Al-Qaeda Hacker Caught

anaesthetica writes "The Washington Post is carrying a story on a young man suspected to be the al-Qaeda hacker 'Irhabi 007'. From the article: 'Celebrated for his computer expertise, Irhabi 007 had propelled the jihadists into a 21st-century offensive through his ability to covertly and securely disseminate manuals of weaponry, videos of insurgent feats such as beheadings and other inflammatory material... The Internet has presented investigators with an extraordinary challenge. But our future security is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world.'"

Comments

Wonderful.

[ImaNihilist]

Now we have to worry about people driving car bombs into ISPs. It's like DDoS attacks, evolved.

Re:Wonderful.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

That a needless explanation of a mildly funny joke, and a brutally obvious one at that, itself gets modified as funny by other people who didn't get the original joke, tells you all you need to know about humanity.

Re:Wonderful.

[ichigo 2.0]

That a comment lamenting over the state of mankind because of a perceived lack of sense of humor in one individual Slashdot moderator hasn't been modded up as insightful gives me newfound faith in humanity.

Re:Wonderful.

[Anonymous Coward]

That a comment expressing an individual's faith in humanity based on a questionable act of slashdot-modding is given an extra point, itself says a lot about humanity.

Re:Wonderful.

[Thing 1]

Good luck reading anything into humanity's motives by watching Slashdot moderators' actions, or the responses that we Slashbots have... ;-)

Re:Wonderful.

[tinkertim]

I've worked for ISP's, and people threaten to do that, and worse on a daily basis. Interrupting people's poon surfing to reboot a DNS server really, *really* ticks 'em off !

Re:Wonderful.

[Wanker]

That's you? You bastard!

Gimme my poon!

Re:Wonderful.

[yerfatma]

What kind of a name is "Poon", anyway?

Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[Nomihn0]

As he provided seemingly limitless space captured from vulnerable servers throughout the Internet, Irhabi was celebrated by his online followers [From TFA]

That's fascinating and all, but where is the cyber-terrorism we are quivering over? When is it going to be an offensive move rather than mere proselytizing?

Irhabi 007

[Anonymous Coward]

Goat's milk. Shaken, not stirred.

Re:Irhabi 007

[OutOfMyTree]

Oh, come on, moderators, that goat's milk joke is funny...

And it makes a legitimate point that has been ignored in other posts -- calling himself 007 indicates interesting things about his view of himself.

Re:Irhabi 007

[LouisZepher]

Yes, but that doesn't mean he sees himself as some super-cool secrent agent. If you look at "007" right, sorta resembles an Asian-style emoticon of a very surprised looking person waving a flag of surrender...

Re:Irhabi 007

[From A Far Away Land]

I was thinking the same thing. What kind of self respecting anti-westerner would use a James Bond Hollywood name as their online moniker.

Re:Irhabi 007

[UserGoogol]

A flag of surrender... or a scythe!?

Re:Irhabi 007

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood? Are you sure?

your rights online

[pintomp3]

this should be filed under your rights online, since that is what will be disappearing soon. the terrorists are on the interwebs now. start up the survillence at the ISP level. if we happen to catch a people downloading music and movies, doubleplus good. osama is laughing his ass off watching us burn up our own constitution.

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should anyone "loose" their moderator privileges for modding up truth?

Re:your rights online

[pintomp3]

i guess your not concerned about online privacy, AC. btw, al-queda didn't have any influence in iraq til we showed up there.

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the Bush administration is (laughing its arse off). The accumulation of evidence of some level of conspiracy (cover-up ---> planning) in 9/11 is quite compelling by now. Summary from The New Pearl Harbour by David Ray Griffin (I suggest you read the book if you want to assess the evidence properly):

1. Evidence that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were already planned for geopolitical reasons, so that 9/11 provided not the reason for the wars but merely the pretext.

2. Evidence that men with connections to al-Qaeda were allowed into the United States in spite of regulations that should have kept them out.

3. Evidence that men with connections to al-Qaeda were allowed to train in US flight schools.

4. Evidence that the attacks of 9/11 could not have succeeded without an order from the highest level of government to suspend normal operating procedures for responding to hijackings.

5. Evidence that US political and military leaders made misleading and even false statements about their response to the hijackings.

6. Evidence in particular that the presently accepted official account, according to which jet fighter planes were scrambled but arrived too late, was invented some days after 9/11.

7. Evidence that the collapse of the WTC buddings was brought about by explosives, so that participation by the US government in the prevention of an adequate examination of the debris, especially the steel, constitutes evidence of its participation in a cover-up.

8. Evidence that someone in authority sought to ensure that there would be deaths in the attacks on the second WTC tower and the Pentagon by not having these buildings
evacuated.

9. Evidence that what hit the Pentagon was not a Boeing 757 but a much smaller aircraft, such as a guided missile.

10. Evidence that Flight 93 was shot down after authorities learned that the passengers were gaining control of it.

11. Evidence that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld revealed advance knowledge of two of the attacks.

12. Evidence that President Bush on 9/11 feigned ignorance of the occurrence and seriousness of the attacks.

13. Evidence that President Bush and his Secret Service knew on 9/11 that he would not be a target of attacks.

14. Evidence that the FBI had specific knowledge of the time and targets of the attacks at least a month in advance.

15. Evidence that the CIA and other intelligence agencies would have had very specific advance knowledge of the attacks by means of the put options purchased shortly before 9/11.

16. Evidence that the Bush administration lied about not having had specific warnings about the attacks.

17. Evidence that the FBI and other federal agencies prevented investigations prior to 9/11 that might have uncovered the plot.

18. Evidence that US officials sought to conceal evidence of involvement by Pakistan's ISI in the planning of 9/11.

19. Evidence that US officials sought to conceal the presence of the ISI chief in Washington during the week of 9/11.

20. Evidence that the FBI and other federal agencies blocked investigations after the attacks that might have revealed the true Perpetrators.

21. Evidence that the United States did not really seek to kill or capture Osama bin Laden either before or after the attacks.

22. Evidence that figures central to the Bush administration had desired a "new Pearl Harbor" because of various benefits it would bring.

23. Evidence of motive provided by the predictable benefits that this event, called by Bush himself "the Pearl Harbor of the 21st century," did bestow on the Bush administration.

24. Evidence against the alternative explanation--the incompetence theory--provided by the fact that those who were allegedly guilty of incompetence were not fired but, in some cases, promoted.

Re:your rights online

[MrTufty]

If you believe any of this crap, you're pretty much totally gullible. I'm not even going to try to refute your points because they are quite simply, not worth my time.

Conspiracy theorists the world over are all the same, looking for connections that simply aren't there in the first place! And of course since this one comes from a 'published' author, he's obviously out there to make money in any case - best way to do that is to be as controversial as possible.

If this was true, the Bush administration would never have allowed the book to be published, freedom of the press or not.

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

The evidence of a coverup are overwhelming. We know for a fact that practically every part of the "official" story is a lie. We know for a fact that the crime scenes of both the WTC and Pentagon were scrubbed almost completely making any sort of forensic analysis of the physical evidence impossible.

How can you honestly believe that there is a coverup without a conspiracy underneath? What other reason was there for the deliberate destruction of nearly all physical evidence?

You should start by watching this video. It's the best video compilation of the unanswered questions of 9/11. You should really watch it and read some more on the subject. I don't know that any of these guys has come up with exactly how 9/11 was perpetuate, but it's a pretty thorough account of what is known.

It is a fact that 9/11 did not happen how the bush government has claimed and it was covered up by this same government. If you think otherwise you are a fool. Just as much for dismissing a theory of a conspiracy (which we know happened on some level) with a tin foil hat wearing "conspiracy theory".

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

Which means you have to be a subscriber to the "coincidence theory", believing all the following are simply coincidences (who is the more gullible?):

1. Several FAA flight controllers exhibited extreme incompetence on 9/11, and evidently on that day only.

2. The officials in charge at both NMCC and NORAD also acted incompetently on 9/11, and evidently on that day only.

3. In particular, when NMCC-NORAD officials did finally order jet fighters to be scrambled to protect New York and Washington, they ordered them in each case from more distant bases, rather than from McGuire and Andrews, respectively.

4. After public statements saying that Andrews Air Force Base had no jet fighters on alert to protect Washington, its website, which had previously said that many jets were always on alert, was altered.

5 Several pilots who normally are airborne and going full speed in under three minutes all took much longer to get up on 9/11.

6. These same pilots, flying planes capable of going 1,500 to 1,850 miles per hour, on that day were all evidently able to get their planes to fly only 300 to 700 miles per hour.

7. The collapse of the buildings of the World Trade Center, besides occurring at almost free-fall speed, exhibited other signs of being controlled demolitions: molten steel, seismic shocks, and fine dust were all produced.

8. The video and physical evidence suggesting that controlled demolition was the cause of the collapse of the Twin Towers co-exists with testimony from people in
these buildings that they heard, felt, and saw the effects of explosions.

9. The collapse of WTC-1 and WTC-2 had some of the same features as the collapse of WTC-7, even though the latter collapse could not be attributed to the impact and jet fuel of an airplane.

10. Both the North Tower and the South Tower collapsed just as their respective fires were dying down, even though this meant that the South Tower, which had been hit second, collapsed first.

11. Governmental agencies had the debris, including the steel, from the collapsed WTC buildings removed without investigation, which is what would be expected if the government wanted to prevent evidence of explosives from being discovered.

12. Physical evidence suggesting that what hit the Pentagon could not have been a Boeing 757 co-exists with testimony of several witnesses that the aircraft that
did hit the Pentagon was far smaller than a 757.

13. This evidence about the aircraft that hit the Pentagon co-exists with reports that Flight 77 crashed in Kentucky or Ohio.

14. This evidence co-exists with the fact that the only evidence that Flight 77 did not crash was supplied by an attorney closely associated with the Bush administration.

15. Evidence that Flight 77 did not return to Washington to hit the Pentagon coexists with the fact that when the flight control transcript was released, the final 20
minutes were missing.

16. The fact that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon did so only after executing a very difficult maneuver co-exists with the fact that it struck a section of the
Pentagon that, besides containing none of its leaders, was the section in which the strike would cause the least death and destruction.

17. On the same day in which jet fighters were unable to protect the Pentagon from an attack by a single airplane, the missiles that normally protect the Pentagon also failed to do so.

18. Sounds from cell phones inside Flight 93 suggesting that the plane had been hit by a missile were matched by many reports to this effect from witnesses on the
ground.

19. This evidence that Flight 93 was shot down co-exists with reports from both civilian and military leaders that there was intent to shoot this flight down.

20. The only plane that was evidently shot down, Flight 93, was the only one in which it appeared that passengers were going to gain control.

21. The evidence that Flight 93 was shot down after the passengers were about to ga

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that Bush would've banned a book implicating his administration, it would've been to obvious an approach. Better to just tell the "big lie" and then rely on people like you, and more importantly the mainstream media and policios, to demonise those who sift the evidence and suggest such outrageous things... It's called the chilling effect and we know all about it on Slashdot!

Re:your rights online

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> We know for a fact that the crime scenes of both the WTC and Pentagon
> were scrubbed almost completely making any sort of forensic analysis
> of the physical evidence impossible.

What forensic evidence? Planes hit buildings as seen by thousands (first) and billions (second), there are photos of the Pentagon plane approaching.

I'm confused as to what you need evidence for. Unless it's one of those nutjobs who think someone planned to crash planes, immediately ran up to those floors and planted bombs, then quickly ran downstairs to escape, then blew up the buildings, why, just in case the planes weren't enough for the job.

Re:your rights online

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Let's pick one goofy statement purely at random.

> 20. The only plane that was evidently

Oopsie! Already you're deviating severely from reality...

> ...shot down, Flight 93, was the only one in which
> it appeared that passengers were going to gain control.

Yes, they did almost, and the terrorists deliberately crashed the plane, as the black box and flight recorder amply suggest.

But that will not be enough to convince you, so I'm sure you'll suggest the recorder info was made up. Drat!

Re:your rights online

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

By the way, if one were planning a conspiracy to get the US to go to war, wouldn't having one plane's passengers rescue themselves provide a fantastically heartwarming story for the nation to get behind?

Or why deny shooting it down? After all, that was only the sixth most important story of that day and one that would show the government had gotten its act together faster, rather than slower.

Re:your rights online

[Primotheproton]

Man you said it. Our government seems to be doing a damn good job at implementing all the anti-privacy technology it can. It does indeed seem to be turning into a doubleplus good situation for our "leaders".

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

Point by point bullshit rebuttal follows

1. Several FAA flight controllers exhibited extreme incompetence on 9/11, and evidently on that day only.
Or their incompetence just isn't noticed on days that no one hijacks any airplanes

2. The officials in charge at both NMCC and NORAD also acted incompetently on 9/11, and evidently on that day only.
see above

3. In particular, when NMCC-NORAD officials did finally order jet fighters to be scrambled to protect New York and Washington, they ordered them in each case from more distant bases, rather than from McGuire and Andrews, respectively.
exactly, it's not every day the air traffic controllers have to scramble jet fighters

4. After public statements saying that Andrews Air Force Base had no jet fighters on alert to protect Washington, its website, which had previously said that many jets were always on alert, was altered.
government == big and incompetent, duh

5 Several pilots who normally are airborne and going full speed in under three minutes all took much longer to get up on 9/11.
not the pilot's fault

6. These same pilots, flying planes capable of going 1,500 to 1,850 miles per hour, on that day were all evidently able to get their planes to fly only 300 to 700 miles per hour.
timeline plz?

7. The collapse of the buildings of the World Trade Center, besides occurring at almost free-fall speed, exhibited other signs of being controlled demolitions: molten steel, seismic shocks, and fine dust were all produced.
dumbass, the buildings fell due to gravity, of course it happened at free fall speed
those "other signs" are just as common in uncontrolled demolitions, as we saw.

8. The video and physical evidence suggesting that controlled demolition was the cause of the collapse of the Twin Towers co-exists with testimony from people in
these buildings that they heard, felt, and saw the effects of explosions.
1000s of gallons of jet fuel == huge explosion

9. The collapse of WTC-1 and WTC-2 had some of the same features as the collapse of WTC-7, even though the latter collapse could not be attributed to the impact and jet fuel of an airplane.
list features pls

10. Both the North Tower and the South Tower collapsed just as their respective fires were dying down, even though this meant that the South Tower, which had been hit second, collapsed first.
the part the tv cameras saw was dying down

11. Governmental agencies had the debris, including the steel, from the collapsed WTC buildings removed without investigation, which is what would be expected if the government wanted to prevent evidence of explosives from being discovered.
the mob was stealing debris, remember that story?

12. Physical evidence suggesting that what hit the Pentagon could not have been a Boeing 757 co-exists with testimony of several witnesses that the aircraft that
did hit the Pentagon was far smaller than a 757.
credible witnesses?

13. This evidence about the aircraft that hit the Pentagon co-exists with reports that Flight 77 crashed in Kentucky or Ohio.
crash site plz?

14. This evidence co-exists with the fact that the only evidence that Flight 77 did not crash was supplied by an attorney closely associated with the Bush administration.
he's an attorney, AND he's in the bush administration?

15. Evidence that Flight 77 did not return to Washington to hit the Pentagon coexists with the fact that when the flight control transcript was released, the final 20
minutes were missing.
must've crashed in area 51 then

16. The fact that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon did so only after executing a very difficult maneuver co-exists with the fact that it struck a section of the
Pentagon that, besides containing none of its leaders, was the section in which the strike would cause the least death and destruction.
terrorists should've planned ahead better

17. On the same day in which jet fighters were unable to protect the Pentagon from an at

Re:your rights online

[Watson Ladd]

Dude, Osama is dead. He was on dialysis. People on dialysis need pure water every three days. In the montains of Afganastan he is not getting that. Sorry, but lugging a dialysis machine, and pure water, and insulin, and spare parts for the machine is not going to happen. Poor Afghan villages do not have dialysis machines.

Re:your rights online

[rbanffy]

Commenting your sig, it's all right. The guys who took the liberties as payment will never deliver security.

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Osama is doing quite well. The CIA talked with him in a hospital at Dubai and provided him quite a handsome cash payout for being such a good US Government asset in the planning of 911.

Re:your rights online

[Threni]

He's very rich, and very well connected. He wouldn't find it remotely hard to get any treatment he wanted. Also, people have been going on about his imminent demise for years now, and we're not closer to it. He's appeared on tape that even the leaders of the US have admitted are i) him and ii) recently filmed.

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno the 9 billion that went missing in Iraq can sure buy a lot of dialysis...

Re:your rights online

[EtherealStrife]

Hey, don't discount him so quickly. We can get Chris Carter and his writers on criminal conspiracy charges for 9/11...

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been no pictures of a 757 hitting the Pentagon released, despite dozens of cameras that should have recorded the event. And do you honesting believe that an airliner hitting one of the largest, and strongest buildings ever built would bring it down? The forensic evidence is in the steel which the government quickly swept away (criminally, I might add) to be melted down as scrap in Asia.

Stop being a moron and look around for a second.

Re:your rights online

[sqrt7744]

I'm fairly certain that Osama couldn't care less about our constitution. Your comment reminds of the silly sound-byte that was repeated over and over again around 9/11 by El Presidente Bush: the terrorists "hate our freedoms" and that's why they attacked us. Who is going to come all the way over to America from a Saudi Arabian village and blow himself up because he doesn't agree with statements written on a piece of paper a few hundred years ago in the United States... statements which are largely ignored anyway? NOBODY! On the other hand, Americas seemingly one-sided support of Israel in its disregard for the Palestinian people and the feeling of arrogant invincibility we enjoy(ed?) may have provided more convincing arguments. In case there is any confusion, I am neither an arab nor a muslim and loathe terrorism (though I have a certain understanding for its motivations)

Re:your rights online

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the best posts ever.

