Al-Qaeda's Growing Online Offensive

andy1307 brings us a story from the Washington Post about al-Qaeda's technological capabilities and the methods they use to protect themselves and their networks from opposing military forces. Quoting: "US and European intelligence officials attribute the al-Qaeda propaganda boom in part to the network's ability to establish a secure base in the ungoverned tribal areas of western Pakistan. Analysts said that as-Sahab (AQ's propaganda network) is outfitted with some of the best technology available. Editors and producers use ultralight Sony Vaio laptops and top-end video cameras. Files are protected using PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, a virtually unbreakable form of encryption software that is also used by intelligence agencies around the world. [Al-Fajr, a propaganda distribution network] is heavily decentralized, with its webmasters generally unaware of one another's true identities for security reasons, intelligence analysts said. It also has separate 'brigades' devoted to hacking, multimedia, cybersecurity and distribution."

Comments

Re:Editors-of-Evil

[something_wicked_thi]

It's from a reputable source. Besides, there's nothing really strange about this. The idea of using PGP and decentralized servers makes perfect sense. The dubious bit is that warning lights go off in my head every time someone mentions Al-Qaeda because usually it's someone trying to scare me for political reasons.

Re:Bullshit

[brxndxn]

At what point do we stop using the events on 9/11 as a blanket excuse for government to drive itself all over the backs of the American people? Yes, we should be reasonably vigilant against terrorism - but we should never give up a single bit of our rights!

We, the people, have to pay over $1trillion for the 'war on terrorism' using the 9/11 excuse.. Yet, there's little to no progress made for combating illegal immigration - while illegal immigrants are killing more Americans than died on 9/11 every year..

This is a sick fucked up system.. where our companies that directly benefit from wars also run our media.. who build up our screwed-up politicians.. who systematically screw America into oblivion. It's time we quit believing every goddamn 'trrrist' story and start seeing through the bullshit. Am I afraid of a terrorist coming after me or my family? fuck no.. Am I afraid of our out-of-control government? absolutely - look at history

Censorship is bad, OK?

[myCopyWrong]

It is surprising that the Washington Post would run editorial against free press as a news article.

"In many, many ways, the damage has already been done," said Evan F. Kohlmann, an expert on al-Qaeda's online operations who serves as a consultant to the FBI, Scotland Yard and other agencies. "It certainly would have been a lot easier if the U.S. government had taken this seriously back in 2004. Back then, these guys were looked upon as miscreants and cretins, like they were just Internet terrorists and not for real."

This is flabbergasting. Does the US stand for democracy and freedom of speech or is it a place where you can't get Al-Jazeera on cable TV? When you step over the lines of disrupting military communications into full blown censorship, you become the oppressor.

The disproportionate use of force is obvious because it's aimed at you. Domestic spying aims at identifying and disrupting communications deemed unfavorable to US interests as defined by GWB and corporate interests. The idea is to keep any opposition disorganized, despised and ineffective. If you want to know how far it goes, have a look at Fox News "mistakes" about the democratic presidential candidate, Osama Barak.

Partly an ad for PGP?

[Futurepower(R)]

Proof that it isn't partly an ad for PGP, when GPG is available.

Do people who don't agree with the policies of the U.S. government really buy their encryption software online, using their credit cards? From a company in Menlo Park, California?

Shouldn't all encryption software be open source? Otherwise, how do you know it is secure? Maybe an unhappy employee built in a back door.

Oh, and TrueCrypt encrypts entire hard drives, including the boot partition.

The mention of political enemies of the U.S. government using closed-source software from a U.S. company makes me wonder about the entire article. Quote from the article: "Files are protected using PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, a virtually unbreakable form of encryption software that is also used by intelligence agencies around the world."

I'm VERY doubtful about that. The U.S. government, under the present administration, has established that it can require companies to cooperate, and to keep the cooperation secret. That means that any U.S.-made product could be suspect. That's one of the unintended consequences of being sneaky.

Re:Editors-of-Evil

[value_added]

The dubious bit is that warning lights go off in my head every time someone mentions Al-Qaeda because usually it's someone trying to scare me for political reasons.

Normally I do the same, but the article specifically mentions al-Qaeda by name (not "the terrists", "insurgents", "extremists" or "evil-doers"), refers to the "tribal areas of western Pakistan" and accurately characterises those areas as "ungoverned" (no ambiguous "war on terrorism" angle), and then refrains from drawing unwarranted conclusions about what may or may not be going in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

I'd say that's a trifecta.

Just as importantly, using the fear card (as was done for Iraq) is a no op. Pakistan already has a nuclear program, is and will continue to be an ally, the political and social realities there are so complex that no one would dare try to make talking points out of them for news media, and the US military would prefer to stay out of such inaccessible regions altogether. And then, of course, there's no oil.

As for the possibility that this will draw additional attention to the subject of encryption on the part of the administration, or lawmakers in general, I don't see that happening except, perhaps, at the periphery. The use of encryption is as commonlace as it is widespread. That means the issue, if there is one, involves everyone from big business to the military to ordinary folks checking their email.

Or an ad for Sony?

[mangu]

Isn't it funny how TFA mentions that "producers use ultralight Sony Vaio laptops and top-end video cameras"? I wonder why the make and model of the cameras aren't mentioned. They got close enough to know which laptops those guys use, but have no idea of where they are hiding...

Re:Don't miss the point.

[hjrnunes]

Terrorism works huh? No shit? Everybody knows that. What's new is the fact that this new democratic-free-speech-politically-correct ruling mentality in the US and Europe that wants to convince us that it doesn't and that it's evil. Yet you look back in History and you see all kinds of terrorists being praised. Example: Menachem Begin, orchestrator of the bloodiest terrorist attack of the 20th century in King David Hotel in Jerusalem, with a death toll of around 90 people, men women and children both Jew and Muslim. Yet he became Prime-Minister and, here's the funny part, won the Nobel Prize for Peace. Hilarious. Now, who are you and the rest of the blindfolded puppets that share your opinion trying to fool? Apart from yourselves of course...

how muslims fight : kidnapping kids, wives and old people and executing them en masse in hopes of demoralizing an enemy

Hiroshima/Nagasaki anyone?

the ancient egyptians (who still existed when the muslim caliph ordered the library of alexandria burnt down)

Yeah. That's what you say. Others say otherwise. Besides, the attack on science is not a muslim thing. It's a religious thing.

So you can crawl back to your hole again and stay there until you figure out how to properly make a point instead of swinging flawed biased pseudo-arguments around. Oh and while you're there, remove the blindfold and read a couple of things. History books are advisable though read more than one author. Books written in the last and before last centuries are also advisable (There were not any neocons back then, only imperialists).