FBI Foils Attack by Monitoring Chat Rooms

An anonymous reader writes "A planned terrorist attack on New York City was reportedly foiled by FBI agents who monitored chat rooms frequented by extremists. Lebanese authorities captured an Al Qaeda member who confessed to the plot, and stated that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had pledged financial and other support for the operation. Although the planning for the operation was not far along, according to U.S. officials, they had already been monitoring the plot for a year." From the article: "A government official with knowledge of the investigation said the alleged plot did focus on New York's transport system, but did not target the Holland Tunnel. New York senator Charles Schumer said: 'This is one instance where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase.' The Holland Tunnel is protected not just by bedrock, but also by concrete and cast-iron steel. One counter-terrorism source told the Daily News it was doubtful a plot to blow it up would be feasible, saying huge amounts of explosives and a detailed knowledge of blast effect would be necessary."

Comments

Where?

[JavaLord]

What chat rooms do they hang out in? #osama or something?

Re:Where?

[The Hobo]

This may have been a joke, but I've always wondered, all these news stories say "news of 's kidnapping/murder/etc has appeared on an Islamic website", you do wonder, where are these websites? What chat rooms?

Re:Where?

[sgt_doom]

Actually, I used to have a listing of these sites - I'll look around to see if I still have it (but I stopped checking them out after I realized 9/11/01 attacks happened with a lot of inside help).

But please note that as the elections of 2006 get closer --- we are being bombarded with more and more of these "attempted attacks" - just like that one in Liberty City section of Miami (you know, the one where those street punks didn't even have enough money for busfare to get to North Miami...).

Re:Where?

[SlamMan]

USIP published a book a couple of years ago on this. The report page for it lists a number of them at the bottom.

http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr116.html

Re:Where?

[Tackhead]

> What chat rooms do they hang out in? #osama or something?

*s4dd4m has left the game*
george: PWN3D!
rlijunopeece: o rly george were stil gonna pwn u again
o54m4: ya how?
rlijunopeece: blow up ur tunnel n flood u like n00b orleans
054m4: d00d ur plan sux nycs above sea level
abdul: up urs n00b
*kimjongillin* has joined the game kimjongillin: NUKES! I GOT NUKES!
amacannapronounceit: d00d gimme some plz! benn workin on em 4 so long got so much cash just gimme one plz plz plz?
kimjongillin: ok ok d00d lemme test em 1st
*flowersbyirene* has joined the game
flowersbyirene: d00d i can help u get nukes frm kimmy just paypal me ill set it up
ackbar: IT'S A TRAP!

Re:Where?

[tinkertim]

We cooked up one of those to look for some of our IP's / hostnames on undernet. Its really, really easy to code, the trick is keeping your bot connected, and not bringing a DOS attack on yourself by trying to monitor for eminent DOS attacks.

So you really need like 20 or 30 of them, and a wide range of class C IP's that aren't swip'ed to you.

But yeah, quite easy to do. We even had one watching Yahoo rooms with a skinny text / Linux client for Y! chats, when the user rooms still existed.

After a few months it was really obvious that trying to monitor rooms to anticpate hassles caused more hassles than we were preventing.

But for something like the FBI would use it for, I guess its worth the hassles.

Really and honestly, I'm glad they do it. I only bitch when they cross the line of what I would consider to be a reasonable expectation of privacy. Eavesdropping on an open chat is much different than broad logging and analysis of bank transactions, phone conversations, etc.

I think (lately) anyway, they're realizing the latter is causing more hassles than it prevents.

I was thinking 'now this was obviously staged' when reading TFA, but then I thought about how stupid the plot uncovered was .. and I'm beginning to think .. yeah, well the truth is stranger than fiction. I find it easier to believe a few dumbasses were trying to cook something up in open chat (something incredibly stupid at that) than the FBI is drumming up successes for an upcoming election.

So - good catch :)

Re:Where?

[Ohreally_factor]

Right. And most of their "plans" were at the instigation of the FBI informer.

Similar to the Lodi case, where some poor schmuck was railroaded by the FBI. If he had been left alone, he'd never have done anything, but the FBI informant basically cajoled and incited him. Even then it was never proven that he had attended any terrorist camps. The court prevented a former FBI agent from testifying in his behalf.

These "high profile" cases the FBI is coming up with are pretty disgraceful. All they are uncovering are gullible people that can be convinced to do or say stupid things by a paid informant. If the FBI has uncovered any serious threats, hopefully they're using the info to work up the chain of command (and we're not hearing about them, of course) to actually disrupt terrorist networks.