Re:your rights online

[pintomp3]

i agree with the reasons you give, but i was just saying he's gotta be enjoying the fact that we are voluntarily making our lives worse in response.

Re:your rights online

[Lord Ender]

The enforcement of copyright law is a good thing. Some of the specifics of copyright law may be bad, but enforcement is good. The way to fix the problems you perceive with copyright law is to change the law, not to inhibit its enforcement.

Saying this is bad because it could help enforce copyright is like arguing that illegal immigrants should be given driver's licenses. It's absurd. Enforce the laws, and change them if they break things.

Re:your rights online

[ssimontis]

I think you need a bigger tinfoil hat now. It's not even worth trying to correct your argument at this point.

Re:your rights online

[Mister Whirly]

Wow, I had no idea Bush and his cronies watched "The Lone Gunman", let alone got their ideas from it...

hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

So, let me get this straight, if you're a propagandist for a terrorist group, you're a terrorist?

Yay. I wonder where this slippery slope ends up?

Also, I find it odd that this alleged hacker chose a moniker that would sound more familiar to Republican voters than to someone who would wholeheartedly reject Western ideals (ie: your average terrorist).

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[tealover]

Goebbels never killed anyone directly, but he was still a Nazi.

You can play semantics if you want, the rest of us will live in the real world.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

It says in the writeup he distributed their weapon manuals, was involved in a bomb plot, and had stolen credit card information.

So shut the fuck up and read it before you jump to conclusions.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting weapons manuals makes you a terrorist?

Infocrimes?

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[scum-e-bag]

Goebbels never killed anyone directly, but he was still a Nazi.

You can play semantics if you want, the rest of us will live in the real world.

...and by that logic, we should kill nearly every German who was alive during WWII as they were nazis too.

You can continue to live in your fantasy world, i'll remain in the real world. :P

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[eyeye]

So, let me get this straight, if you're a propagandist for a terrorist group, you're a terrorist?

Yay. I wonder where this slippery slope ends up?

He was arrested in the UK. IIRC it is now illegal to even say anything that could even be construed as "glorifying" terrorism, we are already slipping down that slope. You can now be imprisoned for 3 months without even being charged with anything.

What a country.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

I read it before you got irrationaly righteous and uppity and I still don't get how posting weapons manuals makes you a terrorist.

Please try again.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

If you go to a "terrorist" website you're a terrorist! Several people in my department who were doing research on Hezbollah and Hamas (which are incidentally majority parties in two governments in the Middle East now, and thus have geopolitical implications beyond "terrorism") got a visit from the feds and have been made to feel very insecure about their ability to stay out of jail if they continue to visit related websites or write about them, even if its in the interest of academics or international political science. There appears to be a kind of zero tolerance policy for any online contact at all to these groups, no matter how innocuous (i.e. visiting their website to read their statements) or well-intentioned.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

as i recall the original story this guy hacked into a number university networks which were rated as having good security and used them to mirror al-qaida manuals/newletters.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[cflannagan]

Are you a terrorist-sympathizer? Newflash: posting bomb-making and weapons manual is AGAINST THE LAW. Get that through your thick terrorist-sympathizing head.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, to start with, conspiracy is a crime. Aiding and abetting criminals is also a crime. How and ever...

While you might argue (strawman alert!) that he is no more guilty of anything than for the sake of argument, the average NRA member. I would argue thatthe average NRA member is not providing information about weaponry for the express purpose of killing persons known and unknown. This specific Al-Quaeda member (seemingly) was. The NRA is not a proscribed organisation. Al Qaeda is. The NRA is not waging a war against civilization. Al Qaeda is. etc. etc.

While his actual physical actions may technically be no different to some NRA member's physical actions, actions don't take place in a vacuum. Everything has context, and you can't expect even the most reasonable and fair minded people to ignore the context of those actions.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[AWeishaupt]

Look at what happened to David Mery. (http://gizmonaut.net/bits/suspect.html)

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[dunkelfalke]

no it is not

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

(Chosen amongst many)
http://cgi.ebay.com/POOR-MANS-JAMES-BOND-THE-ANARC HIST-COOKBOOK-DISKS_W0QQitemZ7229210949QQcategoryZ 3786QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/Army-Marine-sniper-weapons-med ical-survival-manual-500_W0QQitemZ6604549921QQcate goryZ66529QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Yep. looks like the terrorists win?!

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[nutshell42]

As scary as that slippery slope may be, suicide terrorists make traditional methods of dealing with criminals problematic.

Your only chance generally is to either convict them for shady reasons (Moussaoui, death penalty for not telling about an imminent crime seems a bit harsh in just about every context) or total surveillance (your honor, right after the part on the tape where he disobeys the Quran by fucking his fellow sucide bomber's girlfriend we can hear how he explicitly sings in the shower about blowing himself up)

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[tealover]

No, not all Germans were Nazis. History books don't exist in your world ?

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[killjoe]

"Also, I find it odd that this alleged hacker chose a moniker that would sound more familiar to Republican voters than to someone who would wholeheartedly reject Western ideals (ie: your average terrorist)."

The worst thing is that we will never know what actually happened, what this guy did, how he did it, why he did it.

There will not be a trial, the guy will be shipped off to some godforsaken place and be held forever under who knows what kinds of aweful conditions getting regular "pressure" from the CIA or the egyptian intelligence or whatever.

It's sick what has happened to our country. It's really really sick and aweful. The worst thing is that nobody really cares. Everybody will simply accept what the press and the president tells them. For all we know this could just be some high school student who thinks he is l33t. The president will call him a terrorists and the public will just buy it without any further evidence. We will never know.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[1u3hr]

So, let me get this straight, if you're a propagandist for a terrorist group, you're a terrorist?

TFA: "The savvy, English-speaking, presumably young webmaster taunted his pursuers, calling himself Irhabi -- Terrorist -- 007.... Scotland Yard arrested a 22-year-old West Londoner, Younis Tsouli, suspected of participating in an alleged bomb plot. In November, British authorities brought a range of charges against him related to that plot....British investigators eventually confirmed to us that they believe he is Irhabi 007."

So he called himself "terrorist", and he was allegedly involved with a real-world bomb plot. So not so sensationalist.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Profound]

Australia under the new sedition laws is even worse.

In sport, it has been traditional for Australians to if not support, then at least show some sympathy for the underdogs, especially if they were the home team. In war, that can get you locked up.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

And in the process destroy your justice system? Is it worth it for a bunch of terrorists that don't even bother you daily? Justice generally favors judging a guilty person not guilty, than putting an innocent man in prison. How many innocent people will go to jail by such laws, just because they disagree with the government? Just a thought...

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Cite the law or shut up.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[arkhan_jg]

Close. Scarily, the "glorification of terror" is indeed an offence now, though the suspicion is that they wanted to be able to nail people like Abu Hamza, who stood up in the centre of london and praised al-Qaeda.

However, the 90 day extension of the holding powers was stopped by parliament in Blair's first Commons defeat; instead the previous 14-day holding period (without charge) was extended to 28 days, which is still a dangerous piece of legislation for a liberal democracy IMHO.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[arkhan_jg]

Oh, I nearly forgot - there's also supervision of the holding orders by a High Court Judge, so at least there's some oversight of the process outside the police.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[lintux]

I doubt that every German from back then supported the nazi regime... Sounds a bit unlikely to me, don't you think?

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[hazem]

So he called himself "terrorist", and he was allegedly involved with a real-world bomb plot. So not so sensationalist.

Back in the old BBS days, I often went by the name Necromancer - not very original, but I was a teenager. In spite of that name, I never did try to raise the dead or anything like that. Just because I called myself a thing did not make me that thing.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[killjoe]

"i don't care what happens to him. he picked the wrong side."

Unfortunately many americans feel like you do. They have lost their all common sense. "I don't care what happens to him" justifies all kinds of torture and evil.

I do have one question for you though. How do you know? How do you know if anything they say about this guy is true? How do you even know if he exists or not? Do you even care? I suspect not. All somebody has to do is to say is that he is a terrorist and you believe it.

Unfortunately there are too many americans like you.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Cal Paterson]

Let's be fair; Goebbels was in the Nazi party. He was the official that organised the censorship of german news.

He's a bad example. (either way; you should invoke Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies as soon as someone uses a Nazi analogy)

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[gad_zuki!]

>IIRC it is now illegal to even say anything that could even be construed as "glorifying" terrorism, we are already slipping down that slope.

Oh come on. Google his name.

(A) Younis Tsouli, 22, of Richmond Way, Shepherd's Bush
  he had in his bedroom a video, on a computer hard drive, showing how to make a car bomb
  he possessed a video, on a hard drive, showing a number of places in Washington DC and including a CRBN (chemical, radiological, biological and nuclear) vehicle.
  before October 31 this year he, with Mughal and others, conspired together to murder a person unknown
  he "unlawfully and maliciously" conspired together with Mughal and others to cause an explosion of a nature likely to endanger life in the United Kingdom
  he conspired to dishonestly obtain property from credit cards belonging to others

His name came up after they arrested another guy with a working suicide belt. This isnt a case of the slippery slope, this is how you bust terrorist cells.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[SetupWeasel]

You create terrorists by wrongly imprisoning people. Preventing crime is not about putting people behind bars. It is about improving people's environment and standing so that they are less compelled to commit crimes. You have to be pretty damned pissed off about something to blow yourself up and kill innocent people. Maybe we ought to work on what is pissing said people off.

It is funny that the city actually involved in the 9/11 attack is one of the most liberal cities in the country.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got mod points for the first time. I could mod you down. You certainly deserve it. But I think it would be more useful to reply and explain to the IDIOT MODERATORS who mod you INSIGHTFUL that you're full of shit.

Saying every German who was alive during WWII as a nazi is like saying every American alive today is a republican (since our leader is a republican and the republicans have the majority of control in our government currently). And 8 years ago, every American was a democrat.

At the time of WWII, nazis were a political party. Today, the word "nazi" has evolved into much, much more than that. In both cases, you would be incorrect to suggest that every German was a nazi. Apparently the average /. user doesn't know that you're an idiot. They appear to be idiots as well.

Idiots should sit down and shut up. Apparently they're exalted in this day and age.

This mass of idiocy is depressing.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

In the real world the Allies did follow that logic and killed, raped or ethnically clensed over 20 million Germans. The Real World doesn't always appear in your school text book.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[chamenos]

There're plenty of self-proclaimed armchair historians who conveniently equate German conscripts with willing volunteers, and one's nationality with political orientation, so as to justify their opinions. It's always easy to take a piss on the little details when preaching to the ignorant and stupid.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee that is too bad. Oh, by the way, go check out Brittney Spears naked that chick is so cool!

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

hey, do you have a citation?

Or, what, did you see it first hand?

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[maelstrom]

There are some people that are going to be pissed off no matter what. If we followed this attitude, we would still have Jim Crow laws because people like you would be trying to placate the KKK.

Instead of coddling the KKK (terrorists), let us make sure that these groups have a ready outlet to protest the discrimination and poverty they undoubtably face. We need less Bin Ladens and more MLK Jrs from the Middle East, and no more Western apologists.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[zaphod_es]

Insightful? He makes vague assertions as though they were fact that bear no examination at all

The worst thing is that we will never know what actually happened, what this guy did, how he did it, why he did it..

We may not know why he did anything but the charges (discussed in this thread) specify what and the trial will examine the detail and method.

There will not be a trial, the guy will be shipped off to some godforsaken place and be held forever under who knows what kinds of aweful conditions getting regular "pressure" from the CIA or the egyptian intelligence or whatever.

Nonsense. There have been worrying reductions in human rights and liberties under the Blair government but the British legal system is still operative. It is possible that parts of the trial could be held behind close doors to protect national security but, if the Director of Public Prosecutions thinks that there is a good case the trial will proceed as normal. If not he will be released.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[legirons]

"However, the 90 day extension of the holding powers was stopped by parliament in Blair's first Commons defeat;"

You make it sound like a success for freedom and democracy, that they didn't get the 90 days that even the Home Secretary was embarassed about asking for.

Yet, you can still spend a month in police cells in the UK without having done anything wrong - the original 14 day limit was absurdly draconian (especially when the police aren't using more than a day or so of that time to investigate), and they've just doubled it.

So innocent law-abiding people are spending the whole month cooped up in freezing cells in the London police stations, with unimaginable effects on their health, their job, their finances, and their sanity, because despite having ubiquitous surveillance (CCTV + antiprivacy laws + money-laundering laws + special forces surveillance units working fulltime) they're still unable to piece together enough evidence to arrest someone "properly", i.e. knowing they've done something illegal.

It worries me that people see the "only" 28 days reported, and see this as a good thing.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[SetupWeasel]

HA! What a way to turn an argument around! Coddling the KKK... Damn, I would have never thought you would find my true motivation.

To be clear asshole (if I may call you that), I do not want to coddle the KKK or actual terrorists. That first part was a joke, you see. "Sarcasm" is what the kids call it these days.

What I was saying in my previous post was: when you make living conditions for innocent people better, fewer of them eventually become criminals. Is that clear enough for you?

"Violence begets violence," and, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," are two sentences so common they passed into cliche long ago. If you put them both together, you get what I am talking about. When you falsely imprison or kill an innocent man or woman no matter what your intentions, you are taking someone's son or daughter, mother or father, sister or brother away from the people that they love. What would you do for your children? What would you do for your parents? What would you do for your family?

Some might protest. Some might strap a bomb to their chest.

The father blows up a bus full of our children, parents, and siblings. What do we do? Blow up more terrorists and innocent bystanders. The circle of violence starts anew, and our good intentions are leading us swiftly to hell (handbasket optional).

But I said something good about Martin Luther King Jr.! I'm not a racist!

Martin Luther King Jr. was an extraordinary man. It takes an extraordinary man to turn the other cheek and stop a circle of violence. You cannot expect everyone to be extraordinary people. In your short post, asshole, you are expecting the whole of the Arab world to be among the greatest people in history and speaking of them as if they were all evil killing machines.

That, my friend... I mean asshole, is racism.

In summation, if we protect freedom, stop killing innocent people, make innocent people's lives better, and stop treating them like sub-human scum, we will reduce the number of future terrorists. Sadly, the mistakes we have already made cannot be undone. It is important to understand how we might have made today's terrorists so we can prevent the next generation. This starts with empathy not apologies.

I don't put too much stock in the Bible, but I do believe we should love our fellow man--all of them.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[fatphil]

That's one. Closer to home, for those who are in the US, would be Dave Touretzky's
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/raisethefist/

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[arivanov]

The more interesting part of the writeup is that MI5-6, FBI, CIA and NSA are so effing inept that they could not catch him for 2 years and the only reason why his hacker identity was revealed was that someone correlated the fact that he was behind bars with the lack of messages.

Considering that he was arrested and the police had all the grounds to get logs from his ISP as well as run proper forensics on his equipment we are talking about incompetence of truly biblical proportions here.

This is a classic example why they should take their proposals about RIP act extensions as well as the new Anti-Terrorism act and shovel it where sun does not shine. There is no point providing someone who cannot use a rifle with an grenade launcher. With a rifle he will just shoot himself in the foot. With a grenade launcher he will make 3m crater killing a few innocent bystanders.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[raduf]

      Yeap, my thoughts exactly. Most of what he allegedly did goes right into the free speech category. Some years back there was the "Anarchist cookbook", a compilations of ways to blow things up (and likely yourself in the process). Lots of noise was made around weather it should be allowed online or not. The result? It's pretty easy to find on the net.
    What he "disseminates" is even closer to what free speech is about, because it has a lot of political content. I saw Fahrenheit 9/11, I saw Bowling for Columbine (both pirated btw), but I have no chance whatsoever to see All Is for Allah's Religion and I'm actually a bit afraid to look for it, not to mention share it. (Would you share it?)

    Now I'm all for closing down radical websites, if it's necessary. I actually come from a very centralised and authoritarian society (ex-communist) and I liked it a lot from the POV of law enforcement. It was incredibly efficient, and remarcably void of abuses. No, it's not a fairy tale. Why? Because the police, more then the regular citisen, were afraid to cross the line. The problem isn't that we are beeing watched more and more, and our liberties are restrained. I could live quite relaxed knowing the police can listen to my phone or net connection, if it meant a lot less "regular" crime. The real problem is: who watches the watchers? Because the way we're headed, we're beeing watched, we're beeing rendered powerless, and we have no idee why or by whom. We're not allowed to know that. Only to believe the common wisdom, or shut up.

    That's very close to the ideea of a transparent society, publicised by David Brin. May be worth it to check it out.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[hey!]

Damn straight.

If you're an accountant for a terrorist group, you're also a terrorist. If you sweep the floor for a terrorist group, you're a terrorst. If you are the pedicurist for a terrorist group, you are a terrorist.

This is not difficult at all. What is difficult is drawing the line between terrorists and freedom fighters. Once you've decided a group is terrorist, then you also consider anybody who knowingly supports and advances the terror activities of that group terrorists. What they do doesn't have to be terror itself, it just has be done with the intent to assist terror.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[raduf]

    "They're animals"

http://www.psichi.org/pubs/articles/article_72.asp

I just read this article a few days ago. It'll probably ring a bell to most people here, but i'll keep it a surprise.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[ral8158]

That brings back memories of that one Wizard of Oz book where this girl is put in prison for illegally picking a 4-leaf clover, and there are toys and stuff everywhere, because whoever built/ran the prison thought that if it was a mean place no one would change. Childhood memories... I'm glad that someone has pointed out New York's liberal nature, though. Big cities in the United States always seem to have stupid liberals that think that France is a perfect example of successful socialism running the government. Examples: Minneapolis, Minnesota. If you're ever visiting there, find someone who ISN'T working class (IE: Benefits from quasi-socialism), such as a business owner, or someone high up in a big company, who thinks the government in Minneapolis is cool. If you think Bush is stupid, you should see some of the things these people do...

