Slashdot Mirror
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."
Mommy and Daddy are fighting
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.
Reading between the lines, someone in the military had a brilliant idea on how to find people liable to be extremists. "Lets make our own extremist site", they said. "Just to make sure we get them all we'll make it really fan the flames of Jihad, and tell Muslims why they should join in". What happens. A few people who would be terrorists come a long ... fine. A large number of moderates come along and leave comments like "you're a disgrace to Islam" and move on.. fine. But a sizeable number of Muslims who are not extremists hit the site and become radicalised by it. Some continue to use the site, but some inevitably find other "real" sites.
Someone does an analysis and says "Look, the number of people being radicalised by us who we lose track of is now larger than the number of people who are already radical who come along and get tracked". The military intelligence guys say "what do you mean doing no good, we have dozens of people here talking about extremist acts, and we only lose track of a quarter of them!", totally missing the point that they now have a dozen untracked extremists, and three dozen who are currently tracked whereas without the site they would have had half a dozen untracked ones!
With all the collective intellect of slashdot users, hasn't it even occurred to a single one of you geniuses that maybe, just maybe, this news is a bit of disinformation that has been spread deliberately to obscure some kind of real reorganization/shakeup that is taking place? Huh? I doubt in the extreme that the DOD has gone to war with the CIA, or that they are this blatantly making like the Keystone Kops.