But what we're seeing so far is the FBI setting up some clowns to take a fall and provide publicity.

Spying on you is good m'kay

[hackstraw]

So, you want to convince intelligent people like those on slashdot that the FBI stopped people from around the world possibly funded by a dead guy to flood a bunch of businesses up hill by lurking in a chatroom?

Shit, if only they had WMDs and lived in one place, maybe we would just take over the country or something.

FUD.

More evidence of FUD from the article itself:

"There was nothing imminent, but it was being monitored for a long period of time," he said. "This is ongoing, that's why I've said nothing about it until now. It would have been better if this had not been disclosed."

A government official with knowledge of the investigation said the alleged plot did focus on New York's transport system, but did not target the Holland Tunnel.

New York senator Charles Schumer said: "This is one instance where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase."

The Holland Tunnel is protected not just by bedrock, but also by concrete and cast-iron steel.

Who makes this shit up?

They were NOT going to attack the Holland Tunnel, but BTW, it is protected by bedrock, concrete, and cast-iron steel?

More confidence in their ignorance:

One counter-terrorism source told the Daily News it was doubtful a plot to blow it up would be feasible...

But the guy fessed up over a month ago without even being tortured! Now that is real progress!

I feel safer, don't you?

Re:Spying on you is good m'kay

[Anonymous Coward]

> I feel safer, don't you?

I'd feel safer if you were in Guantanamo.

Re:Spying on you is good m'kay

[c6gunner]

Insightfull? Are the mods smoking crack again?

I can just imagine this guy's response if the 9/11 hijackers had been captured BEFORE pulling off the attack:

"So, you want to convince intelligent people like those on slashdot that the FBI stopped people from around the world possibly funded by a CIA agent from hijacking airliners with box cutters?

FUD

I feel safer, don't you?"

Re:Spying on you is good m'kay

[hackstraw]

I can just imagine this guy's response if the 9/11 hijackers had been captured BEFORE pulling off the attack

Probably I would have reacted like most everybody else.

No reaction.

I don't believe it would have been much of a headline before 9/11/01. The people would have been dismissed as lunatics that could have never of pulled this thing off. However, after that date, something as ridiculous as this makes headlines, and the collective conscious here on slashdot is that this was silly and FUD just like my response.

News does not typically get made when things are OK or a potential threat is avoided. Nobody stands on the side of the Mississippi river and says, "Well, its not flooding, its just going North to South as usual". No headline says, "A 300 car pileup was avoided because John Doe went to the state inspection station today and got new brake pads!"

Action by all animals regarding safety is directly proportional to the degree of perceived danger. Cats have no problem climbing on furniture or a few feat off of the ground. Get them stuck high up in a tree, and the fire department comes out. One time when I was working construction, I walked about 200 feet around a 90 degree corner on 8" wide cinder blocks from 2.5 stories up, and I had to be very objective about it and convince myself that 8" was more than sufficient to walk a straight line. If I had to do the same thing one foot off of the ground, I wouldn't of cared.

Humans have this revenge/fear complex of other humans that is pretty much over 99% completely irrational.

Off the top of your head, tell me how many people died on 9/11/01 in the attacks. Now, off the top of your head, tell me how many people died in hurricane Katrina? Now, how about the number in the 2004 tsunami? What about annually due to the flu? Car accidents?

In general, humans are irrational. I would like to believe that slashdotters and others that have scientific thought are a little more on the rational side of things and can look at the raw data and let that speak vs their perception of the data. What I'm getting at, is that the terrorists on 9/11/01 were irrational, and the thing was like a big car accident, and the thing was not preventable then and another thing like it is not preventable now, and if it were, it would be as evident as the avoided 300 car pileup from a person getting their brakes repaired. Negatives cannot be proven, and they just are not that interesting.

The US government uses FUD all the time to maintain their perception of power. Parents (more uneducated ones) do this with their kids as well.

Being a scientist and trying to understand the world in rational terms, I get annoyed when FUD is used to deceive people. I don't see that as progress, but entirely the opposite.

If I were really concerned about my safety, I would not drive to work or anywhere after that. That is the most likely cause of death for a young, healthy person. But people drive to work every day, without fear, but many of the same people fear terrorists, and there is no basis for this from a rational point of view.

Thank god!