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[SetupWeasel]

If that had made any sense at all, I would have replied to it. Wait! This made a little sense:

stupid liberals

Liberals are smart. At least, the smart ones are.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[genooma]

Most of them were, since Hitler got voted into power.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[ejd3]

Three cheers for the skepticism.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a question for you. If muslims don't give a fsck about their own lives, why should we?

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Islamic terrorism is not about wanting about a better environment you twit.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[mybecq]

You create terrorists by wrongly imprisoning people. ... Maybe we ought to work on what is pissing said people off.

Osama hasn't spent any time behind bars, and neither have most Palestinian terrorists. Having a different religion and being near the Middle East seems to be what is required to make them angry.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[krewemaynard]

The worst thing is that we will never know what actually happened, what this guy did, how he did it, why he did it.

O rly? Seems like a little Googling clears up a lot.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[arkhan_jg]

Well, I consider 28 days better than 90, especially given the amount of pressure the government bought to bear on parliament, including the attempt to try and guilt his own party rebels into it.

Overall though, I DO find it a worrying piece of legislation for a liberal democracy, as I said at the end of the sentence you half-quoted.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't give a fsck about Muslim lives then what the fsck are you doing in Iraq?

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

bush only got 49 percent! in 2000, even less than his opponent ... i'm so tired of hearing how all americans don't care ... a higher percentage of us care now than cared during the american revolution

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[SavvyPlayer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebombing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in _World_War_II

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_bombing_on_German y

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[legirons]

"Well, I consider 28 days better than 90"

It reminds me of that famous quote from a young girl:

"When you want a puppy, start by asking for a pony"

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that for the purpose of your post you have assumed what the government says is true and acted as judge and jury convicting this individual whom we know will not receive the normal protections built into the court system because the accusation involves crimes of a terroristic nature. Say what you will about this not being a slippery slope, but when you accuse someone of conspiracy to murder you should be expected to not say that the subject of the murder cospiracy is "a person unknown." I now know to erase the video of the trip to Washington found on my hard drive and delete the CIA Dirty Tricks manual. Since I, too, could end up in the judicial quagmire resulting from the disasterous foreign policy of the United States and its primary accomplice, the United Kingdom, with respect to the Middle East.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Guppy06]

"IIRC it is now illegal to even say anything that could even be construed as "glorifying" terrorism,"

Unless it's said by Sinn Fein? Gerry Adams said something about believing it to be easier to raise money in London than it is in DC these days this past St. Patrick's Day.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[(H)elix1]

• He had in his bedroom a video, on a computer hard drive, showing how to make a car bomb.
  
• He possessed a video, on a hard drive, showing a number of places in Washington DC and including a CRBN (chemical, radiological, biological and nuclear) vehicle.
  
• Before October 31 this year he, with Mughal and others, conspired together to murder a person unknown.
  
• He "unlawfully and maliciously" conspired together with Mughal and others to cause an explosion of a nature likely to endanger life in the United Kingdom
  
• He conspired to dishonestly obtain property from credit cards belonging to others
  

While I agree this guy looks like trouble as you continued on with the latter points, I think back to how many teens I knew who had a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook (and others along the same line of thought). Granted, most were more in pursuit of a higher power potato gun or advanced model rocketry, but... dang... holding up he had 'naughty' information on a HDD and he conspired to kill someone? The information itself is pretty mundane compared to the rest of the list. Hate for the powers that be to view everyone who is digging through the stacks trying to figure out the recipes for 1950's style solid rocket fuel as a terrorist candidate.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[flossie]

He was arrested in the UK. IIRC it is now illegal to even say anything that could even be construed as "glorifying" terrorism, we are already slipping down that slope.

The UK on a slippery slope? Ridiculous! We tumbled and reached the bottom long ago. Now the government are just standing over us, pissing for enjoyment.

A peace campaigner has been convicted under a new law banning unauthorised protests from taking place within half a mile of Westminster. She was arrested in October after reading out names of soldiers killed in Iraq at central London's Cenotaph.

(Activist convicted under demo law)

A new Enabling Act will allow government ministers to alter any legislation at will, as long as the do not create any new offences which carry a penalty greater than 2 years imprisonment.

(1) A Minister of the Crown may by order make provision for either or both of the following purposes-- (a) reforming legislation; (b) implementing recommendations of any one or more of the United Kingdom Law Commissions, with or without changes.

(Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill)

And just in case we haven't got the message yet, the government are going to create a vast database (like the Stasi one, but more frightening and much more expensive) and force everyone in the country to be photographed, fingerprinted, iris scanned and required to notify the authorities of their whereabouts. (Identity Cards Bill)

Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame, All their attempts to bend thee down;
Will but arouse thy generous flame, But work their woe, and thy renown.

How wrong we were.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[oasisweb]

i don't care what happens to him. he picked the wrong side.

You sound awfully like Osama.
He doesn't care what happens to you either. You picked the wrong side.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[forgotten_my_nick]

>Osama hasn't spent any time behind bars, and neither have most Palestinian terrorists.

Do you see OBL blowing himself up? The OP is correct that imprisoning people without due process does more to help terrorism then hinder it. You only have to look at Internment in Northern Ireland to see. Prior to that and the civil rights abuses the IRA had little to no support.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[ArsenneLupin]

Most of them were, since Hitler got voted into power.

Nope, he hired Hollerith to pull him a Diebold ;-)

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[ignalina]

Most Palestinian terrorists would argue that the occupied territories is a prison and that the entire palestinian people is behind bars. The Middle East situation is not about religion or culture, it is about politics and war.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[timeOday]

Actually, I care very much about what happens to him. He should be given a speedy trial (about five minutes should be sufficient), whatever useful information he has should be wrung out of him by any means necessary and then the scum bag should be killed in the most painful manner possible.

Honestly, do you or do you not realize that you are a facist?

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong! Being in an occupied territory is little different from jail - especially when jobs are on one side, and workers on the other.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[LouisZepher]

"... Osama hasn't spent any time behind bars...
Neither did George Washington that I know of, but he still fought for what he felt was the benefit of "his people".

"...neither have most Palestinian terrorists..."
Being forced out of their homes so Israelis could move further into their territory seemed to make them angry enough, then they became terrorists.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[photoflyer]

If they could already get him on those charges why would they need another one. Especially, one that infringes on the rights of others.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, his name is Arabic for Terrorist007. I am slightly surprised by his owb stupidity. I mean come on, don't you think an intelligence officer in the NSA would give a moron like this first preference for observation? He is asking for it.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a different religion and being near the Middle East seems to be what is required to make them angry.
 
uh, that and turning afghanistan into a warzone so the US could have a buffer against communism at the expense of the people living there. as much as I am not going to side with how they have gone about retaliating to that, they did have a pretty good reason for disliking the west.
 
if, for a wacky example, Canada and Mexico went to war (haha hahaahh, no really) and Mexico spent its money (hahahah mexico, money, no really) on turning various militias that were not pro-gov't in the US into strong military powers to destabalise the region and side more with them, than i believe you might be a little angry too. especially when every few years Mexico revisits you to "liberate" you after you finally get your shit back together.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is funny that the city actually involved in the 9/11 attack is one of the most liberal cities in the country."

I'm not sure how that is funny; to a terrorist, it probably makes perfect sense. The Islamic terrorists hate atheism, dancing, drinking, premarital sex, and I'd wager abortion--all of which are very present in our "most liberal" cities.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[dunkelfalke]

well, for me the swiss site is closer and i know the webmaster personally, he's a cool guy and owns lots of guns (and that being a leftwing which is pretty ok in europe)

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Karma Farmer]

i don't care what happens to him. he picked the wrong side.

And, I'm sure he doesn't care what happens to you. After all, to him it was you that picked the wrong side.

The only real difference is that he's working to bring down the evelolution of 2500 years of of western culture, philosophy, and legal tradition from the outside. You're working on bringing it down from the inside.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

What a great analogy, comparing war to a competative sport. Well done!

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[saleenS281]

If they actually suspect you it'll be a lot longer than that. What makes you think that they won't "accidentally" *lose track* of you and let the US ship you off to guantanimo?

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[killjoe]

All humans are animals. What's your point?

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[PPGMD]

It's sick what has happened to our country.

Like most Slashdotters you didn't RTFA, he was arrested by Scotland Yard, thats in London.

Second he is a known hackers, he hacked into servers, he helped spread propaganda, and training manuals, this isn't some case of some stupid high school kid, it's an adult that knew what he was doing, and saw the results of it on video and pictures, he is being charged and going to trail because there is more then enough evidence to prosecute him on other charges, after he serves his time perhaps the DOJ can try him here for his computer crimes against US computers.

If you want to feel pity, feel pity for the victims that were killed because the terrorists had access to the training manuals he provided with his hacked servers, or the families having to watch their loved being beheaded on the internet. Not this adult that knew what he was doing.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange then, isn't it, how terrorism was directed against Israel from 1948 to 1967, when Jordan and Egypt occupied (and annexed) the West Bank and Gaza, rather than the countries who actually occupied the land, and were forcing the Palestinians to live in resettlement camps.

Not that this finger-pointing, from either side, helps in finding a solution. One possibility I can see is having a reward of sorts for each month without violence -- possibly, one settlement, kilometer of land withdrawn from, or something similar for each unit of time without violence. This won't stop the hard-core terrorists who refuse to recognize Israel's existance, but hopefully it will erode support for them, and create outrage among the Palestinians when the terrorists destroy their chances for peace.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

What the...

While I in no way would defend this hacker, you've made a *terrible* analogy. Call it semantics if you like, but some of us like what we say to make sense :)

You can't equate being a member of a party/group (like the Nazi party/Al Queda) with committing acts (Murder/Terrorism).

Goebbels was a member of the Nazi party, and I would argue he's a murderer, even if not directly one (as you say). However, someone who spent all his time working as a janitor and was a member of the Nazi party need not be a murderer at all. (Though he does support those who are, which isn't good.)

Likewise, being a member of Al Queda (or working for them) in no way intrinsically makes you a terrorist. Does it make you a 'bad' person? IMO, without doubt it does.

(Coaching a gold medalist, does not make me a gold medalist)

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you just are a simple, simple person aren't you.

It's not the person that's behind bars that becomes the terrorist, it's usually the people that care about them, friends and family etc.

The child who is left without a father because his dad is a suspected terrorist, and since his family doesn't have a bread winner, mom dies of malnutrition trying to keep you alive. Sure half or more of the problem is that the society that child lives in does not allow a woman to work and therefor help both her and the child survive. However usually an outside view like that requires an education, which requires not living on the street barely surviving. In that environment a quick death that leads to paradise sounds pretty fucking good doesn't it?

It sounds to me that being human and having beliefs is what results in terrorism

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Keith McClary]

There are human rights movements in Palestine and Saudi but they get little support from the US.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

God, just stop breathing, you don't even know what a slippery slope is, why are you on slashdot at all? it's obvious the material here is above your head.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[lamp540]

from wikipedia:

"The general membership of the Nazi Party, known as the Partei Mitglieder, mainly consisted of the urban and rural lower middle classes. 7% belonged to the upper class, another 7% were peasants, 35% were industrial workers and 51% were what can be described as middle class. The >>>largest single occupational group was elementary school teachers. Nazi Party membership was a requirement for all persons holding public service jobs; thus, all teachers were forced to become Party members.

When the Nazi Party began in the 1920s, it averaged 2000 members. When the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, party membership had risen to 2.5 million. In 1945, when the Nazi Party was disbanded, official membership rolls listed a total of 8.5 million."

That would be a membership of ~13% of the population. This doesn't factor in members of the hitler youth or babies. Also, originally members of the wehrmacht(german army) were required to resign from the nazi party before joining, to make it a nonpolitical force. Although at some point this stopped getting followed so much, there would have been plenty of the 9.5 million in arms that were not members of the party. No it's not all, or nearly all, but the point which is not contingent upon 100% membership still remains. The point is that a lot of seemingly innocent people(e.g. all school teachers, all policemen) were in the nazi party. I'm not sure but I'm guessing that train conductors, being public employees would also have been required to be nazis. Even though many people feel the republicans are just as bad, it would innaccurate to compare the grip that the republicans have on american society with the grip that the nazi's had on germany. All civic life was taken over by the NSDAP. EVERYTHING was national socialized, sewing clubs became national socialist sewing clubs. Yes they are both called political partys but the nazi's had a much broader vision than the republicans do. The nazi's had to take over all economic, political and social organizations and apparatuses, whereas the republicans need only be concerned with controlling the State because everything else is already controlled by their masters, the corporate elites. The nazi's were servants to no one(no one but hitler, that is). That guys not an idiot for saying that all germans were nazis, though a better thing to say would have been "Every german in a position of authority or stature, no matter how small, was a member of the national socialist party."

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Thing 1]

Hate for the powers that be to view everyone who is digging through the stacks trying to figure out the recipes for 1950's style solid rocket fuel as a terrorist candidate.

On principles, I agree with you. However, solid rocket fuel leads to a presence in space, from which mere rocks have tons of kinetic energy when dropped. So, yes, I would imagine that people investigating solid rocket fuel should be thoroughly checked out.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[lamp540]

google "rape of berlin"

millions of german women raped by the russians

also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Ender_Wiggin]

Where did Bin Laden say that in any of his speeches? He keeps calling the US "Crusaders" which NYC seemingly is less likely than most of the US. Al Qaeda targeted NYC because it's a financial center. World TRADE CENTER? Also, the Pentagon was hit, not because it's so liberal (it is the opposite).

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[1u3hr]

Just because I called myself a thing did not make me that thing.

Yes. But you couldn't say you had been maligned if someone used the same words you did to describe you (absurd though it would be in your case). If you create a label for yourself, you might have to live with the consequences (one reason I have a gibberish name here; gave up trying to find a meaningful one, after almost a million subscribers the pool is well fished out), and I didn't want any baggage from that to weigh against my posts.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[LouisZepher]

Valid point. I had forgotten my history when I posted this earlier, thanks. And you're right, finger point doesn't help, but it's often too easy not to do first.

Also that is a nice idea, and it could work, I doubt it would, but it has merit.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Qaida is not waging a "war against civilisation". They are waging a war for "civilisation". If you're familliar with the thoughts of Ibn Qutub, you'll know this allready. Intelligent Egyptian kid gets scholarship to 50s USA, is horrified by consumer society, returns to Egypt as a convinced Islamist. Is tortured by US trained thugs back home, becomes unhinged and advocates violence against both unbeilievers, and against believers who have strayed. Is exectued in the late 60s by the secular Nasser regime, but his followers survive.

So what was Qutub against? Promiscuity, errosion of family values, mindless consumerism, drinking, gambling. No strong beliefs either way on science, medcine, engineering, etc. If that's a war on civilisation, there are one hell of a lot of middle Americans joining in the party.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think he cares about you? About anybody else he doesn't know? There's no way to know, but I seriously doubt it. Most people are uncaring because most other people are uncaring. It is too much risk to care about someone who likely would not extend that in return.

So no, I don't care if he's guilty, or what happens to him, or if he exists. It doesn't directly affect my life or that of my loved ones.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

It is well-known that Russians (Soviets, that is) raped women in former German-occupied countries, too, so I wouldn't make an act of intentional or systematic atrocity out of it. It seems they simply lacked bromium... and/or organized prostitution.

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue thatthe average NRA member is not providing information about weaponry for the express purpose of killing persons known and unknown.

I fail to see how providing information about weaponry, or posesing weaponry, or designing weaponry has any other purpose then killing persons known or unknown. I mean, that is the reason d'etre of weaponry!

So we are back to the end we don't like because of that damn symetry: it is not the means (weapons) that are evil, not even the intention to kill or hurt a person (under certain circumstances, say if that person threatens to make harm to you or someone you care about, or even just someone innocent, or even not innocent but not deserving to be hurt,... or that person is allegedly set to deny some important otherwise unalienatable freedoms to you) the evil is actually in thought crime, the evil is when you put on top of your list of priorities (among the things labeled "to kill and/or die for") some things that are incompatible with my priorities of the same or similar significance...

Re:hold on hold on hold on

[Mister Whirly]

"So, let me get this straight, if you're a propagandist for a terrorist group, you're a terrorist?"

The only difference between "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" is your point of view.

"Yay. I wonder where this slippery slope ends up?"

Guantanamo Bay apparently...

The Net is SO scary!

[STDOUBT]

"But our future security is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world.'" Bullshit. If my future security depends on the governments ability to destroy online anonymity, I want a different government. Make the borders secure. Packets of data don't scare me.

Re:The Net is SO scary!

[thedletterman]

I agree with this, i mean seriously, terrorist and anti-iraqi forces launch mortar rounds at me on a daily basis. i'm not scared of their websites. It all comes back to the idea that military effectiveness will not win this war. There is a war of ideas and ideals out there that needs to be fought as well. Not that we need to go to war against allah or anything, but I'm talking about fighting people who are recruiting people to throw bombs at us is just as important as fighting the people who are throwing the bombs.

Re:The Net is SO scary!

[Threni]

Also, unless he's kept in prison for his whole life in solitary confinement, or murdered, it's hard to see how he can be prevented from passing on all his information to others.

Re:The Net is SO scary!

[killjoe]

This is the govt admitting that ideas are the most dangerous things in the world. THis guy is (supposedly) disseminating knowledge and ideas. We can't have that.

Re:The Net is SO scary!

[Anonymous Coward]

unless he's kept in prison for his whole life in solitary confinement, or murdered

I would imagine that the US miltary is capable of both of these things. Trial? Who gets a trial these days?

Re:The Net is SO scary!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm extremely worried about the loss of free speech on the internet, and that the day may come when an FCC-like body keeps individuals from buying a domain name and setting up a site the same way you can't start your own TV or radio station. That's the freedom we're in danger of losing most, and don't think it can't happen-- after all, we can't let the terrorists and pedophiles to continue to run loose setting up their meeting places on the web, can we?

