they take it from there.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
It seems like YRO, I mean, they were monitoring his email, they probably are monitoring ours!
Yeah right, like any terrorists would use unencrypted email.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
That the NSA can just listen in to any/all communications like that. Makes me wonder if they're listening to me right now.
MABASPLOOM!
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sig: sauer
Well, I've probably got a ton of fans at the NSA due to discussion of privacy issues, security, and how to design systems that disallow monitoring that I've send through AIM/ICQ/mailing lists and other non-secured messaging systems.
Seriously, I'd say that it's a pretty reasonable bet that AIM/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo are routinely monitored. They're easy to data-mine (heck, the commercial data from that *alone* is phenomenal -- if people hear on a show that "Debora Mullins and Sandra Walker will be possibly starring in 'Shredded Metal 2', and there's a mass of messages saying "Debora Mullins sucks", that'd be awfully useful to the production company.
As for the NSA/CIA/FBI, messaging services are frequently used, easy to log and data-mine (no speech recognition necessary) systems that provide no end-to-end encryption that pass through a single point -- in the United States.
Jabber is the only reasonably well-designed IM system I've seen, and nobody *uses* Jabber, sadly enough.
May we never see th
I'm all for catching "terrorists", but I agree...scary.
"'Foreign traffic that comes through the U.S. is subject to U.S. laws, and the NSA has a perfect right to monitor all Internet traffic,' said Mr. Farber, who has also been a technical adviser to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission."
I've never been under the illusion that internet traffic was private, but could someone tell me what law give them this power? I'm not being sarcastic here, I'd really like the information.
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The quoted article seems kinda wierd to me.
The article starts off with a diabolically, highlighting the boast of a mysterious hacker who works as NSA. No names are quoted. The whole thing is given a hollywood-esque charm (the hacker known only as "Mudhen" (mud hen? duh!), a charming pseudonym for NSA - Puzzle Palace).
After adding sufficient soundbites to attract reader's attention, besides making one thing is it one of those devious secrets about NSA, it suddenly changes tone and highlights the achievement of NSA "spies". Charming. Other gems:
"army of cryptographers, chaos theorists"
"that may have pulled in the first piece of evidence"
"massive investigation in several countries "
And then finally a quick rundown on TCP/IP.
One could almost mistake it for communistic propaganda, if only it hailed the fatherland (or the motherland) as well...
ps: don't forget, there are no facts or figures mentioned anywhere in it well.
http://efil.blogspot.com/
There is no need to fear evil Canadians. There is a very significant need to fear apathetic Canadians.
Our politicians still don't think we have a terrorist problem. Our politicians think the Americans are the cause of all their terrorist problems. Our politicians think that if the Americans would just be nice to everyone all the time, everything would be just fine.
So, while we raise taxes for 'anti-terrorism' the money actually goes into a big pot and is spent on anything but solutions that the government finds unnecessary.
I'd ask anyone outside our borders who actually cares to forgive the average Canadian - we currently don't have a viable center or right-of-center party for whom to vote. Ostriches on the left, and book-burning, bible-thumping fanatics on the right.
In the meantime, the US shouldn't trust any person or vehicle coming across their northern border.
Right...we'd rather have it the other way around. Don't snoop, don't find bad crap like this going on, don't stop them before it happens... then when it does (because it will) have independent and congressional inquiries to determine blame - and ask "Why didn't you know about this beforehand?"
So this is the first thing we need. You want privacy? I want security more...
NSA is not the enemy - they are protectors. A bunch of dedicated professionals, even IF some of them need to get out into the sun more often...
Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code...
So when they start caring about something you are doing then you will give a shit, but it will be too late.
They came for the blahs, but I'm not a blah so I did nothing.
They came for the foos, but I'm not a foo so I said nothing.
Then they came for me, and no one was left to do anything.
Or something along those lines.
So yeah, terrorists today, guys named Jason Straight tomorrow.
You've been warned.
