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

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?

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]

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

[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

[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.

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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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...

Hacker?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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

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.

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.

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: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:Hacker? How about script kiddie?

[SetupWeasel]

If the guy actually exists.

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?

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.

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

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...

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.

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: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.

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

[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.

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:Wonderful.

[Thing 1]

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

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.