I should add to that, IMO the general public is shooting themselves in the foot by going hog-wild downloading gig upon gig of copyrighted movies, music and software just because they can. Not because I think copyright law is fair, not that I think the RIAA is in the right, but "piracy" is pushing the system to the breaking point as much as any government fearmongering.

Re:The Net is SO scary!

[Milton Waddams]

Packets of data don't scare me.

You've obviously never seen tubgirl before.

Re:The Net is SO scary!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> This is the govt admitting that ideas are the most dangerous
> things in the world. THis guy is (supposedly) disseminating
> knowledge and ideas. We can't have that.

It's legal for me to point to the house on the corner and say, "There's crack for sale in there for $10 a bag." It's not legal for me to do so if I am part of the organization selling the crack. A sales pitch, though speech, is also a crime.

Instructing people how to make bombs is not illegal. Instructing them to do so knowing they will be using those bombs illegally is. Distributing beheading videos is not illegal. Helping those who created the videos distribute them for the purpose those people want them distributed is. You are part of the crime.

Re:The Net is SO scary!

[Watson Ladd]

Bombs and guns may break my bones, but pictures will never hurt me physically.

Re:The Net is SO scary!

[Anonymous Coward]

Packets of data should concern you, not scare you. We have built a house of cards with Windows. If nothing else, look at th stats out there. Windows occupies about 40% of all https space. Yet, they suffer nearly 100% of all credit card thefts. And we have plenty of idiot CIOs still trying to move companies to Windows.

1 down, quite a few more to go

[Anne Thwacks]

If they can get him, then they should be able to get a few more of the spammers.

Re:1 down, quite a few more to go

[saleenS281]

If they can get him, then they should be able to get a few more of the file swappers.
br. fixt! (P2P makes baby jesus cry and supports terrorism and kills innocent children)

Re:1 down, quite a few more to go

[quarkscat]

He wan't a spammer, but was an Islamic Jihadist hacker. The moniker (nom de guerre?)
he chose would suggest that he was a British citizen rather than a recent immigrant.

OTOH, spammers fit rather well into the disinformation war that the USA and British
    governments have maintained since before the start of the Iraqi war. After all, viral
marketing is still just marketing, all in the name of capitalism. Spammers need only
be "turned" by our collective governments to become additional ag-prop disinformation
  assets for the multinational oil-military-industrial complex.

That both groups of hackers are evil does not imply that they share the same agendas.
AFAICare, both groups deserve an extended "vacation" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Oh yEss

[Delifisek]

Another Muslim Terrorist was caught, those pesky videos injures o eye candy...

And of course, 100.000 of civillian death in iraq just coterral damage and they have to pay this price for freedom and democracy...

Re:Oh yEss

[krumms]

Why is this being moderated as a troll? Ignoring the sarcasm, spelling and grammar, the parent makes a perfectly valid point.

The summary reads like a great thing has been done. I'm not so sure. Selling out freedom of speech in the name of a sense of security sounds like a step backwards to me.

Not to say anything of whether or not the hacker is implicated with "terrorist factions" (which, in itself, is a matter of perception, but that's a whole other post) - I just mean spinning the censorship of "sensitive" material as a good thing seems irresponsible.

I know this is borderline hippy ranting, I'm just a bit uneasy about somebody else telling me what is appropriate for me to see and what isn't. Slippery slope and all that crap.

Re:Oh yEss

[DigiShaman]

"100.000 of civillian death..."

WTF? Why is it when someone posts this talking point, they get modded up. If your opposed to the war in Iraq, fine, say so. It's your opinion and right I support. But please, would people stop spreading this fud!!

Re:Oh yEss

[Kohath]

That 100,000 isn't true, of course.

But even if it were true, it's still below Saddam's average number of victims for that length of time.

Re:Oh yEss

[Delifisek]

And what if that 100.000 civillan death are so true ?

Re:Oh yEss

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not, so who cares? If you have a point, make it, if you don't, stop making up numbers (or even worse, denouncing one side for being led by the noses while yourself swallowing a made up number from someone else) People stopped listening to your line of nonsense a long time ago.

Hacker?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting beheading videos and uploading traning manuals makes you a hacker?

Boy the bar really has been lowered, hasn't it.

Re:Hacker?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was ABOUT to say that. Then I RTFA. The guy did more than just that. He broke into some servers and used them as hosts for the propoganda. Hacker? I don't know. Digital criminal? Surely.

Re:Hacker?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Posting beheading videos and uploading traning manuals makes you a hacker?

No, beheading people makes you a hacker.

> Boy the bar really has been lowered, hasn't it.

Hacking is breaking into computers nowadays? Boy, the bar really has been lowered, hasn't it?

I shall now post this anonymously as I am embarassed I thought it up.

Has anyone...

[tqft]

read the documents 007 authored on hacing and security ?

Anyone have the links to hand?

Do they have any useul information?

The article doesn't give the links and I haven't been able to get much from google as yet - 5 mins - yes I am lazy on a Sunday night.

Re:Has anyone...

[1u3hr]

These sound interesting at least:

"Irhabi posted a 20-page message titled "Seminar on Hacking Websites," to the Ekhlas forum. It provided detailed information on the art of hacking, listing dozens of vulnerable Web sites to which one could upload shared media.

"Irhabi released his will on the Internet. In it, he provided links to help visitors with their own Internet security and hacking skills in the event of his absence."

Re:Has anyone...

[mboverload]

He sound more like the punks on the various message boards I visit than some terrorist.

He's just some lamer who wanted the attention and a place to get porn.

Re:Has anyone...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I'll bet no one has read these "documents." Every time I see a message about "terrorist web sites" I spend a few minutes looking for them. Do they exist? What do they say? Do terrorists have a better handle on using the web than my grandmother? No. There is no more justification for laws to catch wily terrorists online than for laws to catch Wil E. Coyote. Because they don't do anything more than anyone else does online. No one EVER produces any evidence that they do anything exceptional online.

Re:Has anyone...

[splatter]

Yeah I thought so as well but I wasn't able to find it on the net.

Something tells me it may have been called that but written in arabic. Or the other possibility is if it was behind a passworded forum chances are it was never picked up by a robot.

Either way now that I have searched for it I'll be on the look out for the men in dark suits and ear buds...... damn it I should have used a web proxy, where is my AL beanie I'm not thinking this morning.

Don't tell Bush...

[netguardianii]

...or he just might plan an invasion of online forums!

elusive online world?

[ReagansUndeadBrain]

"... our future security is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world."

They shall never penetrate the security of the Shadow Council, aye, so as long as Gul'dan draws breath!

yep, so they caught him...

[zappepcs]

But I bet he's glad he wasn't caught by the *AA !!!

Kidding aside, its interesting how the PR against him makes him sound evil incarnate... Next, this will be used to hobble our on-line rights so they can catch more of the terrorists... not a good thing IMO. Of course, I can't speak for everyone, but the PR is a bad sign. Criminals are criminals, no matter how bad they are. Sensationalizing the story, or the criminal, only serves nefarious purposes IMO.

Just great.

[Anonymous Coward]

What really irks me are the lengths to which guys these guys would go just to hurt us. First, they sacrifice their own lives just to be able to bomb us, then they kidnap non-combatants indiscriminately, and now they're trying to hack their way in. What's next?

Re:Just great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever wonder why they do this?

Re:Just great.

[Anonymous Coward]

You got any idea how much money, time, research and effort goes into delivering just one of the bombs that have dropped on Iraq? Consider who really goes to more lengths to "hurt" people.

The truly elite...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are the ones that don't get caught.

"Hacker"

[Shohat]

The term "Hacker" is used in the media to portray almost anyone with enough technical knowledge to use a vulnerability , due to the fact that it allows the "hacker" to execute an attack . And that's mighty stupid. It's like saying that a person with the ability to read a Microwave manual and operate it successfully is an engineer .

Re: "Hacker"

[brpr]

Do you have any idea how few people are able to read a microwave manual and operate it correctly? I know several engineers who can't.

just copyright one of the recordings

[bxbaser]

and let the riaa go after him.

The new standard ?

[Eivind]

Is that the new definition of "terrorist" ? Soemone who; covertly and securely distribute inflammatory material ?

Weaponmanuals and if you like, training using them is available perfectly openly. I suppose if you partake in such while looking Arabic you get looked at strangely these days. Still, there's nothing even remotely illegal about either.

It is true that secure, anonymous communication is a benefit to those with criminal intentions. But that's a small price to pay for the benefit they provide to the rest of us.

The fact that cellphones, the post, cars, guns, ski-masks, maps and electricity is an enabler for certain kinds of crime, is just an example of the fact that anything can be used for good or evil, the tools are mostly quite neutral, it's the user who decides.

Personally I'm a lot more worried about the freedoms that the government will take away to "protect" us than I am about anything the terrorists are likely to manage.

Re:The new standard ?

[lasindi]

Is that the new definition of "terrorist" ? Soemone who; covertly and securely distribute inflammatory material ?

No, it's not. Clearly you didn't RTFA.

First of all, this guy was discovered accidentally -- he was arrested for what he was doing offline (allegedly plotting a bombing), not online. Second of all, what this guy did online wasn't merely post "inflammatory material" on various forums. He was actively breaking into servers to covertly host data, like videos and messages. If you go on an online forum today and post "Support the Jihad against the Western infidels!", you can't be arrested (at least in the US; I understand that the laws in the UK may have changed so that it is illegal). If you go and break into someone's server and then put your message there, then you might be in trouble.

In short, this guy isn't being arrested because he was exercising his right to free speech. What he did would have been illegal if the material he was posting had been propaganda supporting Bush's agenda.

Re:The new standard ?

[lixee]

Is that the new definition of "terrorist" ?

"Irhabi" means terrorist in Arabic. That should be more than enough to put him behind bars.

Judge: So what did this guy do?
Prosecutor: He's a self-proclaimed terrorist.
Judge: Can't argue with that.

Re:The new standard ?

[cperciva]

"Irhabi" means terrorist in Arabic. That should be more than enough to put him behind bars.

Lots of people adopt stupid names online. I remember seeing someone using the name "AxEMuRDeReR" in a FPS game (possibly with slightly different capitalization -- I wasn't paying that much attention).

Judge: So what did this guy do?
Prosecutor: He's a self-proclaimed axe murderer.
Judge: Can't argue with that.

Re:The new standard ?

[DaveV1.0]

Here, let me walk through the gaping hole in your logic.

Did "AxEMuRDeReR" associate with someone who was killed with an axe? Was "AxEMuRDeReR" found with a bloody axe? No. He played a FPS game on-line.

This guy goes by the online name of terrorist. He associates with terrorist. He provides aid and comfort to terrorists. He is part of a conspiracy to kill people with a bomb. Those are charges NOT related to his activities as "Terrorist 007".

If it walks like a duck, acts like a duck, quacks like a duck, and associates with a duck, it's is pretty much guarentied to be a duck.

WoW

[mOOzilla]

Did he get banned from WoW?

Re:WoW

[Ash-Fox]

He wasn't gay, so it's okay.

So, what does this look like.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right on the heels of ``9/11'' there were a bunch of ``cyber'' laws pushed through. Like the almost painfully contrived and afterward suspiciously unsubstantiable WMD reports, this is just one more attempt at FUD and justification of what is to follow. Note that any achievements and connections, real or imagined, of this criminal, are quite besides the point of the report and its spin. Soon, we'll see more hot anti-cyber action.

The ACTUAL charges.

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Before anymore of you spout off about how this guy's use of his free speech rights is what got him into trouble, RTFA!

"Tsouli has been charged with eight offenses including conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to cause an explosion, conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, conspiracy to obtain money by deception and offences relating to the possession of articles for terrorist purposes and fundraising. So far there are no charges directly related to his alleged activities as Irhabi on the Internet, ..."

LOOK! No Internet-publishing charges! They found out who he (allegedly) was by accident!

My only question is where are the Internet spooks who should be hunting these guys? They break into servers in the US and put beheading videos on them, and no one bothers to check the logs? Where are the honeypot jihadi forums? Is anybody looking into wtf http://www.whois.sc/irhabi007.com is all about? Is the owner a fan or an identity theft victim?

Re:The ACTUAL charges.

[AfricanImpi]

Yeah, exactly. Way too many people here just assumed that he was being charged for "propaganda", without bothering to RTFA. Hey, if you could be arrested for propaganda in support of the enemy, I can think of quite a few people who'd also be eligible for prosecution. Except the Feds haven't touched them...

The internet spooks are hunting these guys, more than most of us will know. Except most of that evidence will likely never see the inside of a courtroom. It's used instead to build up a picture of the terrorist organisations, identifying its leaders and attempting to track its plans. After all, the guys who generally send the messages via the net tend to be the low-level sort, not worth arresting immediately unless there's a very good reason. Intel agencies much prefer to leave them be, while watching their every move in order to be led further up the ladder to their leaders and commanders. Then they try either send a capture team or a Predator with Hellfires to deal with the latter, depending on whatever's practical.

You can never defeat a terrorist group by killing its footsoldiers, there'll almost always be more where they come from. But a terrorist group without its leaders is just another mass movement, with no organization and leadership to make it a dangerous one.

Re:The ACTUAL charges.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Way too many people here just assumed that he was being charged for "propaganda", without bothering to RTFA.

The day you get prosecuted for not checking facts this place will be the first to be depleted. Overlooking facts is as much a lifestyle in numerous governments as it is here on Slashdot.

Re:The ACTUAL charges.

[daigu]

It looks like you are not familiar with what conspiracy is used for in the legal system of the U.S. government. The fact that there are no other charges should make you pause. Here's a clue:

"In order to establish a conspiracy offense it is not necessary for the Government to prove that all of the people named in the indictment were members of the scheme; or that those who were members had entered into any formal type of agreement; or that the members had planned together all of the details of the scheme or the 'overt acts' that the indictment charges would be carried out in an effort to commit the intended crime.

Also, because the essence of a conspiracy offense is the making of the agreement itself (followed by the commission of any overt act), it is not necessary for the Government to prove that the conspirators actually succeeded in accomplishing their unlawful plan.

What the evidence in the case must show beyond a reasonable doubt is:

First: That two or more persons, in some way or manner, came to a mutual understanding to try to accomplish a common and unlawful plan, as charged in the indictment;

Second: That the person willfully became a member of such conspiracy;

Third: That one of the conspirators during the existence of the conspiracy knowingly committed at least one of the methods (or 'overt acts') described in the indictment; and

Fourth: That such 'overt act' was knowingly committed at or about the time alleged in an effort to carry out or accomplish some object of the conspiracy.

An 'overt act' is any transaction or event, even one which may be entirely innocent when considered alone, but which is knowingly committed by a conspirator in an effort to accomplish some object of the conspiracy.

A person may become a member of a conspiracy without knowing all of the details of the unlawful scheme, and without knowing who all of the other members are. So, if a person has an understanding of the unlawful nature of a plan and knowingly and willfully joins in that plan on one occasion, that is sufficient to convict him for conspiracy even though he did not participate before, and even though he played only a minor part."

Re:The ACTUAL charges.

[BaltikaTroika]

The whois for irhabi007.com lists some guy in California with (what seems to me to be) a Jewish name... I doubt that many Arab terrorist cells would trust a Jacobson to be their propaganda guy.

A whois (or even Godaddy) search for the sites listed in the article (www.irhabi007.ca and www.irhabi007.tv) show that they're currently available for purchase.

I'll be first to call "bullshit" on this whole story.

Re:The ACTUAL charges.

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

It looks like you are not familiar with what conspiracy is used for in the legal system of the U.S. government. The fact that there are no other charges should make you pause. Here's a clue:

Here's a clue for YOU. The guy is a British subject, and was arrested and charged in the United Kingdom.

So why are you quoting US law?

Re:The ACTUAL charges.

[patdbr]

And this is why we no longer see news reports of training bases been destroyed by missile strikes - because the training has now moved into the elctronic environment.

Videos show how to build IED's and the use of weapons can now be distributed through compromised website - reducing the risk that trainers will be caught and increasing the reach of the information. Locations are posted on arabic speaking boards and downloaded - and as we know once something is on the Internet then it is never lost.

Posting images of attacks and other acts work to take advantage of the speed of the internet. Propaganda that is sent to traditional media outlets can be censored or delivered to Governments before it is shown to the intended audiences - Us the victim and those who are potential new recruits.

Cyberterrorism is no longer just about electronic attacks - it is about the use of the electronic environment to train and promote Politcally motivated violence. We dont need to worry about Jihadists using a CISCO vulnerability to take out the net - they use it better than we do.

Re:The ACTUAL charges.

[daigu]

I'm better acquainted with U.S. law. Are conspiracy laws in the U.K. different to the point where it changes the gist of what I'm saying? You tell me.

Irhabi 007 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Celebrated for his computer expertise, Irhabi 007 had propelled the jihadists into a 21st-century offensive..."

This sounds like an Onion article.

Re:Irhabi 007 ?

[PhotoBoy]

You've got to be impressed how these Islamic extremists denounce the western world and then take the codename of a celebrated western hero who fights terrorists...

Re:Irhabi 007 ?

[Ash-Fox]

Perhaps they see the people they're fighting against as terrorists and not themselves.

Re:Irhabi 007 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

With the intent of peeving people off which seems to of worked on you. One way to peeve someone off is to be a hipocrite and be proud of it. The second is to call the accuser exactly what you are, for eg, Dubya saying Saddam Hussein is a threat to world peace and possesses WMDs.

Re:Irhabi 007 ?

[FhnuZoag]

Actually, didn't Bond help out the Taliban against the Russians in The Living Daylights?

Re:Irhabi 007 ?