[Healthbolt]

I love this country b/c it allows me to say things like, "This country is retarded" without fear of black helicopters and an SS-type goonsquad picing me up, but lately the three branches have made it so hard (to love them, not to say they're retarded.) I'm glad to have a reason to believe that someone is doing something right in those ivory towers the northeast. I wish we had more stories like this. (Well, not more stories, but more events like this to write stories about. If there were just more stories it would be meaningless.)

Laws?

[Conception]

So, how much warrentless wiretapping and patriot act powers did it take to monitor a chat room?

Hmm...yeah.. that's what I thought.

Re:Laws?

[CheeseTroll]

Assuming the chatrooms are public, then probably no more than they'd need to pretend reading a newspaper while eavesdropping on conversations in the corner coffee shop.

Read all about it

[SuperKendall]

One counter-terrorism source told the Daily News it was doubtful a plot to blow it up would be feasible, saying huge amounts of explosives and a detailed knowledge of blast effect would be necessary."

Not to worry, the New York Times will be publishing a how-to guide next week complete with tunnel schematics and rates of expansion for various explosives.

Re:Read all about it

[Stalyn]

When the next terrorist attack comes you can almost predict the public's reaction.

1. Blame the press.
2. Demand bloodlust.
3. Ask for more government protection.

And all the while it does nothing to prevent terrorism and just gives the government more power over its citizens. That's how dictatorships start, people don't mind giving the government a little more power. And as time goes on more and more powers are given away. Sure this administration and the next may use that power for good but down the road we might elect some maniac(if elections are even in place by then) who will abuse that power. The Romans didn't have a problem with Augustus but they sure did have a problem with Caligula.

Re:Here's the log

[Anonymous Coward]

bloodaxe> I put on my robe and Arab hat.

Where's the overt act?

[Animats]

This sounds more like some guys mouthing off rather than a real threat. The real players do not discuss their plans in chat rooms. It's like the group from Miami that was "trying to blow up the John Hancock Building". Turns out they're a bunch of small-time crooks and losers who ran into an FBI agent while blithering.

Al-queda used to have some competent people, and they might eventually get their act together for another big act of terrorism, but what we're seeing now are wannabee terrorists.

Re:Where's the overt act?

[Znork]

"This sounds more like some guys mouthing off rather than a real threat."

No shit. If blather in a chatroom qualifies as a threat, what do the US military contigency plans qualify as? Evidence that the US military is poised to invade Canada?

Gather enough information and apply your imagination to it, and you can find evidence of anything anywhere. Cut the words out of a lexicon and have a paranoid lunatic rearrange them and it's not surprising if you get a sinister message. That doesnt mean we'll be served particularly well by employing the asylum as threat assessors.

But hey, nobody ever got fired for foiling an imaginary threat.

honestly...

[Wakko Warner]

... if terrorists were to blow up all the roads and bridges in New York City, they'd be doing everybody a favor.

Have you ever actually tried driving on them?

Trust

[JackL]

Sounds a lot like the situation down in Miami a few weeks ago. The government really hyped a plot by several people to attack the Sears Tower. Turned out that those people had no more ability to blow up a firecracker than the Sears Tower. Now we get a similar story about a plan that (depending on who you listen to) either targeted a transportation target in New York or the Holland Tunnel specifically. I'd like to think that our government is on top of the situation but after the Sears Tower story and all the orange terror alerts before the last election, I don't. And that is bad. You'd like to think that our government has enough integrity to provide accurate information about terror threats to protect the public, but it doesn't.

Bridges and Tunnels

[Lev13than]

One counter-terrorism source told the Daily News it was doubtful a plot to blow it up would be feasible, saying huge amounts of explosives and a detailed knowledge of blast effect would be necessary.

Maybe the terrorists just need toAsk a Navy SEAL:

Dear Navy SEAL,
I am a happily married man with a warm and loving wife who is also my best friend. We've been together for 17 years and couldn't be happier. But lately she says she wants separate beds. I'm reeling! We're barely in our 40s, and in my mind separate sleeping is for seniors. Am I making too much of this? Help!
--Anxious In Andersonville

Dear Anxious,
Destroying a bridge might look easy in the movies, but remember: They're designed to withstand the immense shear-forces of wind and weather. Deploying an underwater M-32 satchel charge at the base of each load-bearing pylon looks like the answer, but it might not even shake a modern riveted steel highway or railroad bridge. Without delving into the complex language of the guerrilla combat engineer, the best advice I can give you is to forgo subtlety in favor of brute force: Put two satchel charges at each X-shaped trestle buck, and this should rob the bridge of any reinforcing strength and cause it to buckle nicely.

