US Military Shuts Down CIA's Terrorist Honey Pot

Hugh Pickens sends in a Washington Post story about how US military cyber-warriors attacked and shut down a CIA-backed intelligence gathering site. "US military computer specialists, over the objections of the CIA, mounted a cyberattack that dismantled an online 'honey pot' monitored by US and Saudi intelligence agencies to identify extremists before they could strike, after military commanders said that the site was putting Americans at risk. The CIA argued that dismantling the site would lead to a significant loss of intelligence, while the military (in the form of the NSA) countered that taking it down was a legitimate operation in defense of US troops. 'The CIA didn't endorse the idea of crippling Web sites,' said one US counterterrorism official. The agency 'understood that intelligence would be lost, and it was; that relationships with cooperating intelligence services would be damaged, and they were; and that the terrorists would migrate to other sites, and they did.' Four former senior US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the creation and shutting down of the site illustrates the need for clearer policies governing cyberwar."

Comments

Bah

[mrsteveman1]

Mommy and Daddy are fighting

Re:Bah

[spun]

Don't let the CIA waterboard you when it's mad at the army.

Did I read this right?

[Mitchell314]

The US military mounted a cyberattack against the CIA? (disclaimer: did not read TFA)

At least they weren't desperate enough to resort to sending a DMCA take down notice.

Re:Did I read this right?

[longacre]

How many infidels did you have to kill to become a mod on that board?

Disturbing

[RealErmine]

None of this addresses the need for security of our strategic honey reserves.

Re:Here's all you need to know

[spun]

"Once DoD went to the extent of saying, 'Soldiers are dying,' because that's ultimately what the command in Iraq, what Centcom did, it's hard for anyone to push back," one former official said.

But some experts counter that dismantling Web sites is ineffective -- no sooner does a site come down than a mirror site pops up somewhere else. Because extremist groups store backup copies of forum information in servers around the world, "you can't really shut down this process for more than 24 or 48 hours," said Evan F. Kohlmann, a terrorism researcher and a consultant to the Nine/Eleven Finding Answers Foundation.

Those quotes summarize why they did it and why it was ineffective.
Welcome to the internet, where information never dies.

It just, you know, pines for the fjords.