[PhotoBoy]

Yep, the Mujahadeen (apologies if that isn't the correct spelling). That was back when they were being funded and armed by the Americans of course. Things changed somewhat once they won and didn't need any help from the US...

Re:Irhabi 007 ?

[PhotoBoy]

It doesn't "peeve" me, it amuses me. Western culture is denounced by extremeists as decadent, corrupt and deserving of destruction, and yet this hacker calls himself 007, who is hardly a role model for Islamic freedom fighters. I don't see any irony behind the name either.

It actually reminds me of a satirical cartoon called "Monkey Dust" we have here in the UK. The show has a recurring sketch with a couple of British Muslims who plan the destruction of the Western world and then settle down to watch Manchester United play football on the TV whilst having Fish and Chips for tea.

And no-one here believed Blair's claims that there were WMDs in Iraq.

Re:Irhabi 007 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, it does amuse and sounds childish (script kiddi-ish).

No one believe the WMD garbage in .au either - they still got away with it. I think it's hilarious now that the "coalition" say "we believe he did, okay?" .. it's like - "hey don't blame us blame our belief system".

There is no real terrorist threat

[Anonymous Coward]

These terrorists are nothing but a tool used by our hijacked government to control the people with fear while they loot and plunder the American people.

Meanwhile Americans are apathetic and ignorant while their food supply is being poisoned, their liberties are being eroded and the executive branch weilds power that goes unchecked.

Most of what really happened on 9/11 will eventually become public knowledge (the information is out there if you look for it). The Bush administration will take the fall for this while the true perpetrators consolidate even more power and wealth.

Both Republicans and Democrats are in on this. Do not trust any Democrats to help the people (except for a select few). Hillary Clinton's adminstration will be little different than the Bush adminstration. She will succeed in taking away more liberties from the people (2nd amendment).

Expect "terrorist" attacks, massive internet control and censorship, mandatory (bird flu) vaccinations, national ID cards, unwarranted monitoring/tracking, FEMA detention camps and declining liberties.

Resistance is NOT futile. They will make it seem hopeless. It is never hopeless. In reality, they fear the people. We should not fear them. Fear, anger and conflict are their most powerful tools to manipulate the masses. We must fear nothing (but God), love all that share this world with us and make peace with one another. It is for the sake of our children and their children.

We must not be remembered as the generation that was idle while this was happening to us right under our noses. Take advantage of the information and personal networking we have access to on the internet while it lasts.

Re:There is no real terrorist threat

[raduf]

These terrorists are nothing but a tool used by our hijacked government to control the people with fear while they loot and plunder the American people.

Meanwhile Americans are apathetic and ignorant while their food supply is being poisoned, their liberties are being eroded and the executive branch weilds power that goes unchecked.

Both Republicans and Democrats are in on this. Do not trust any Democrats to help the people (except for a select few). Hillary Clinton's adminstration will be little different than the Bush adminstration. She will succeed in taking away more liberties from the people (2nd amendment).

Expect "terrorist" attacks, massive internet control and censorship, mandatory (bird flu) vaccinations, national ID cards, unwarranted monitoring/tracking, FEMA detention camps and declining liberties.

They are so evil in their ways that their most insidious weapon is using free speech itself. Expect posts on forums all over the internet saying the truth in such absurd and obvious radical ways that nobody will ever believe it again.

They will take your words and turn them against you. They will make you look like conspiracy theorists, sensless lunatics or hiperactive teenagers. They will make it so nobody will listen to what you have to say. Beware! They are everywhere!

Translation

[The Mgt]

'But our future security is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world.'

'Our desire to introduce repressive new laws is going to depend increasingly on pretending we're up against S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[ZuperDee]

I for one hope we NEVER get to see those al-Qaeda slime make an "offensive move rather than mere proselytizing." I cannot seriously believe you're suggesting that we should wait for a serious attack before we try to do anything to stop it. I for one am thankful that this guy was stopped before it escalated much further.

Criminal? Yes.

[AfricanImpi]

RTFA, not only did this guy hijack servers for his own use (which is most surely a criminal act), but he did so in order to disseminate weapons manuals and the like not only propaganda material. It is a common and long-standing principle in Western countries that providing aid and comfort to the enemy, most especially in terms of technical assistance, is a crime. It would be wrong to view the arrest of this man as "one more erosion of our rights", because the right to support the enemy has never existed. Save your energy to defend real victims, not this guy.

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always knew this free speech thingy was a lie. Only counts if it's your opinion, right? Land of the cowards, land of the slaves.

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

lol
man.. your are blind
don't you know this:
they came after X i did nothing
they came after Y i did nothing
they came after me no one did nothing

this is clearly propaganda. this guy was jailed by the Scotland Yard and the WP did the news...
read the text with your eyes and mind open and you will notice a need for control internet.
the text only talks about that he helped put online information... yeah...sure...they don't know about p2p, email, peer2mail, rapidshare and sites like that...
USA citizens.. prepare your self for another pratiot act. good luck
(my word for confirmation is disgrace... how ironic)

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[lxs]

He's only been charged, not yet convicted, until that time calling him a criminal is simply wrong. No matter who he is.

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[pimpimpim]

It is a common and long-standing principle in Western countries that providing aid and comfort to the enemy, most especially in terms of technical assistance, is a crime.

Define 'enemy'. Any allied regiment previously provided with "aid and comfort" as well as "technical assistance" by these Western countries may become an enemy if there are enough political and economical interests that would require that.

This has been like this for decades, nothing new there, but I'd hoped that by now it should be clear to anyone that it works that way. Maybe if the majority of the public will realize this there will be a halt to public support for a lot of useless wars to come. You'll need a well-educated public to have them realize this, so maybe public support can be kept up by keeping everyone from thinking for themselves. Now back to Jerry Springer in the studio, who'll show a man who started a relationship with his two goldfishes!!!

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[Don_dumb]

Not only that but it is contemptive court if the media are using the same kind of prejudice that is on this forum, but somehow I dont think the media will be punished for preventing any form of fair trial.

And before anyone attempts to flame with "terrorists dont deserve fair trials". May I just point out that everyone deserves a fair trial no matter what they are charged with, after all we want to defend freedom, not elimiate it.

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[amias]

His capture is not so much an erosion of rights but the reactions from scheming politicans will almost certainly cause an erosion of rights . I predict that this arrest will be abused
to create a perception that online freedom is breeding terrorism . From here damage to civil rights will ensue. In the long run the actions of the politicans will be far more damaging
than this individual could ever have been.

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[Crystalmonkey]

"Save your energy to defend 'real' victims, not this guy."


First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[DaveV1.0]

I wonder what Pastor Martin Niemöller think of you using his poem in reference to a man who supports and provides aid to an organization dedicated to exterminating the Jews, that uses unrestrained violence, and that murders innocents to advance their cause of world domination by Islam?

In this little game, the Islamist terrorists are closer to the Nazis than any Western government.

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[McDutchie]

It is a common and long-standing principle in Western countries that providing aid and comfort to the enemy, most especially in terms of technical assistance, is a crime.

So has the UK declared war on anyone? Didn't think so. The whole concept of "enemy" doesn't enter into it.

Re:Criminal? Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Islamist"?

STFU, kike.

Benjamin Franklin

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Everytime I read an article like this the following quote from Ben Franklin pops up in my head:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[TommyMc]

...because we haven't heard that quote for at least 5 minutes or so.

"Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote,/and think they grow immortal as they quote" - Edward Young (1683 - 1765)

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[mgabrys_sf]

An admirable and overused quote - from a guy who should have worn "protection".

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[pjt33]

Everytime I read an article like this <snip>

Three possibilities:

1. You did, in fact, read the article and then post about it. Have you no shame? You'll damage the reputation the rest of us enjoy for commenting without first informing ourselves!
2. You didn't read the article, but are trying to imply you did. Desist from such invidious deception!
3. You're merely stating a general proposition which doesn't strictly apply and hoping that it'll prove relevant enough for the mods to smile upon you. Slashdotting at its finest!

Re:Benjamin Franklin

[Anonymous Coward]

What, you mean "essential liberties" like stealing credit card info? The "essential liberty" of hacking other people's servers to use it for your own purposes? RTFA! He is charged with "eight offenses including conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to cause an explosion, conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, conspiracy to obtain money by deception and offences relating to the possession of articles for terrorist purposes and fundraising." Any of these strike you as "essential liberties"?

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[SetupWeasel]

If the guy actually exists.

Celebrated hacker?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a pretty crappy hacker, he got caught... what a noob

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[Anonymous Coward]

he exists, i just talked to him yesterday at the NSA

MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy fuck, does none of these so-called moderators possess any sense of humor? Fucking gays.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Meanwhile, five comments above had an explanation of someone else's obvious joke modified as funny. Again, that's all you need to know about humanity. It's the same reason doggie treats are made to look and smell like bacon to humans.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that joke was hilarious and surely deserves more credit than that...

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Literaphile]

Meanwhile, five comments above had an explanation of someone else's obvious joke modified as funny. Again, that's all you need to know about humanity. It's the same reason doggie treats are made to look and smell like bacon to humans.

The moderators modded up an explanation of someone else's joke because we like to anthropomorphize our pets?

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

If they consulted dogs, we'd have dog treats that smelled like ass.

Hey, it seems to fascinate them. go figure.

One more reason to strip away my rights...

[freedom_india]

This ONE hacker is enough for the Bush Regime to further reduce my already reduced privacy and civil rights.

As in the "Enemy of the State", what privacy exists is only within my mind.

Whenever i browser the internet looking at "interesting" sites, talk to my wife over the mobile, call my sister, withdraw money; i know the NSA is watching me.

Iam not interested in wholesale misuse by the Govt: There are too many good people still remaining who will prevent some extent of it. Iam worried about misuse by people like Ashcroft, right-wing nuts who think abstination and religious crap are going to cure AIDS, and that our society will go back to the old 1872's era of nice moral women and gentlemen.

Bush has a dream: no doubt: Of a benevolent govt., looking over our shoulders when i copulate with my wife...

This is exactly what the Founding Fathers tried to prevent...

Unfortunately Al-Qaueda is a god-sent to these right-wing nuts to take away my life.

In a sense Hollywood was pretty ahead of its time: Enemy of State and Siege were very good movies...

The world i leave to my son, would be a world, where if the NSA wants, can tap into all the SIX points of his body to look, see, touch, smell and feel what he feels.

Iam sick !

Re:One more reason to strip away my rights...

[anaesthetica]

This is one of the funniest posts I've ever read on Slashdot. I don't even know where to start.

Re:One more reason to strip away my rights...

[mickyflynn]

yes, and the Shinbet (Israeli version of M15 or the FBI) created Hamas to split the Palestinian cause and weaken the PLO. Then Hamas got away from them and turned into a real group in their own right. That much is true. Such tactics were used by the FBI during the 60s with the threats from the New Left. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if the powers that be created Al Qaeda for just such a subversive purpose. Bin Laden made his debut under Bush I, earned his wings during Clinton, and went for the gold during Bush II. Bush I and Clinton are now all buddy-buddy, despite the "partisan" bickering by those on their respective sides. Is it that dificult to believe that the Bushes and the Clintons are in it together (not, of course, by themselves) and that they control Al Qaeda? I don't think so.

Re:One more reason to strip away my rights...

[WorldRimWalker]

Seeing as we are coming up on April 15, the time of year when all good Americans are called upon to confess their income to the government, it seems odd to hear people talk about "erosion" of privacy.

Just what privacy did you expect to retain, once the details of your employment, earnings and savings had been laid open to your federal, state, and (in come cases) local governments?

RTFA

[Chuck Chunder]

He was arrested for suspected participation in a bomb plot. He himself adopted the terrorist moniker with "Irhabi -- Terrorist -- 007".

Nor is the 007 part of the moniker all that surprising given the fact that he is British (or at least based in England) and could also be taken as a name chosen so as to be understandable and resonate with westerners and thus instill fear in them (though I grant you it is likely pure childishness). Of course it could also appeal to potential terrorists familiar with western culture (ie those in western countries).

Al Qaeda = GNAA

[Anonymous Coward]

And weapons of mass destruction = weapons of ass destruction (you know which site I mean).

It's just the 'demonize the enemy' approach.

'Kiddies

[t_allardyce]

When are they going to catch all the dirty little script kiddies who mass-defaced Danish websites with death threats? These people are most likely the suicide-bomber wannabes who were told to stay home by their big brother because they were too young.

I expect its not so much about catching them, more about using them as keys into cells. Every-time they do something online they are providing an opportunity to be traced and hopefully this will lead to some big busts. Trading a few weapons manuals and videos online is no big deal really - if you want to see the beheading videos go to one of the countless 'hardcore-gore' sites out there or watch Al Jazeera. Weapons manuals have been traded ever since school kids put the anarchists cook book on school network shares.

I hope our governments are actually getting off their asses and using this intelligence to catch daka-dakas.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[SetupWeasel]

Good. Too bad you haven't caught that Osama guy or that #2 guy we almost catch every time Bush's polls are down.

Oh no!

[miffo.swe]

An evil terrorist has a website up that shows completely open manuals for weapons, oh the horror! Quick, put the NRA in jail this very instant!

And even more evil, hes not on the side of the US and write bad things about it. Off to the thought ministery and reprogram him, cant have that can we?

Its pretty darn sad how little value the word terrorrist has theese days. Nowadays ot seems to mean smalltime criminal punk with the wrong skin colour. Racism? You bet it is.

Take a look at the numbers, how many of your friends died in a car accident and how many died from a terriorist act....

Re:Oh no!

[hqm]

Take a look at the numbers, how many of your friends died in a car accident and how many died from a terriorist act.... Number dead from car accidents: 0

Number dead from terrorist bombing: 4 (2 world trade center attack, 2 air india bombing)

So, what was your point?

Re:Oh no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course. Let's start playing the nubers game here. I mean, look at the number of people killed in WWII vs. the number of people born since. Or the number of Jews exterminated in WWII vs. the total current world population of Jews. Then lets look at the number of people killed in car crashes vs. the number of people killed by terrorists.

So what if more people die in car accidents than at the hands of terrorists? That doesn't at all make terrorism OK or not as high a priority of prevention as car accidents. Much in the same way, we don't say the Holocaust was no biggie because Judaism still exists today.

Terrorism is not necessarily about killing. Often, it uses killing to get closer to its goal: control by fear. 3,000 plus people were killed in New York at the Twin Towers. That's a lot of people, but in the grand scheme of things, not so many. It pales in comparison to someone deploying a nuclear device against the same city.

And yet, those 3,000 deaths prompted a much more far-reaching result. Flights were cancelled for days. People began fearing their neighbors more than before. Every time a power outage happens the first words of of the news anchor's mouth are "We do not know at this time if this was the result of terrorism." For God's sake, every news station went out of its their way during the Columbia space shuttle crash to report that it was not an act of terrorism.

The Jihadists are trying to get us to the point that whenever they are able to make an attack, we will shut down; paralyzed with fear and come one step closer to collapse.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[tciny]

I think the actual reason for him being such a threat is his ability to dodge censorship. Seeing how much media attention the videos he (supposedly) spreads recieve, you can kind of guess of what importance he is. This will, of course, again be used to push forward with laws cutting down on internet anonymity. Cause why would you want to be anonymous if you're not a commie/terrorist?

familiar to Republican voters?

[commodoresloat]

In what way is "irhabi" more familiar to Republicans than potential terrorists? Oh, you mean 007... news flash -- this kid is British. And 007 is familiar to people around the world regardless of religion or politics, much less "terrorist" affiliation. Also, the kid was busted for participating in a bomb plot, not for spreading hacking propaganda; it is only after they busted him that they figured out he had anything to do with this 007 character. But the moniker is not surprising at all. A lot of terrorist recruits in western countries -- and even a lot of them from the middle east -- have grown up being exposed to western popular culture, including cowboys and action/adventure movies. And James Bond is a decades-old popular cultural institution who simply rules the world of undercover intrigue -- he was the ultimate spy long before anyone even heard of Iran-Contra. Many terrorists probably see themselves as James Bond type characters, so there is really nothing at all surprising about this.

are you a terrorist-sympathizer?

[Anonymous Coward]

How very 1984 of you. Thanks for outing yourself as one not to be bothered with.

Cracker, not hacker

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't spoil Slashdot's professionalism.

abstinence (or abstination if you will)

[Animaether]

well you gotta hand it to him... abstinence would indeed 'cure' AIDS. It would take several decades, but AIDS, at least among humans, would cease to exist. Of course, so would humanity %)

--

Okay, back to all seriousness - there is currently no cure for AIDS, and I'm sure he never said that. I'm also quite sure he never mentioned that everybody should abstain indefinitely, as that indeed would mean no procreation and thus extinction of the human race. I'm going to guess that he was referring to not having sex before marriage, or at least not promiscuous sex. However you may feel about that, he has a point with it. Even when accounting for all the people who cheat on their spouses, and accounting for infection through blood transfusion, etc. there would be an undeniably large portion of society who - if they were to live by it - would have sex with one partner and one partner only. If in some tragic event one or the other had AIDS (e.g. through transfusion/whatever) before marriage, and the other contracts it upon consummation or some other point in their marriage, the spread will be limited to that one other person.
Compare this to many youngsters spreading STDs - not even referring to HIV here - among several people simply because they choose to have intimate sexual relations with multiple persons without being safe, etc. etc.

Of course they are both near the two ends of a wide spectrum of people's sexual activity, but I don't think it can be denied that the one end is inherently 'safer' than the other; exceptions (as usual) notwithstanding

--

Personally I'm all for people having sex /responsibly/ - whether that's before or after marriage, with one person or 50 persons, opposite or same sex, doesn't really matter. Unfortunately common sense fails upon many of today's youth (13-17 year olds asking money or gifts in exchange for sexual favors in The Netherlands, for example. *cringe*).

The many faces of jihad.

