Al-Qaeda Used Basic Codes, Calling Cards, Hotmail

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday May 2, 2009 @01:17AM from the if-only-the-nsa-watched-the-wire dept.

jd writes "In startling revelations, convicted terrorist Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri admitted that Al Qaeda used public telephones, pre-paid calling cards, search engines and Hotmail. Al-Marri 'used a '10-code' to protect the [phone] numbers — subtracting the actual digits in the phone numbers from 10 to arrive at a coded number.' The real story behind all this is that the terrorists weren't using sophisticated methods to avoid detection or monitoring — which tells us just how crappy SIGINT really is right now. If the NSA needs to wiretap the whole of the US because they can't break into a Hotmail account, you know they've got problems. FindLaw has a copy of al-Marri's plea agreement (the tech-related information begins on page 12), and the LA Times has further details on his case."

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I smell BS. by elucido · 2009-05-02 01:35 · Score: 0, Troll

A. What exactly is a foreign business? All mult-national corps are foreign businesses.
B. I'm supposed to believe Clinton of all people was a hero for nationalist businesses? He's the same guy responsible for the outsourcing crisis.
The NSA protects federal businesses, that is the businesses which do or have contracts with the NSA, that I can believe. I can also believe that the NSA would do espionage against the business community. But when you talk about foreign this and foreign that, there is no agreed upon definition of what is or is not foreign.