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'Motherlode' of Data Seized At Bin Laden Compound
itwbennett writes "The raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan Sunday also turned up an 'intelligence harvest' of computer-based data that was described by an anonymous government source as 'the motherlode of intelligence.' The data is being sifted through at a secret site in Afghanistan. An unnamed official was quoted by Politico as saying: 'Hundreds of people are going through it now. It's going to be great even if only 10 percent of it is actionable. They cleaned it out. Can you imagine what's on Osama bin Laden's hard drive?'"
Goat porn
Lots of snuff films
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I would imagine a big old truecrypt partition, though perhaps he didn't encrypt things for some reason?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Yeah, lots of pictures sexy...ankles!!
Nobody has a score that low on minesweeper...
Obama's real birth certificate?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I would imagine a big old truecrypt partition, though perhaps he didn't encrypt things for some reason?
Well I'm reading through the files from bin laden's drives that were posted on wikileaks an hour ago and it looks like they he used steganography based on goat porn.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Encryption only really works if you do it right, every time. Screw up only once, and you could leave enough crumbs to compromise it all.
He's been holed up in that place for 6 years now, with no one even coming close. Time for him to get comfortable and slipshod. The odds of him not slipping up at all during that time are slim.
Maybe it is all encrypted, or maybe there are enough clues left around to provide some real, useful information.
Besides, the real question isn't what is on there. It is who in the various governments and industry are quaking in their boots thinking THEY may be on a list identifying them as supporters.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
In the end, sharing that Black Eyed Peas song came back to haunt him much more than leading a worldwide terrorist movement.
If I thought I'd appear in any of that data, I'd already have disappeared.
Imagine the shitstorm if several names turn up from the recently re-established governments.
22 million email addresses in a file marked "sony.dat"
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Encryption only really works if you do it right, every time. Screw up only once, and you could leave enough crumbs to compromise it all.
We're talking about the NSA getting this drive. So by doing it right you mean everything's encrypted and in the event of a raid the drive is melted with thermite, mixed with neodymium magnet dust, placed in a 5T magnetic field, stepped on by five elephants, mixed into bird food and fed to a flock of >100 migratory birds.
This is, this is just the kind of ultra important stuff where some is _actually_ going to use obscene amounts of processing power and analysis if required to get access to the data.
Encryption is a deterant.. 99% of the time the effort required to break said encryption is out of imagination for the value of the data... in this rare case, all the resources of the US military and possibly even other governments are available for use. They'd analyse every IC in the machine and put entire server farms to work on it to get the key.. unless he was very good with his computing practices... they'd get their data.
If he's smart he would've not only encrypted everything but most of the information would be intentionally misleading or low-value, making whoever got it not only have to work to decrypt it but to have sort out what's real and useful and what's not.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
And then the guys at the NSA say: hmm, interesting challenge!
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, what did I say? Did I just say 'Radaman?' What is that? Yeah, maybe Dennis Radaman is going to punish you with his crazy hair."
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
A selfish man who had others die for him is not likely to be overmuch careful about protecting the people who remain alive after he is dead.
I bet he was really sloppy and undisciplined.
Is that African or European swallows?
"Bin Laden" is "of the Laden family". The "bin" is akin to the Hebrew "ben", "son of" (e.g. "Yeshua ben Yosef", "Jesus son of Joseph".) The Arab equivalent to "of" (in this context) is "al", e.g. Saddam Hussein al Tikriti, Saddam Hussein from Tikrit.
As with other patronymics (e.g. the Scottish "Mac"), it's often used as a general family name, inherited for multiple generations. Osama bin Laden's father is Muhammad bin Laden. The original "Laden" is unknown, but goes back at least a century.
So it's perfectly reasonable to call him "bin Laden". It's his family name, at least a few generations back. Confusion arises only as with every other family name, in that there are a lot of bin Ladens out there, and you'd have to use his full name to be clear. But using just his first name would be equivalent to referring to the Chancellor of Germany as "Angela" or the Prime Minister of the UK as "Gordon": it's their personal name, and rarely used alone in public discourse.
You could use it that was as a deliberate insult of over familiarity. The New York Times took the unusual step of referring to him just as "bin Laden" rather than "Mr. bin Laden", which they reserve generally for the worst of the worst.
Osama Bin Laden's organization needed a LOT of money to keep going. Money to pay for food and housing for all of the thousands of followers who are not actually working or doing anything useful. Money for travel, equipment, supplies, bribes, etc. Those hard drives will probably show exactly WHO was supporting these terrorists. Which banks were laundering money money donations to make it available to Osama Bin Laden? Maybe JPMorgan Chase was Osama's banker like they were Bernie Madoff's banker. Who was issuing them credit cards? Which foreign governments were enabling them to travel by issuing passports, visas, and other documents? The Osama Bin Laden people were very sophisticated in how they approached their terrorist activities...that was OBL's 'innovation'...and now it may all come unraveled. There are plenty of young men with rifles running around the Afghanistan hills who hate the West...or what little they know of it...but that does not make them into terrorists capable of carrying out a sophisticated act of terror in another country. That OBL data may help ID a few new faces but mostly it will be the leads to the money trail that will bring the global terror activities to an end.
Probably from TFA.
Title: "Reports: Computers seized at bin Laden compound"
Subtitle: "U.S. authorities removed hard drives, CDs, DVDs, USB sticks in what is described as a 'motherlode' of data"
I'm guessing that maybe the bin Laden compound had computers, hard drives, CDs, DVDs, and USB sticks, which U. S. authorities seized. But that's just my uninformed guess.
As I recall, Wikileaks leaked very little counterterrorism intel. Most of it was governmental and corporate shenanigans. So, governments do underhanded deals that they have absolutely no business doing, and departments clam up on info sharing because governments want to keep those shady deals (not counterterrorism intel) a secret from the general public, and you're blaming Wikileaks for the next terrorist strike? Nice...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Governments don't actually face a choice between "share info and have leaks" or "don't share info and don't". That's a false dichotomy.
Leaks tend to happen when things are being covered up that should not be covered up. Leakers take huge risks, as the sad case of Mannings treatment shows. They don't tend to do it for shits and giggles, or because of some anarchic belief that all secrets are bad. In the case of the Manning dumps he did it because he thought there were a lot of scandals and other things being wrongly suppressed .... and he was right!
So we can see there's a third option, which is, don't cover up large numbers of scandals. Instead when you screw up, admit it, and ensure everyone can see the measures to take to prevent repeat incidents. There are plenty of organizations that do this. The US Govt is not one of them.