[Reservoir Penguin]

Our brother Irhabi 007, you have shown very good efforts in serving our common cause, as I can see, and in serving jihad for the sake of God. By God, we do not like to hear what hurts you, so we ask God to keep you in his care.
You are one of the top people who care about serving your brothers. May God add all of that on the side of your good work, and may you go careful and successful.
We say carry on with God's blessing.
Carry on, may God protect you.
Carry on serving jihad and its supporters.
And I ask the mighty, gracious and merciful God to keep for us everyone who wants to support his faith.
Amen.

Cherry picking "facts"

[AHumbleOpinion]

Which means you have to be a subscriber to the "coincidence theory", believing all the following are simply coincidences.

If you have a thousand random facts it is not hard to cherry pick a few of the randomly negative ones to invent a consipiracy theory to sell a book or a political agenda. Every years there will be a new book on what really happened on 9/11 just like there is a new Kennedy assassination book, a new FDR let Pearl Harbor happen book, etc.

It's also easy to misrepresent a fact to people unfamiliar with a subject. For example your quote "These same pilots, flying planes capable of going 1,500 to 1,850 miles per hour, on that day were all evidently able to get their planes to fly only 300 to 700 miles per hour." Damn suspicious unless you actually know something about air combat. You're finding it odd that Mach 2.4 aircraft only flew at Mach 0.9. We had Mach 2.2 aircraft during Vietnam. Know how many few that fast? Zero. Mach 2.0, Mach 1.8? Zero. One or two flew at Mach 1.6, they ran out of fuel over North Vietname, the pilots became prisoners. Most air combat took place up to Mach 0.9, cruising between points at less, it's all about fuel consumption.

I'd wager many of your other incriminating facts would fall to someone with some knowledge of the subject material as well.

Re:Cherry picking "facts"

[unix_core]

This depends completely on hard facts like the actual distance and fuel capacity/consumption of teses specific jets. There is also the fact that they are not flying over enemy territory risking to be captured if they have to make en emergency landing. But the most interesting thing would be if statement 3 would be true, if they could have lifted fron less distance places, fuel economy would be less of an issue. I just think we should keep in mind that rejecting a conspiracy theory requires just as much real evidence as claiming one.

Re:Cherry picking "facts"

[Anonymous Coward]

One or two flew at Mach 1.6, they ran out of fuel over North Vietname, the pilots became prisoners.

Because God knows we wouldn't want any of out pilots captured by... New Jersey!

And here we have....

[ericspinder]

Evidence that some will believe anything that claims to be evidence, even if offered nothing more that half baked interpretation, and rumor.

Barnum had it right, "there's a sucker born every minute". The funny thing is that the 'quote' is more telling than that. Apparently he was accredited for it that by a single newspaper story which was planted by a competitor, and retold by thousands who have never known the truth, kinda like many of these 9/11 tales.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[LilGuy]

Wait... aren't his polls at their lowest right now? That must mean we're at least within 5 caves...

Digihad

[ChristianCooper]

What, 129 comments on a story about the online actions of an al-qa'ida "hacker", and no use of the word digihad? Slashdot, you disappoint me!

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[SetupWeasel]

Well there's this guy, and we actually have him according to Mr. NSA AC there! I would put a significant amount of money on the odds that Bush will mention him as a major victory in the war on terror today. He might even slip in a little plug for his wiretapping "program." This wouldn't be possible without blah blah blah.

Sadly, you have to wait a few months before bringing out the "Might have killed #2 guy - Oops, we were close, but we didn't," headline couplet again, or people might catch on.

ha ha

[seanieb]

I reckon it's just another desperate exercise in propaganda by the Americans for the Americans. It's just information, or is it a thought crime? In other news: tune into Fox news tonight, Bush tears up the constitution. Rice, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld take turns pissing on its remains.

Its a self serving press release, NOT a news story

[AugustFalcon]

"The short career of Irhabi 007 offers a case study in the evolving nature of the threat that we at the SITE Institute track every day by monitoring and then joining the password-protected forums and communicating with the online jihadi community"

Come on, RTFA closely. Given the proclivities of Slashdot readers this may make for interesting reading but it is neither news nor does it say anything about our "rights" nor any erosion of them.

The only question it raises is why has the Washington Post seen fit to allow the SITE people to write a press release directly into their news publication in a form similar to what their readers would believe is an actual news article.

irony

[mgabrys_sf]

OFF WITH HIS HEAD!

Heja fucking Sverige

[upside]

So you didn't read TFA, did you? You just wanted to spew.

For your benefit: Tsouli was arrested because he was a bomb plot suspect. They found out he was a known "hacker" later. "Tsouli has been charged with eight offenses including conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to cause an explosion ..."

Feel silly? You should, and ashamed because your comments are callous as well as stupid considering "car accidents" like 9/11, the London bombings and Theo van Gogh's murder. Accidents happen. Murder doesn't just happen.

So check your facts and try to make a balanced point of view. You see that's what makes the Nordic countries special, not Yankee bashing. However it means you have to leave your safe, crystal clear, black and white world view behind and see there are shades of gray. Which sucks, so maybe you can take the easy option and just write me off as a racist and go back to Yankee-bashing. Which, by the way, doesn't make you look so clever. You see it's just as easy as mocking religion, Windows or Emacs users. :p

Re:Heja fucking Sverige

[miffo.swe]

Those accusations against this man is baseless and pretty lame. If you use those terms like in the article half the worlds population should be behind bars. Its newspeak in its finest form and you bought it hook line and sinker just like the placent little citizen youre supposed to be.

Re:Heja fucking Sverige

[DaveV1.0]

Those accusations against this man is baseless and pretty lame.

And you know the accusations are "baseless"? Are you one of the investigators? Are you one of the terrorists he is alleged to have been in the conspiracy with? Are you a close personal friend of his?

Tell us please, the source of your knowledge of this man's guilt or innocence.

I believe your are spewing forth lies and ignorance. Prove me wrong, tell me how you know.

WHOOSH!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Either English isn't your first language, or you exert some serious gravitational pull of your own.

Danger Will Robinson! Mods on crack!

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf, parent was on topic

Occam's Razor

[ccmay]

I just think we should keep in mind that rejecting a conspiracy theory requires just as much real evidence as claiming one.

Bullshit. You need to take a logic course and learn a little about something called Occam's Razor. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

-ccm

Re:Occam's Razor

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a little bit of extraordinary proof. Maybe not proof of a conspiracy, but it is definitive proof that we haven't been told the whole truth.

News reports on Sept. 11 indicated that flight crew found similar weapons (box cutters) stowed under cushions in seats on a plane that had never flown that day, and on which passengers had not yet boarded. This story was buried in the media and never aired again. That means that the government knows that none of this "increased security" at the airport could have prevented Sept. 11. So why are they lying to us?

Oh, yeah, and with the exception of the flight crew, the only people who can access an aircraft without the flight crew present are maintenance workers and law enforcement. This strongly suggests that either one of the flight crews, part of the maintenance crew, or a government law enforcement agency are responsible for Sept. 11th. None of those possibilities should sit well with the public.

Here's another one. Sept. 12th 2001... the day after the attack... George W. Bush implies that Iraq is responsible. The news media completely dropped the ball, and even when he decided to attack Iraq, no one ever brought that up.

Here's another one. As the GP mentioned, there are aircraft that are supposed to be able to be in the air over the Washington D.C. corridor to protect our nation's capital. I've read that they regularly drill to ensure that in the event of an emergency, they can be in the air in no more than 3 minutes. That obviously did not happen. This is standard policy in the event that any aircraft encroaches on White House airspace, and we've seen it occur on numerous occasions, both recently before and after Sept. 11. So in order to believe the official story, you have to believe something quite extraordinary---that somehow, miraculously, years of training and practice by multiple bases simultaneously went down the tubes, despite having worked consistently during multiple similar occurrences in the months leading up to Sept. 11.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The official story, therefore, similarly requires extraordinary proof.

Re:Occam's Razor

[Anonymous Coward]

Extraordinary proof: the government has never released images of a 757 approaching or crashing into the Pentagon. It is physically impossible for a 757 to have flown that low and then disappear completely into a hole no more than 18 feet wide. I think you need to take a deductive reasoning course. We might not know exactly what did happen, but it's pretty fucking obvious at this point that the "official story" is not it.

Re:Occam's Razor

[AoT]

OK, I'll admit that I am a bit dubious about the official explination of the events on september eleventh, but I am certainly not one to spout off about the government doing it all on purpose. What I really take issue with is the constant use of Occam's Razor as a logical device. It is not. It simply states "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." If we take this at face value, then a conspiracy which involves the government is actually more likely. You would only have one entity, the U.S. government, as opposed to two.

And, no, extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary proof, the require sufficient proof, which they rarely have.

Re:Occam's Razor

[AHumbleOpinion]

Here's a little bit of extraordinary proof.

You standard for proof is very very low, in fact, perhaps even a "believer" in search of a conspiracy.

News reports on Sept. 11 indicated that flight crew found similar weapons (box cutters) stowed under cushions in seats on a plane that had never flown that day, and on which passengers had not yet boarded. This story was buried in the media and never aired again.

That often happen is incorrect reports. Do you think the networks are going to waste valuable air time telling you that the story they told you earlier today was complete BS?

That means that the government knows that none of this "increased security" at the airport could have prevented Sept. 11. So why are they lying to us?

They are not necessarily lying, you might want to consider that your powers of deduction may be a bit weak, or that you lack imagination. For example the box cutters may have been planted by the terrorists on a different day. The news reported that they flew the route numerous times to evaluate their plan and to become familiar faces. They may have pre-positioned a second set of weapons in case what they were carrying was confiscated on the day of the attack. Remember they could not reschedule their attack since it was coordinated with other groups. Seat cushions would be a good place to stash a small object, it is not an area that a cleanup crew would check. Only a very thorough search would have found the weapons, and those were not generally carried out without an expectation of a threat at that time. So increased security on 9/11 may not have helped, but if there had been increased security over a longer preceding time frame it may have very well helped. You conclusion fails.

Oh, yeah, and with the exception of the flight crew, the only people who can access an aircraft without the flight crew present are maintenance workers and law enforcement. This strongly suggests that either one of the flight crews, part of the maintenance crew, or a government law enforcement agency are responsible for Sept. 11th. None of those possibilities should sit well with the public.

As pointed out above the items could have been left there by the terrorists day(s) earlier. You conclusion fails, your evidence extraordinary only in the poor direction.

Here's another one. Sept. 12th 2001... the day after the attack... George W. Bush implies that Iraq is responsible. The news media completely dropped the ball, and even when he decided to attack Iraq, no one ever brought that up.

Uh, huh, no one except George Bush would have ever considered Iraq's potential involvement. It's not like we had fought a war with them, it's not like Saddam had made threats, had fired at American aircraft for years, had attempted to assassinate a former US president visiting the middle east, was known to support suicide bombers, etc. And certainly regular Americans would never look to Iraq after terrorism ... oh wait, they did after Oklahoma City, until to our surprise we found out it was one of our own who did it. Suspecting Iraq, even verbalizing that you suspect Iraq, proves nothing. They rightfully belonged on a very short list of initial suspects. It would have been idiotic not to have them on the short list, it would be like finding a young woman murdered and not looking for the husband or boyfriend first. Your evidence fails, again.

Here's another one. As the GP mentioned, there are aircraft that are supposed to be able to be in the air over the Washington D.C. corridor to protect our nation's capital. I've read that they regularly drill to ensure that in the event of an emergency, they can be in the air in no more than 3 minutes. That obviously did not happen. This is standard policy in the event that any aircraft encroaches on White House airspace, and we've seen it occur on numerous occasions, both recently before and after Sept. 11. So in order to believe the official stor

Re:Occam's Razor

[mink]

I do no believe that this was set up by the government, but there are a lot of issues with the official story and facts IMO.

I think that our government has done things in the past that makes it hard for people to trust what they say about incidents like this.

The one example I can think of is when the joint chiefs (I think, head military brass) got together and decided it would be a swell idea to shoot down a passenger plane full of Americans on it's way to Cuba and blame the Cubans as an excuse to invade.

While this idea was shot down (sorry could not resist) the fact that people thought it would be justified and good is enough to make one wonder if others would be willing to go that far or farther if it meant securing insane amounts of money and power.

And Joseph Goebbels isn't a Nazi either

[gadlaw]

That's almost as ridiculous as saying that Joseph Goebbels isn't a Nazi either. I mean, he was a propagandist for the Nazi's wasn't he? So how could he be a nazi as well? Well guess what, they don't have to find you strapped with explosives to determine you're one of the bad guys.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[TomMorrisey]

Al-Qaeda goes through #2s faster than the Enterprise went through red-shirted ensigns, apparently:
Nov. 16, 2001 -- Air strikes in Afghanistan may have killed Mohammed Atef, the No. 2 man in the Al Qaeda terrorist network, Pentagon officials said today.
(http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2001/n11162001 _200111168.html)
March 18, 2004 - Pakistani officials believe they have the No. 2 man in al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, cornered.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2004/n03182004_ 2004031811.html
September 28, 2005 - Gen. Richard Myers, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon that the U.S. military considered Abu Azzam the "No. 2 Al Qaeda operative in Iraq, next to Zarqawi."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9518556/site/newsweek/ from/RL.5/
Spreading this information to would-be terrorists could be _THE_ key to defeating terrorism globally. "If I work hard for the cause... I may get promoted... if I get promoted enough, I might be second only to bin Laden himself... wait a minute..."

MOD PARENT +1 FUNNY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately Al-Qaueda is a god-sent to these right-wing nuts to take away my life.

Cukoo! Cukoo!

Gawd, what a classic leftist-paranoid-geek rant. I'm gonna print it off on my Epson "retro" green and white tractor-feed and hang it between my Seti@Home certs and my Denise Crosby-autographed copy of the Prime Directive.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[anaesthetica]

It doesn't appear that he was a cyberterrorist per se. More like an online courier in illicit information. No one particularly had to worry about him blowing something up, but they do have to worry about the activities of the people he provided training materials to.

Btw, I went to the movies yesterday to see that new Spike Lee film and saw not on but two upcoming movies about 9/11. One's about the flight 93 that got downed in PA, and the other is simply called "World Trade Center" and it's directed by Oliver fucking Stone. It's still too soon, I'm sorry.

Keep on whining

[Anonymous Coward]

and I will keep hoping to watch him fry

Moslems will kill people for becoming Christian

[Anonymous Coward]

Or drawing cartoons.

Your moral relativism is so fucking quaint.

Re:Moslems will kill people for becoming Christian

[raduf]

      And christians kill people for performing abortions. I don't get your point.

Re:Moslems will kill people for becoming Christian

[aricusmaximus]

Your pro-genocidal snap-judgement, AC, is an understandable result of raging young teen hormones. Once you have enough facial hair to shave and enough courage and understanding to post non-AC, then maybe your opinions will be worth something.

In the meantime, go do your homework.

Information

[Kinthelt]

Looks like I'll have to delete my copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook and Terrorist's Handbook from my hard drive.

Since they are looking for jihadis

[Foobar of Borg]

Since they are looking for jihadis, maybe they should look here.

Packets of data don't scare me.

[Expert Determination]

Obviously you didn't learn anything from the fate of the Battlestar Atlanta.

DragNet

[Doc Ruby]

"Looking further, they found that the cards were used to pay American Internet providers on whose servers he had posted jihadi propaganda. Only then did investigators come to believe that they had netted the infamous hacker. And that element of luck is a problem. The Internet has presented investigators with an extraordinary challenge. But our future security is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world."

The "investigators" didn't trace the well-known propagandist's Internet packets from his well-known websites to his terminal, to his person. No mention of a labyrinth of anonymizing proxies, or ever-changing public login terminals. They busted a credit fraudster and discovered his other, more dangerous gigs.

Meanwhile, the NSA, Echelon and other global "security" agencies are snooping on hundreds of millions of people's traffic. Supposedly to protect us from people like this Qaeda asshole. But they don't do even the basic network forensics a corporate IT department would immediately do when trying to find a bad guy.

Maybe if they caught the few, highly destructive bad guys like this Qaeda asshole, their "security" budgets would dry up. Maybe they've got their own reasons not to hit too hard against online credit fraudsters - collusion with international mobs, spooking the insurers, stumbling across covert finance networks for national "intelligence" agencies.

They're getting $HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS, invading our privacy, imprisoning people without evidence they're suspect, invading unrelated countries, breaking laws to spy on us at home. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard's traditionally tight nets of reasonable evidence and human intelligence have caught a terrorist operative. Who actually spreads terror, publishing the propaganda about terrorist attacks widely.

The demonstrated answer to these terrorists is our well understood police techniques. The justice system we've developed over hundreds of years, that is based on evidence and logic. Not only does it prove who did what when, but it avoids the damage caused by destroying liberty in the name of protecting it. Now we'll watch the mass media pump this arrest for more money and power for secret government operations that don't actually work.

Re:DragNet

[Anonymous Coward]

What isn't clear in the link the the article is that it's in the Washington Post's Sunday OPINION section. It is not a hard news article, has weak sourcing, and is written by people with an agenda (selling a book (still listed as written by anonymous despite the credit at the end of the web article) and promoting a cause (that asks for donations and needs your money to fight terrorism. (Much like every other article in the OPINION section.) The givaway is in the second paragraph: After pursuing an investigation into a European terrorism suspect, British investigators raided Tsouli's house, where they found stolen credit card information, according to an American source familiar with the probe. A "source familiar" could be anyone anywhere who claims to be familiar with the case. In the intelligence/SIGINT world, there is no verification. How the heck would an American source be truly familiar with the case? Clearly not a primary source -- just someone repeating something off the global intel net.

The story is an excellent piece of propaganda that offers "insight" into how you can promote yourself in the opinion section of a national newspaper. Instead of debating the worth of the story in and of itself, slashdotters have the same old debate over terrorism vs. privacy vs. freedom.