Apathetic Canadians are no worse than apathetic US Citizens. US politicians have no problem with terrorists, as it only creates more jobs (defense spending == jobs). More jobs means less to complain about, and (finally) less to complain about leads to apathetic citizens. The US voting system allows far more control and granularity on whom we put in office, and frankly I think US citizens (in general) are far less likely to pay attention to important issues and vote along issue lines.
Already the US presidential race is about taxes. What makes taxes more important than international policy? And if someone starts talking about international policy, someone else will start bringing up the abortion debate again. (( Note Ralph Nader, while not officially running, is trying to talk about international policy, but is doing it in such a confrontational way, that he is easily marginalized as a zealot. )).How are Canadian polititicans different? Less population to try to lull into a sense of contentment / less active military force in countries where people feel they need to retaliate? Basically the same issues on a slightly smaller scale, with a higher per-person tax base. Oh, yeah, and they have to know two languages.
I feel for you, but your problems are not unique - after all, you are in North America, too.
I'm Allen Zadr, and I approved this messageKinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
My guess is that encrypting your email makes it easier for the NSA -- only a tiny fraction of email traffic is encrypted. Outside of the tinfoil hat community, very, very few people bother to secure their email, so the simple act of sending an encrypted message (which can be spotted due to the low information content of cyphertext, or due to specific comments in the message header) probably flags you for attention.
And if that message is routed from an IP address in England to a cybercafe in Pakistan then so much the better. And if mail from the same address was sent to a known bad-guy last week then better still -- and before you know it, your door gets kicked in and several burly men are asking you questions about the half-tonne of fertilizer you just purchased.
It's convenient that the first instance of e-mail "bugging" resulting in action is against a terrorist. Right now, for the most part, the Average American (tm) is totally commited to giving up freedom for security (which conjures up the quote about said person deserving neither). Basically, since it stopped a terrorist, it completely validated this breach of privacy. I'm pretty sure that new initiatives like Carnivore will be openly embraced by said Average American (tm). The damage the terrorists have done is far beyond the deaths of Americans.
Tricksy hobbitses tries to takes away our privacies! Must protect the precious...
I do not know if the guy is guilty or not. A trial will tell us, in due time.
...etc. all these are misused terms in these confusing times.
However, the media coverage of the whole thing sucks.
His father, Mahboob A. Khawaja, has been detained in Saudi Arabia, where he is a professor at some university. The media reports that the father wrote articles critical of the West's meddling with the Muslim World's affairs. He wrote a book called Muslims and the West.
How is that relevant to anything? Is it an attempt to tie genuine legitimate criticism to terrorism somehow?
I did some searching on the father, and found quite a few articles, most of it critical to the Arab rulers than anything else. Seems he places blame where it belongs, whether in the West or in the Arab world.
This reminds me of the terms "terrorism", "anti-Americanism",
This whole thing about "guilt by association" got to stop.
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I'm not sure which part is worse, email monitoring (sure, they SAY it's passive...) or the terrorist activities.
You're not sure? I am. Terrorism is worse than reading someone else's email.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
1.) expect to be evesdropped on for EVERYTHING that is not encrypted, wether you're IN the US or outside of it. Use STRONG encryption whereever possible.
2.) expect weak encryption to be easily broken--it's prettymuch a given that the NSA has hardware *specifically designed* to break or brute force crypto. they employ many of the worlds greatest mathmatic savants out there, do not underestimate their capabilities.
3.) All your base ae belong to U.S.
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
It's all well and good when the bad guys get caught...right up until the definition of "bad guys" gets changed. Yesterday there was an article about the DOJ labeling pornographers as "bad guys." There's no logical end. What's to stop someone being labeled as a bad guy for not going to church, or not supporting the government, or not going along with whatever intrusion-of-the-day on your privacy? It's not that big of a change from where we are now.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Actually, if you look at the Palestinian suicide bombers a lot of them are well-educated and middle class (by Palestinian standards). Some were not even particularly religious. In fact I believe some of them were even university students studying subjects like law. The 9/11 suicide bombers - quite a few of them were well educated and came from relatively rich families. Despite the hatred they nutured for the West they spent years studying in Western universities, getting Western friends and even girlfriends. This takes as much intelligence as any good spy in a foreign country. To hide your true self, blend in, become one of the enemy. They even learnt how to fly planes. A suicide bomber has to be smart to succeed. They have to be someone who can act on their own. Once they are set loose they are on their own. They have to negotiate their way to the target. They have to be able to act well enough to blend in to the crowd to do the maximum damage. If something goes wrong they have to negotiate the obstacles by themselves with no one to help them. Of course there is a lot of psychological preparation as well (brainwashing) but that's nowhere near the same thing as stupidity.
