Convicted Terrorist Relied On Single-Letter Cipher

Hugh Pickens writes "The Register reports that the majority of the communications between convicted terrorist Rajib Karim and Bangladeshi Islamic activists were encrypted with a system which used Excel transposition tables which they invented themselves. It used a single-letter substitution cipher invented by the ancient Greeks that had been used and described by Julius Caesar in 55BC. Despite urging by the Yemen-based al Qaida leader Anwar Al Anlaki, Karim rejected the use of a sophisticated code program called 'Mujhaddin Secrets' which implements all the AES candidate cyphers, 'because "kaffirs," or non-believers, know about it so it must be less secure.'"

Comments

More spreadsheet abuse

[MichaelSmith]

Remember this kids: always use a proper database for your crap encryption scheme.

Re:More spreadsheet abuse

[azalin]

In related news: "Microsoft provides Terrorists with software to plan attacks"

Not that a piece of paper could have done the job as well (or probably better given the use of a halfway decent crypto scheme).

Re:More spreadsheet abuse

[DrXym]

This and Flight Simulator. MS should be on the terrorist watch list.

Re:More spreadsheet abuse

[PopeRatzo]

But the improved version known as the Vigenere cipher was broken (after being considered unbreakable for centuries) by the Arabic scientist Al-Kindi in the ninth century A.D.

It is said that upon breaking the Vigenere cipher, Al-Kindi's first comments were, "Death to America!"

I think that might be an apocryphal story, though.

He was considerate to the tax payer

[nzac]

I would say that once his emails are being read he's screwed. Either he has AES encrypted files which take a lot of expensive equipment to decrypt (and fail to do so in a reasonable time) resulting in lots of surveillance to catch most of the people involved or he forces some poor graduate to use excel and give away the rest of the 'cell'.
I don’t think once your emails are being intercepted you have much hope of carrying out a terrorist attack anyway.

Re:Invented by Jews.

[rhook]

We should rename encryption "bacon", then they'd never use it.

Re:Two types of cryptography

[zippthorne]

in this case, it wasn't even that secure...

He chose a cipher that millions of people crack every day on their way to work, before moving on the the more difficult crossword puzzle....

Excel for Terrorists?

[richie2000]

I always thought the Excel menu option "terrorist cell" was a bit suspect.

They also discarded a voice scrambling system

[Doghouse Riley]

when it was realized that "Igpay Atinlay" might be incompatible with the Muslim prohibition of pork.