Please send me your money now and I'll fight terrorism by putting together a crappy web billboard ripped off from SETI, forming a 501c(3) organization, writing a book anonymously, and using your money to hire a PR firm to represent me and get my stories in the Post. Really, send me your money now and you'll be helping fund my net-centric asymmetric (insert jargon-of-the-week here) battle against terrorism. Free (anonymous) book with donations of $1000 or more.

Hey, if you don't believe I'm winning the war on terrorism, just read my story in the Post...

Re:DragNet

[Doc Ruby]

You're right. Essentially, the story's only connection between the busted credit fraudster and the terror propagandist is that when they busted the former, the latter stopped acting. The possibility that the fraud merely funded the propaganda, or some other causal connection other than identity, or some other correlation, is never mentioned outside the author's certitude.

That logic is just like the Cheney/Bush/Rice/Rumsfeld procedure to "link" the 2001 Qaeda bombings with Iraq, without just chanting "Saddam is Osama". Merely so they can deny it later, after years of rational denial of the link accumulate strength and threaten to discredit anything the cabal says. This kind of "imputation" is the way the "intelligence industry" steals everything we value, while failing to produce any security.

computer expertise?

[nurb432]

Umm... how hard is it to "securely disseminate manuals...." ? Secure web pages.. geesh. Any 10 year old can do that in this day and age.

Thoughts on Al Qaeda Hackers

[SableTek]

First, 'Al Qaeda hacker' is probably not the best choice of words given the group's penchant for beheadings. Second, I wonder when some creative lawyer is going to propose suing weapons manufacturers because "terrorists don't kill people, weapons do!" Oh wait, the weapons of mass destruction have to actually be found first.

Re:if you believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I understand he was actually broke. Second, he has been living inside a cave for a last few years. It is very unlikely someone as wanted as him would show up in a major urban city. Third, tapes mean nothning. It might be him, it might be someone who looks like him, or it might be a collection of old tapes. Recent events mentioned could have been edited into them.

Its likely he is dead and was dead prior to 911. He, however does have sons and associates.

Not necessarily

[Anonymous Coward]

"You have to be pretty damned pissed off about something to blow yourself up and kill innocent people."

That is a very naive thing to believe. It suffices being brainwashed by some "doctrine" or extremist cult. A lot of people would even do it just for the promise of a lot of money left to their relatives. Kinda what happened in that movie "Minority Report".

You're being deliberately stupid, then

[Anonymous Coward]

The Christians who murder doctors who perform abortions are very few in number and are treated as criminals.

Islamic governments acting under sharia will haul Christians into court for the crime of merely being a Christian, where the penalty is death. Or maybe millions and millions of Moslems will riot because a few dolts halfway across the world drew a few dumb cartoons. Or an Islamic theocracy will use their laws to sentence an author to death in absentia because they think he wrote something heretical.

How about the different responses we got to see from Christians when a Crucifix was dumped into a bucket of piss compared to how Moslems reacted when there was just a false claim that someone may have put a Quran into a toilet? How about "stoning" homosexuals by tying them to a stake and literally dumping a dump truck full of boulders on top of them?

Care to deliberately misunderstand the implications of all that again, dumbass?

Tell me again that you really can't see the societal and cultural differences here, and that terming such acts "barbaric" and maybe even "evil" is not warranted.

Re:You're being deliberately stupid, then

[raduf]

dumbass .....chuckles..... Sorry, i had a long night and that was funny :)

      Back to the subject. Yes, of course there is a big difference and I don't deny it. Your post however was far too short to see where you were going, so I just gave a counter-example and waited for clarification.

      Anyways, since you seem to expect a debate I'll try to oblige. The bulk of the difference comes from the state of the civilisation in the respective countries. There were times in our (christian) history when you would have been killed painfully for droping a cruxifix in a bucket of piss, if you did it in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just as well as there are muslim countries today where the reply to "i've become christian" may well be "ah, so now you'll get us presents on 25 december?" or something equally benign.
      As a pharantheses, my best friend went a few years ago in the largest muslim country in the world (indonesia - you would't think, i know. i was surprised too) and they treated him quite well.

      Anyways my point is the difference is not religion. Or if it is, it's indirect at best. Yes people are tried in religious courts, but they don't do this because they are religious, they do this because they're ...stupid?... uncivilised.

      It's dangereus to call people names and apply labels such as muslim or hindu or even american. The reason for that is actually the subject of the link I posted. In a nutshell, it's a lot easyer to hurt people when you apply labels to them. You don't say: Muhammad, known as slim_muhy on slashdot, with great sense of humour and programming skills, was killed in an incident yesterday in Bagdad along with his family. You say: three irqis killed in an incident yesterday in Bagdad. Big difference, isn't it? Just by calling them iraqis. Anyways, the article goes to explain that apparently this is't just common wisdom, but has real basis in psychology, and also bigger longer term effects.

    It's written btw by the guy who did the stanford experiment in the '70. Took a bunch of students and asked them to roleplay a prison. Inside a week they started doing it so well that the experiment had to be stopped. Goes to show..well, many things.

So you already know he's guilty.

[khasim]

Actually, I care very much about what happens to him. He should be given a speedy trial (about five minutes should be sufficient), whatever useful information he has should be wrung out of him by any means necessary and then the scum bag should be killed in the most painful manner possible. Anything less than this would be a travesty.

So, from those statements, it seems that you've already decided that he is guilty.

And you've decided that strictly from the report the government released.

Why do you have so much faith in the government's honesty, veracity and accuracy?

If anything, the events of the past few years would seem to indicate that governments are not to be trusted as you seem to trust them.

Re:2+2=5?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, its like saying that every American, including myself, is responsible for the situation in Iraq because no one spoke up to stop it. The same can be said for the Vietnam war. In reality, we as citizenry are all cowards with little political input, and fall in line when we are told.

The German situation, however, was worse because it was 'true' genocide. The German people were guilty by association (not all of course, many of them tried to help), however, the majority stood by and did nothing.

If one actively sees a murder taking place on a street and does nothing is this not a form of aiding and abetting criminal intent. In this analogy police officers would be shoulders, citizens are citizens. The same could be said for Germany, the German people had an ethnical responsiblity to stop Hitler.

Washington Post? The stenographers club?

[Catbeller]

It Came From the Washington Post.

Listen: the Post has swallowed the hook, line, sinker, and fishing trawler for over ten years now. They gobbled down the fake Clinton scandals verbatim from Ken Starr, and for the last four years have spectacularly slurped down every worm dangled in from of them from the faked intelligence for weapons in Iraq to aluminum tubes to Colin Powell's magnificient self destruction in front of the U.N. presenting descredited notions from Cheney's little Special Office of special intelligence.

They and the NY Times have been shown that they've been hosed like third graders accidently playing in a Vegas poker game, BUT THEY STILL KEEP SWALLOWING THE SAME LINES OF BULLSHIT FROM THE SAME DAMNED LIARS. I think they're in too deep, there at the editorial offices of WaPo. They can't admit that they've been absolutely wrong on every worshipful point in this fake "war" against a common noun. The paper of record is in too deep.

The "terrorists" from 9-11 died in the damned planes. And there weren't enough in the whole world to man the twelve planes they wanted to fly that day, according to the 911 commission. The only real terrorists left alive after 9-11 were the head of al queda and bin laden (he was the financier of the attack, not the movementleader) and these "warriors" haven't caught them after five years.

Posting stuff doesn't make you a terrorist. That's a thought crime.

This is bull. They can't get the real men who had something to do with 9-11, so they manufacture these little "victories" against no-one who get to be tortured by farmboys in gulags around the world until they die.

There is no "Terror" you can have a war against. Every stupid move against the fringe and uninvolved MAKES men and women who want to kill you. We've torrtured thousands of probably innocent people. George and the WaPo will get their "terrorists" until the end of time. Like the "war" against the idea of "communism", they define who the enemy is, make a pile of money, control the zeitgeist, and declare it over when they find some new enemy after the last enemy stronghold is a mafia-run nation whose main export is prostitutes. Drugs, communism, atheism, terrorism, whatever, they'll always find some new thing to terrify and entertain people with, until the last superhurricane wipes out Washington DC.

Re:Washington Post? The stenographers club?

[Phist]

The only real terrorists left alive after 9-11 were the head of al queda and bin laden (he was the financier of the attack, not the movement leader) and these "warriors" haven't caught them after five years.

...and that's because him and his gang are well protected by an enemy that you don't see, understand, or are willing to face. These people are not motivated to kill just because U.S. soldiers are in the area. The religion is what motivates them. Have you been paying attention to everything or just one side?

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[Kadin2048]

Although I see your point, it does stand to reason that any organization with more than 2 people, must have a "number two" at all times, so if you kill "the number two man," another person instantly gets the dubious honor.

So in theory you ought to be able to kill Al Qaeda 'Number Twos' forever, or at least until there aren't any left to get promoted.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[LouisZepher]

Well, joke aside, in a list greater than two, removing the second often makes the third the new two.

All in a day's work for Captain Obvious.

They hate us exactly because of our "freedoms"...

[gd23ka]

A muslim will hate us for two reasons, and some will even hate us for all two: Reason 1: This reason is personal and even as far as I'm concerned highly understandable: They lost someone close during a bombing raid. No matter how kooky they are I feel bad _even_ for the Taliban who has his wife and children buried dead under rubble. Reason 2: The hate us for the freedoms we had, still have and even might still keep even with scum like Clinton and Bush. They hate us that we drink liquor, our women can run around half naked (as far as they're concerned), we don't bow before their (Moon-)god, and most of all we don't respect them because most obviously their's is a culture held back by centuries of medieval custom and we just can't respect people that cut their fellow man's hands off or gouge their eyes out.They hate us the most for not being like them for not acting like them and for not being zapped by highboltage lightning bolts coming off an enraged Allah. Even though Bush has gone a long way to prevent teenage pregnancy "by abstinence" (harhar, how patently stupid!) he has yet to come up with laws that female thighs may not be exposed more than one inch over the knee or prohibit halterless tops. As far as the islamist kooks are concerned, even though we're losing our freedoms to their viewpoint it would be like prohibiting prostitution in front of the temple and telling the whores to service the priests under the altar instead.

stop. think.

[Anonymous Coward]

why are "we" so fixated on terrorism?

in the US there's somewhere between 15 and 20K handgun-related deaths per year -- every year.

and then there's 9/11: somewhere around 2.7K lives lost -- once.

so why are "we" upset? businesses closed for a few days in new york and people weren't buying things; stop for 3.65 days, and that's 1% of annual revenue.

wait.

who is "we"?

Warez groups more advanced than terrorists?

[Anonymous Coward]

The links, uploaded in June 2005, provided numerous outlets where visitors could find the video. In the event that one of the sites was disabled, many other sources were available as backups.

This is like the techniques warez groups used back in the late 90's? before the fast download utilities and more recently torrents. With all that money these terrorists have couldn't they have hired someone to develop more sophisticated tools?

Surely it is a lie

[Anonymous Coward]

Writtn by Hog-Wash-post, surely it is a media-insertion-lie. To make you guys believe, that such organization called Al-Qaeda really happen to exists... But it just exist in the media, it fails to exist in the real world.

List of "terrorist" websites is mostly Palestinian

[Animats]

If you actually look at the list of "terrorist" web sites that the author of the original article posted, it turns out that most of them are Palestinian or related to the Palestine-Israel conflict. There's a link to some group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq, but most of the rest are just Hamas or Hizballah web sites.

This site is really just PR for the Israeli side of that conflict. It's run by Rita Katz, "a graduate of the Middle Eastern Studies program at Tel Aviv University".

Don't be silly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows Bush can't read.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[r_naked]

I know your "Cause why would you want to be anonymous if you're not a commie/terrorist?" question was sarcasm, but I thought I would give a valid example anyway.

http://anonetnfo.brinkster.net/

People need to take the internet from the government before the government can take it from them.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[russotto]

That's only two #2s -- Al Queda and Al Queda in Iraq are two different (though presumably related) organizations.

BS

[subtropolis]

"They" don't "hate us for our freedom", but for the fact that we encourage their governments to keep boots on their necks. "They" hate us because, in propping up governments they despise, our militaries are invited to their lands. "They" hate us because we are seen as keeping them down.

"They" being, of course, the "terrorists". The vast majority of muslims, i imagine, just wish we'd stop fscking around with their lives so they can get on with them (which might include participating in some of that freedom we all enjoy).

Re:BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is not insightful.. This is unintelligent, uninformed, and idiotic.

"They" don't hate us for our freedom, they hate us because we are what they fear. We (the West) are the great Satan to "them".. Now do you really believe Christians would be content if Satan came to earth and declared to them that he would only rule and half of the planet, and would leave the other half alone? Would Christians say "oh, thats a good deal, ok we promise to leave you alone then too". I think not, Christians would fight against Satan even if he only wanted to rule Elbonia, because he is evil and evil must be destroyed.

Hence, radical Islamics feel obligated to destroy the Western civilization regardless of whether we leave them alone or not. Any radical group that supports murder and terror to meet their objectives must be dealt with in the violent manner with which they understand.. (Muslim, Christian, Jewish, etc).

Personally, if "they" only attacked the Pentagon, I would have considered them cowardly, but vaguely honorable as it is a valid military target. But when they attack mothers, children, and civilians on our airlines and in our cities, they can reap the crop they have sown. You can take your misplaced sympathies and shove them up your %$#%#$ !$#%$#.

Re:BS

[yoprst]

They hate us because we're immoral, sort of barbarians. A moral person submits to god entirely, and follows his teachings no matter how inconsistent with reality they are. "Freedom" is essentially a refusal of submission, and is deeply immoral. To get a right understanding of how muslims look upon us, think about how you look upon cannibals. Imagine that we're talking of highly sophisticated cannibals, who are way smarter than we are, the feelings we have about them are still the same. I'm sure muslims will deny that, but if you want their real opinion, try eavesdropping, and you'll see it's exactly this way.

You too,

[MarkusQ]

Bombs and guns may break my bones, but pictures will never hurt me physically.

You've obviously never seen tubgirl either.

--MarkusQ

Shadowy figures who exist in the online world?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shadowy figures who exist in the online world? Who is that? Every slashdot reader? Every Wikipedian?

Using computers to transmit a bunch of 1's and 0's or modify them is not a crime.

No more than flipping a light switch on and off a million times is a crime.

The war is clear. Those who want to use computers, and those who want to criminalize its use.

Is it funny because it's wrong?

[assassinator42]

It seems to me that, if they're using the internet, they wouldn't want to destory it.

Re:That's just so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Im Helping!

Information wants to..

[fforw]

Information wants to wear a burqa!

As good a time as any...

[caffeination]

The term "Hacker" is used in the media to portray almost anyone with enough technical knowledge to use a vulnerability

As good a time as any to air a little grievance about this. Don't be offended, Mr. Parent-poster, but that's just pure elitism. The media takes "hacker" to mean semi-skilled malicious user. The general public accepts this meaning. Who is left? A tiny proportion of skilled internet users, that's all.

Meaning is not based on technical accuracy. Meaning is based on consensus. If everyone thinks "hacker" means $x, then "hacker" means $x, and as sound as your reasoning may be, there's nothing you can do to change it.

Also, your analogy, like most Slashdot analogies, is flawed. "Engineer" has the obvious and relevant root of "engine", as well as many years of use backing up its precise meaning. "Hacker" is a relatively new term, and doesn't have any implicit meaning as you seem to think it does.

Note that I implied that I think your reasoning is sound. It is. I agree with your point, in theory. Please resist the urge to whip out your flamethrower.

Myth lives on

[don_oles]

Al-quaeda is a myth. So the myth is an al-qaeda hacker. Real hackers penetrate your brain and make you see things that do not exist: imagined plane near pentagon, imagined terrorists (how many has been caught in "nearly 60 countries")?

Prop..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah this story smells legit...

You mean Osama's handlers?

[Anonymous Coward]

None of this was ever about some disgruntled guys in Afghani tents, or this fabricated skr1p7-k1dd13. It's always been about Western and Mid-East oil barons seeking further profits from and control over petro-dollars, as well as Western politicians and 'Intelligence' bosses wanting more power for themselves and fewer legal restrictions on their actions.

The whole 'Crazed Arab Terrorists Hate Our Freedom' line was a pathetic ruse they applied because they knew from experience that soft, cowardly Americans would happily believe it, rather than the awful truth.

The security word for this post happens to be "lummox", which is highly appropriate: it makes me think of the United States of America.

Re:List of "terrorist" websites is mostly Palestin

[fish8719]

That's right, son. Folks who blow up random civilians in a hopeless, nihilistic attempt to destroy their nation don't get a free pass just 'cause their victims are Jews.

Or perhaps you'd like to name one or two Palestinian suicide bombings that you approve of?

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[Lord Ender]

You "for one" need to find a new cliche "for one."

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[rtb61]

The only reason he is a threat is because the professionally paranoid believe their own FUD. People still run around believing if you publish online it's like publishing in an old world newspaper and a lot of people will read it and believe it.

Pure fantasy, your Internet voice is restricted to people who already believe it and look for it, with a billion pages out there, a few stupid sites are neither here nor there in the overall human consciousness.

Though it won't stop self righteous gits from looking for it, decrying it, demanding strict controls on it - unless of course it is their own Internet voice (which frustrates them enormously because most people either don't know it exists or just ignore it).

The 21st century adage you are just one voice amongst millions and unless tens of thousands already share your view, your voice isn't heard/read.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[prurientknave]

mmmm fud and profit in the same package. i want to make a movie of tower 7

I think you missed the point

[Anonymous Coward]

"How about the different responses we got to see from Christians when a Crucifix was dumped into a bucket of piss "

I think it was representing what fundamentalist christians have done to the memory of Jesus of Nazareth. But fundamentalists rarely get symbolism, which is ironic if you think about it.