Of course there are stupid ones as well but that's true for everything.
- Suspected terrorist, who's been watched by UK anti-terrorists for months, buys hundreds of kilograms of Ammonium Nitrate
- Task force raids suspect's home
- Suspect's computer found on premises
- Task force opens Outlook, looks in Inbox, Sent Items
- Incriminating email to or from Mohammed_Momin_Khawaja@?????.ca discovered.
Sounds to me like someone is trying to spin this as justification for email surveilance.All I hear is "planning a terrorist act".
These days, planning a street party can be a 'terrorist act'. Handing out pamphlets in Washington, despicting GWB as a sheep, explaining why he's such a nut, could be a terrorist act.
Mooning the traffic on an interstate could be a terrorist act.
Anybody know?
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Sad that you don't understand what it really means. What you are doing is giving extraordinary powers to a government whose motives in ten or twenty years time are completely unknown to you. Just think about that for a while. Or are you really naive enough to believe that the US government not only currently has only pure motives, but always will, for hundreds of years to come, long after you've already given them the powers to prevent you from doing against their interests? You'd have to be clueless about the history of man's activities on this planet to really believe that is a good idea.
"The" economy now measures corporate profit more than citizen welfare. The numbers have been cooked so mightily for so long, that only the numbers which make those politicians in power look good are counted. For a simple example, "unemployment" does not count those who have stopped looking for work, which of course means all the spongers, nor the 1M military staff, who produce very little (and destroy a lot), and many other discounted people who are not employed. Of course, jobs are essential to citizens' welfare, but they're only indirectly linked to the economy, filtered through the crooked government accounting.
"The ship of the Sun is steered by the Grateful Dead."
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make install -not war
Boy, is that way off-base.
Land Mines have a military use. Did you forget that? Until there is a reliable method for smart mine or other area suppresion weapon like FireStorm, they are the most effective way to prevent an adversary from moving across land.
The idea that politicians want to keep land mines to ensure jobs is ridiculous. Upon what facts do you base that statement? Do you have any idea how few people are actually employed making them?
Regarding the Kyoto treaty, have you ever read it? American factories were to be restricted with regard to their emissions yet Chinese, Indian and Eastern European factories were not. When was the last time you visited an industrial complex in one of those areas? They're horrible with all kinds of unfiltered liquid and gaseous emissions. How long have you been reading Slashdot? Haven't you ever seen the articles about disassembly of circuit boards in China?
Kyoto hid under the cloak of global warming which is really just a political thing. Sure, people can affect the environment to some extent but thinking we are destroying the environment is not only scientifically invalid, it's almost unspeakably arrogant and naive. We live in the middle of a planet-sized filter which recycles virtually everything within itself. We can't predict the weather 5 days in advance yet global warming zealots claim to understand environmental cycles?!?! Riiiight.
The Kyoto accord was NOT ratified by the non-U.S. countries who tried to get the U.S. to commit to follow it. Would American companies have been forced to shut down or move operations overseas? Yes. Think, where would they have moved manufacturing? Probably to countries which were exempted from the accord. How, exactly, would moving production from the U.S. to areas which were to be exempt from environmental limitations contribute to a cleaner environment?
The Kyoto accord was an attempt to hobble American industry by countries which are not able to match the U.S. level of productivity because of their political environments.
As much as possible, producers of any product or service want to be as physically close to their customers as possible. Transportation and time differences cost money, real money.
Your comments were pure socialist rhetoric. THey have no basis in the reality of our physical world which is subject to the law of diminishing returns.