Blowing up a tunnel is hard work

[Palal]

One year ago a number of explosions rocked the Tube in London. As you know, the tunnels weren't damaged for the most part. All that would happen (God forbid) if anyone tried to blow up a tunnel would be to cripple the traffic in Manhattan (which pretty bad as is) but it would take a lot of explosives to actually destroy a tunnel from within if it's a tube. Another example - Moscow Metro Feb 6, 2004, when an explosion happened in a packed rush-hour train. Also no damage to the tunnel. However, when some idiots were installing a billboard illegally above a metro tunnel (also in Moscow), they successfully managed to penetrate the tunnel using a pile that was being driven, right into a train that happened to be in the tunnel at that exact moment. Thankfully nobody was hurt in this incident. See this Pictures of the pile: here and here. View topside and another pic

Paranoia alert

[Medievalist]

Whenever I hear something like this, I immediately think "What are they trying to distract me from now?"

Did Bush's daughters invade Namibia or something?

Wait, it gets better...

[hotsauce]

Lebanese authorities captured an Al Qaeda member who confessed to the plot, and stated that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had pledged financial and other support for the operation.

When the only source of information is an alleged confession of an unknown person in the custody of a government that uses torture, you should be very skeptical. Countries like Pakistan are famous for trotting out suspects and victories in the "War Against Terror" whenever they are required for public consumption. In most cases, these suspects are not available for independent interrogation, and there is mysteriously no other evidence available.

Forgive me for the tinfoil hat, but after the last great victory in the War Against Terror which we were lead to believe targeted the Sears Tower, but subsequently turned out to be a bunch of crazy homeless people, I've started wearing said hat with pride.

What the hell is cast-iron steel?

[jridley]

Is that like wooden rubber?

Cast iron and steel are two different things. I'm assuming they mean steel. Cast iron is kind of brittle.

US/CAN relations. . .

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

So let me get this straight, Canada's CT Intel busts like half a dozen terrorists before they do anything bad and America tells us our borders aren't secure enough and that we suck. America's CT intel klines a chat group and are commended for a job well done. Dare I ask, WTF?

The first of many

[sfjoe]

This only the first of many so-called terrorist plots that will be announced as foiled in the months to come. It's an election year, folks.

Re:Helping extremists?

[Politburo]

All of the material in the NYT article was already public.

Re:Blast + Gravity = No more Holland Tunnel

[rewt66]

First the easy part: McVeigh was Oklahoma City, not Kansas City.

Now for the real issue: Do you have any idea how hard it is to dig tunnels through rock with explosives? You dig holes into the rock. You put explosives into the holes. You carefully tamp each of the charges. You set off the explosives in their neat little holes in the rock. And what do you get?

A few feet. That's all.

Yeah, the terrorists would set off a bigger explosion. But it wouldn't be tamped - the force of the blast would escape both directions along the tunnel. For "gravity" to work for you, you'd first have to crack the rock enough that it's no longer structural. (It's not just the concrete and steel that holds all that rock up. The rock holds itself up.)

And if a tamped explosion only breaks a few feet of rock, a bigger but untamped one isn't going to do much more...

Bash

[christian.elliott]

Reminds me of this Bash.org quote.

Stormrider> I should bomb something

Stormrider> ...and it's off the cuff remarks like that that are the reason I don't log chats

Stormrider> Just in case the FBI ever needs anything on me

Elzie_Ann> I'm sure they can just get it from someone who DOES log chats.

*** FBI has joined #gamecubecafe

FBI> We saw it anyway.

*** FBI has quit IRC (Quit: )

When is someone a danger?

[SuperKendall]

Just because someone seems really silly, and wanders around in a robe with a stick does not mean they are not dangerous - sure those Florida guys sounded goofy but on the other hand what would happen if someone did actually hook up the goofy guys with explosives? However goofy they were they were saying they wanted explosives to take the fight to the US...

There was another really goofy guy - Richard Reid. You may remember him from exciting life moments as "I have to take my my shoes off in the airport?!"

I mean he tried to light his shoe on fire on a plane with a lighter. Yet even that bumbling moron managed to aquire explosives and get them on a plane. If he managed, why not the Florida guys eventually as well? Why should we not take someone seriously when they claim they want to blow up something no matter how inept they seem? Would you leave them wandering without supervision until they did manage to succeed?