Shadowy Figures

[ZoOnI]

"our future security is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world."

I figure our future security is going to depend on our ability to prosecute top government officials who break laws with impunity resulting in many deaths mostly undocumented, domestic spying, torture, leaking Secrets, etc etc.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[sgt_doom]

Even more to the point, there are still too many people out there who believe in this al-Qaida fiction/nonsense!!!

Didn't that group first appear in Batman comics around 1990? Just like that Avian Flu (which, BTW, What's-his-face Rumsfeld is supposed to have a multi-million dollar stake in the sole company manufacturing the supposed vaccine) which first appeared in Ian Fleming's (007) "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (that's the book, dudes & dudettes) as one of SPECTRE's weapons.

These fictions, just like WMDs in Iraq, are very convenient fictions for the Bushies to continue to steal from the US Treasury......

NMAP that distribution site, bitches

[Anonymous Coward]

So, when al-Queda distribution centers uses Microsoft .... come on. Seriously, if the guy was functioning in a "hacker" way ..... hehe... stupid
sudo nmap -sS -oO -P0 www.alaflam.net
Password:

Starting nmap 3.75 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2006-03-26 20:50 EST
Interesting ports on ip-140-154-146.phx.extremezone.com (64.140.154.146):
(The 1651 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
25/tcp open smtp
80/tcp open http
135/tcp open msrpc
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
443/tcp open https
445/tcp filtered microsoft-ds
1025/tcp open NFS-or-IIS
1026/tcp open LSA-or-nterm
1027/tcp open IIS
3372/tcp open msdtc
3389/tcp open ms-term-serv

Re:NMAP that distribution site, bitches

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Quite the "elite" hacker, aren't you? Well done sir, a place on the Homeland Security team for you!

I take it the Butthead laughter was meant in ironic fashion ?

yes

[Anonymous Coward]

support the jihad against the western imperialist infidels!

Re:yes

[chawly]

With this

"western imperialist infidels!"

it seems to me that the northern, southerb and eastern imperialist infidels might feel left-out.

Let us be large of heart - support the jihad against absolutely everybody !!! Including even my uncle Samuel !

Show them who's Master

[DigiShaman]

The terrorists we face today are born and bread of religions convictions. It's pure indoctrination. As such, they will only listen and govern by weapons. When you speak of peace, they use this as an exploitable form of weakness. When you use weapons, and defeat them, they show respect. I know it shouldn't "be this way", but that's how the human race works. Socially, we are all governed as "master and servant" be it subtle, or extreme.

The religious terrorists only know one rule. That is, live by the sword, die by the sword. Everything else just grants them opportunity at YOUR expense

Re:Show them who's Master

[d34thm0nk3y]

When you use weapons, and defeat them, they show respect.

Three plus years and counting, so where is this respect you speak of?

Re:Show them who's Master

[DigiShaman]

Three plus years and counting, so where is this respect you speak of?

Respect come when you win the war. You cannot have peace until you have victory. That has and will always be the case.

Technically, S. Korea and the US are still at war with N. Korea . See what happens when you don't finish what you started. Well, I can say there will be peace with N. Korea, but not without another fight. Just one example, but a good one.

Re:Show them who's Master

[SetupWeasel]

Respect come when you win the war. You cannot have peace until you have victory.

We beat Saddam. What? You say there is another war? How many wars to we have to win to achieve peace?

I once had an allergist who thought a steroid inhaler would help my exercize-induced asthma. I took the medication dutifully, but started to get infections that I was not afflicted with before. I would fall ill at least once a month to a sinus infection or something similar. I told my doctor this six months later at our next meeting, and I asked to change my medicine. The doctor was so confident that he knew what was best for me that he refused to change my medication. He chose to stay the course.

"There were no major events," was precisely what he said to me.

I don't know what he meant by major events, but there were fewer events of any type before taking that medicine. I made a point of this, and he still refused.

His professional pride had clouded his vision. He was right, because he was the doctor. That medicine had to work. It only needed more time. If I stopped taking it or changed medicine, I could have a full-blown attack!

I decided not to listen to my doctor and all of his years of medical study, because I could tell that he would not listen to reason. If I had said that I had these infections, and he brought out a study that showed that it was common in the short term but subsided in the long term and gave way to improved health, I might have felt differently. Any logical explanation would have sufficed. However, he said only that it was working, and there was no problem.

I stopped taking the medicine, and I stopped getting sick.

That is a true story. I want to emphasize something else before I end this post. That allergist had far more experience and knowledge treating asthma than George W. Bush has with international diplomacy and fighting wars.

Get with reality

[sbrown123]

They don't hate us for our freedoms. They could give a f*** about our women running around half naked here in the U.S. They also don't care if we don't believe in their god. Yes, to them we will burn in their hell. Oh well.

What they DO hate us for is forcing our view of what freedom is on them and trying to change their lives to suite our view of what the world should be. For example, they prefer their women running around covered in a ton of cloth on a hot sunny day. Absurd to me or you but it makes them happy. They don't want us telling them that that is wrong since, to them, they believe it's right. Imagine, for a second, an alternate reality where the Taliban kicked the U.S. ass in an invasion on our soil and toppled the evil villian Bush. Shortly after the invasion they see our women are commiting sins by running around half naked. Feeling bad for us, and taking pity since they don't want these women to burn in hell, they install laws to help protect women by making them wear a blanket around all day.

People find it hard to believe that, somewhere out there, there are people that have a different belief or value system than them. Thats the real world.

Re:Its a self serving press release, NOT a news st

[anaesthetica]

It was in the weekend "Outlook" section, which is essentially just like the NYTimes magazine. They're long-form op-ed, human interest, rambling musings for the weekend reader. It's not part of the proper news section.

What you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

ScuttleMonkey, can you please repost your message? I think i didn't get the message right. I think i read something like "blah, blah, blah fnord bullshit blahb FUD albh albha blah, bullshit, blah fnord fnord blah bullshit blah".

(WILL YOU PLEASE STOP POSTING CRAP AND FUD? THANK YOU)

Re:elusive online world? typo

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a typo:

"... our future secrecy is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world."

Script Kiddie is 100% dead on.

[tinkertim]

'Wanna see something *really* scary?' heheh What homeland security doesn't realize is one of the largest threats we have regarding domestic 'cyber terror' is the fleet of hundreds of thousands of compromised web servers residing in places like Texas (ironic, isn't it).

Here's how the process works:

Step 1 - Joe Q Host wanna be goes to The Planet and orders himself a spiffy new server with C-Panel

Step 2 - Joe Q Host spends 10 minutes setting up the server and just assumes its all nice and secure. Builds PHP with everything and gives unrestricted access to 13 fiber rings to anyone who has a PayPal account or credit card.

Step 3 - Joe Q Host gets tons of sign ups, makes bank, and doesn't realize his server is more infested with spam bots, rouge torrent trackers, UDP blasters, IRC bombs .. and moreover doesn't care unless his users make an issue out of it.

Considering the several Million servers re-sold to people vastly underqualified to maintain them, I'd say that constitutes one hell of a DOS network. The scary, scary, scary part? Those bots are controlled centrally, and most places (like The Planet) do *not* watch outgoing traffic.

You are 100% correct , 'script kiddie' is the word, not 'hacker'.

Hosts can't disable that kind of functionality in PHP else their customers will go to someone who allows it, too many things depend on php being able to make shell calls, like image galleries / etc. suexec + php breaks too many things, people don't care about security they want their freebie sourceforge specials to work.

We create the need that creates the opportunity folks. Plain and simple. You need a license to fart in most states (figure of speech), should need some sort of cert to be a provider. That not only increases our domestic IT security, it cuts down on spam drastically.

Food for thought :)

So, what does it mean?

[KlausBreuer]

It means that the next news we will hear on the topic will be the american 'leadership' calling for very hard controls on who's allowed on the net, on forcing us to use definitively tracable IDs, on controlling our every step.
And they'll (yet again) use The Evil Terrorists as an excuse.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[someone1234]

Nobel might have developed dynamite, but people didn't quiver either. A script kiddie does much more damage than a real hacker.

Online Rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

What online rights are we talking about? Unless you are talking about the right to get spammed, phished, proned, owned and compromised what rights do you have? Annonymity doesn't fit with any of the above, except for the thieves and perpetrators who for the most part remain annonymous.

Some of you need to take the tin foil off of your head and disconnect from your computer for a bit. Slashdot is getting so lame.

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[NameCritic]

We have to at least be in the right subteraneancavedivision.

Maybe

[GuloGulo]

You should have looked it up yourself before making your off-topic post.

Terrorism is a valid wartime strategy

[moe_jama]

It shouldn't be looked down upon simply because we don't like that fact that it is effective against our country and our allies. Maybe the US's idea to sell weapons to countries in the middle east in hopes they would endlessly battle each other was a bad idea.. Reagan and other republicans out there. Our secret wars are here to haunt us and anyone who argue that the US and other western allies didn't have 'it coming to them' is just plain retarded. We've killed through direct and indirect actions probably 100 times more innocent arabs than they have killed our people and vast majority of those deaths were not in response to 911 but long before bitter arabs joined together to seek revenge for the near slave like treatment we have imposed on these people and their countries. We've been invading these people since at least the crusades if not back to the time of Alexander the great. When in history did the arabs launch a miltary assault against western powers? When in history did western power launch assaults against arab powers? White people can sit back in their comfy overpriced disposable lifestyles whining about terrorists all they want and jumping for joy when they are caught like we have achieved some righteous goal, but there is no righteousness in our actions and there is no way to win a conflict like this with violence. We have a war in the minds of large demographics of bitter and hateful arabian people. Children growing up without parents because their home was in the 'acceptable loss' zone of some bombing raid. We are not winning, we are bankrupting ourselves with intangable investments that will not result in any type of return and will certainly not result in victory over terrorism (whatever that means). We have labeled these people terrorists, but in all reality they are just groups of people making military strikes against the US. They strike at targets that can provide effective in harming the overall strength of our country. They do not randomly kill innocent people for no reason. In WW2 the fear of a Japaneese invasion created terror in the minds of the US population, however this doesn't make the Japaneese terrorsits even though they were willing to blow themselves up for the honor of victory. Terrorism is just another meaningles catch phrase and in the vast majority of cases these people have factual and just reasons to seek vengence on the US. While not every terrorist may have been wronged directy by the west it is the knowledge of our continued meddling in their country and the muder of innocents that drives terrorism. If Russia defeated the US military and attempted to occupy the US, we would be the ones blowing ourselves up and making makeshift bombs to defend our homeland. It's funny how he who controls the media defines the enemy rather than letting the enemy define itself. Bin Laden cleary stated he is attack the US government for its involvement in corrupt practices with arab nations. His strike was actually quite precise and really didn't target civilians at all but rather symbols of american power and centers for government control. American's are in denial of their involvement in the oppression of arab nations and that is why they do not realize that our position of killing 10,000+ innocent civilians a year is no differnet than Bin Ladens position of killing 3000 innocent American's on 9/11. Just face it.. we had it coming for a long time now and they could have done a lot more damage if they really wanted. How about flying planes into nuclear power plants or a large sporting event. Obviously civilian casualties were not the goal of 9/11. It was an effective military strike which actually focused on American's response to being attacked not the actual damage done during the attack. The real damage of 9/11 was getting the US involved in expensive wars they cannot win and effectively allowing an administration to use fear to re-write American civil rights in very short amount of time. We also alienated ourselves from our allies which in turn has led to potentially dangerous allia

Re:List of "terrorist" websites is mostly Palestin

[moe_jama]

I approve of any vastly oppressed demographics to fight back with violent force when presented with no other option. In fact I expect it to a degree that I think it is inevitable given the right conditions. Terrorism is not a result of insane religious zealots. It is a valid way for poor countries without conventional military to battle rich nations which would otherwise walk all over them, take their land, take their resources and then write history books of their righteous liberations of a savage nation of suicide bombers. Just because the average American cannot grasp the concept of being desperate enough to sacrafice their on life in an effort to bring attention to their conflict does not mean such behavious is unreasonable. American's simply cannot relate to such behavious because they have never been in a situation where they were occupied by a superiour miltiary which was quickly encroaching upon their lands. If your family and neighbors were blown up by some misguided attempt to quell rebel uprisings. You would begin to understand the pain and hate that drives these people. But from the perspective of a computer screen in your climate controlled world of convenience it's hard to understand why anyone would take their own life isntead of just writting letters to their representatives. riight. Terrorism is nothing more than a word that most commonly describes poor people who have formed their own make shift army to defend themselves against a oppression by a superior military. Just because their techniques are not conventional and just because they cannot afford tanks and planes does not mean they should just roll over and take it If the US has the right to invade oil rich countries at will in the name of liberation without the people to be liberated consent, without the UN's consent and mostly without the public consent then the Palestinians can fight Isreal any damn way they please. Suggesting otherwise is foolish and shows you have no real grasp of the situation or of the basic principle of human nature that gives a person the right to defend their home. Don't kid yourself Isrea is STEALING land from Palestine and Palestinians deserve the right to fight back. Now if you think that suicide bombing is an invalid way to fight them then suggest what a bunch of poor people with little to no weapons are supposed to do in this situation beside just letting Isreal take their land. Yes they target civilians, but all in all the Isreal military likely kills just as many innocent Palestinians but for some reason people think its ok to kill civilians with tanks and planes just not with suicide bombs. This is the classic example of people being afraid and zealously labeling things they do not understand as EVIL. In similar ignorance we constantly call the insurgent in Iraq terrorists when they are clearly targetting the Iraqi security forces and other people involved with the take over of their country. Insurgents are not terrorists even when they use bombs or research chemical weapons. Terrorists have to be people who's real motives lie in mass murdering innocent civilians, otherwise their actions are no more terrorism than the US's military strikes are terrorism. So in essence the possession of bomb making instructions and vital targets in DC no more constitutes terrorism explicity than does any planned military strike. The US sites on the largest supply of weapons of mass destruction and calls everyone who disagrees with them terrorists. When in fact is the US who posses the greatest threat to world peace and human life. here is a definition of terrorism from dictionary.com: 'The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.' According to this definition just about every US military action ever committed was to some degree an act of terrorism. The president makes common practice of threatening what we consider rouge nations wit

Rita Katz and SITE? - incredulous from the git

[vague_ascetic]

One of the authors of the Washington Post article cited above is Rita Katz, director of the stupidly named "The Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE), which seems to be an asinine play on SETI. The SITE website is actually very light on real original content. As I revisited it tonight, I found that they have given citation for their copy and paste of the US State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 Report, which is the entire contents of SITE's "terrorism library". A year ago, they did not offer this bit of enlightening data. This should be enough to question the veracity of the whole story.

Katz obtained a degree from the Middle Eastern Studies program at Tel Aviv University, and is speaks Hebrew and Arabic. She emigrated to the US in 1997. She has both personal and financial issues which could bias her analysis.

• Katz is Iraqi born, and her father was tried and executed as an Israeli spy, whereupon her family emigrated to Israel.
• Katz is/was a paid consultant for the law firm, Motley-Rice, which file a 1 trillion dollar lawsuit on behalf of the 911 WTC victims.
• Katz is author of the book Terrorist Hunter (HarperCollins, 2003) in which she writes of infiltrating US-based Arab groups to investigate terrorist connections as a private investigator, and receives a plug for the book in every bio blurb that is published with her articles.

Katz got her terrorism expert start working for Stephen Emerson, who himself has credibility issues.

Katz was the anonymous source for a 60 Minutes segment that alleged a chicken farm supported terrorism, and for which both CBS and Katz were sued by Gainesville, Georgia based Mar-Jac Poultry Inc., as well as two Virginia-based muslim charity orgs, for libel.

Katz was also a principle player an an egregious example of of post-911 governmental misuse of prosecutorial powers in the case brought against a Saudi Arabian Computer Science doctoral student at the University of Idaho, Sami al-Hussayen.

Al-Hussayen was charged with giving material support to terrorist, for doing volunteer web mastering of the site of the Islamic Assembly of North America, an organization which the government has never charged. He was also charged with 11 minor visa violations, one being that his student visa didn't allow him to work, and he had received $300 from the Islamic Assembly of North America spread out over his five years of volunteer work for it.

The jury in Idaho acquitted on all three terrorism charges, and 3 of the visa charges, but hung on the remaining 8 visa charges.

The main thrust of the material support charges stemmed from the website Al-Hussayen worked on having published 4 fatwas by 4 radical immans on it. A government expert witness blew holes in that theory when he admitted that he had published the very same speeches on his anti-terrorism website.

When Katz testified, she admitted to the same visa violations that Al-Hussayen was charge with, only she had earned real money in violation of her entry terms.

Katz's testimony ended Friday with questioning about her own visa problems when she entered the United States. Katz testified that as a new immigrant in 1997, she misunderstood work permit requirements related to her visa and was employed, in at least one job and possibly two, before she was legally authorized to work. Under cross-examination, she acknowledged that she detailed those problems in her autobiographical book, in which she expressed disgust for burdensome government re

Re:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[mink]

Reminds me of The Prisoner where almost each week they had a New #2. In this scenario that means #is is OBL, makes the ending even stranger.

Blame your government

[Anonymous Coward]

"Celebrated for his computer expertise, Irhabi 007 had propelled the jihadists into a 21st-century offensive..."

Is that before or after they were using mobile phone networks to trigger explosives?

Yeah, anyway, a technological evolution requires more than just a 'young man' distributing information. What has the government been doing with your tax money to prevent such young men causing such security risks?

Without blabbing on.. the press has no doubt blown this story up into more than what it really is & the government needs a scapegoat to demonstrate [to the idiot believers] that they are actually making progress, and of course, to deflect from their incompetence in letting it happen in the first place.