Osama Bin Laden Didn't Encrypt His Files

An anonymous reader writes "If you're running a terrorist organization, it might make sense to encrypt your files. Clearly Osama Bin Laden didn't realize that — as some of the documents seized during the raid on his hideout in Pakistan have been made public for the first time. 17 electronic documents, which were found on USB sticks, memory cards and computer hard drives after US Navy Seals killed the terrorist chief in the May 2011 raid, are being released in their original Arabic alongside English translations by the Combating Terrorism Center, reports Sophos."

Comments

Security through obscurity

[GodfatherofSoul]

Worked pretty well for the 10 or so years it took to *find* his files!

Re:Security through obscurity

[Anonymous Coward]

All interested groups--those who would benefit from him being alive and those who would benefit from him being dead--agree that he's dead. His family members, including his wives, agree that he's dead. The Pakistani government, angry that the US violated their sovereignty, and embarrassed that OBL was in an area known to senior members of their intelligence apparatus (IE they were caught with their pants down), agree that he's dead. The consequences of claiming he's dead when he's not would be disastrous. A non-trivial number of people (between those in the situation room, including a photographer, those on the SEAL team, those on the ship that the SEAL team flew to) would be able to blow the whistle on the conspiracy.

This isn't about legal standard of proof--if it was ever legally required the government would show the court some of the DNA, dental, photographic, and video evidence they have--it's about simple common sense.

If you believe Osama bin Laden is not dead, say so. If you believe these documents are not legitimate, say so. This kind of wishy-washy devil's advocate crap where people claim that there are "unanswered questions" but lack the intellectual honesty to actually stand behind the only possible conclusion that could be drawn by the answers they're implying is so stupid.

Re:Security through obscurity

[tnk1]

Jumping too soon on a story (ie. Chavez Out of Power, Dewey Defeats Truman), is hardly the same thing as just about every one else telling you that OBL is dead. The fact of Chavez being in and out of power is a much more fluid situation than Osama bin Laden with two holes in his chest and having been dumped in the Indian Ocean off the deck of a warship. With Chavez, they were simply wrong, with bin Laden, they'd have to be outright lying.

Fact is, you don't really get to keep nasty secrets like this for long. Just about everything the US government or its agents have ever done which is nasty or illicit has come out long before any sort of National Archives release date. Even Nixon couldn't cover his shit up. If OBL was not dead or it was a fake, it would come out. It might be for honesty, it might be for a huge payday, or it might just be for ego.

Documentation is fine, but it can be faked. In the end, you don't trust in documents, you trust in the preponderance of evidence that you get from a variety of diverse sources, including those who have no stake in telling lies. As someone pointed out, both the US government and AQ admitted OBL is dead. I don't see any reason to disbelieve them. It's not like it changed anything at all. No wars will end, no wars will start. Hell, it was even too soon to allow Obama to get an Election year bump in the polls.

Re:Security through obscurity

[MightyYar]

This place has always attracted the conspiracy-minded. I think that there are more high-IQ people here than average, and high-IQ people like to find patterns. There is also a high correlation between paranoid schizophrenia and IQ. Conspiracy theories are really just grand pattern-finding exercises.

Of course, no one espousing these theories can explain to me how the government manages to keep a secret.

Re:Security through obscurity

[plover]

Because if Emmanuel Goldstein hadn't existed, it would have been necessary to invent him.

(Apologies to Orwell and Voltaire.)

Re:Security through obscurity

[rtb61]

The unanswered question is, why the claim of justifiable execution when they had him captured when the majority of the planet wanted him in trial.

Forget the bullshit about risk, that is just bullshit. By far the majority wanted to see him paraded before the public, lead around in handcuffs, reduced to nothing but just another criminal on trial. They wanted to see the evidence, they wanted all the accusations out in the open and, they wanted to understand how a US government funded agent become an anti-US terrorist.

They wanted the details, they wanted the truth they absolutely did not want some bullshit stage photo shoot of Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton sitting around a room with the co-conspirators pretending to watch it live, what a crock of shit. We by law had the right to our bloody trial, we had the right to all the evidence, we had the right to know everything that went on and we had the right to track all the government failings of the.

really?

[SailorOrion]

Normally, you would encrypt data for transmission via an unsecure network (read: internet) or to protect it from unauthorized physical access. It's not like OBL's biggest worries were the contents of his USB sticks should hostile individuals be present in his home. History certainly supports that theory ...

Why bother with the inconvenience?

[dccase]

He correctly understood that they wouldn't be used against him as evidence in a court of law.

Re:You're kidding right?

[Nidi62]

Unless of course you really think that any of this happened, in which you are hopelessly retarded! The only thing that might be true is that he's dead, probably in the Tora Bora attack years ago.

If bin Laden died in the Tora Bora years ago, Bush would have played that card when he was losing a bunch of domestic and international credibility after Iraq. That would have taken a lot of heat off of him and make it much easier for him to have gotten things done. Although, judging by your comment you probably also think bin Laden was a CIA agent since the 80s too.

Two thougths:

[Guppy06]

1. Considering that he kept that information in close physical proximity, he may simply have assumed that, if the information were compromised, he wouldn't be alive to care.
2. The US government says the files weren't encrypted. It's also possible they were encrypted, but the US doesn't want al Qaeda cells and/or the general public to know how long it took to crack.

Alive he would have been a rallying point

[Shivetya]

dead he is a short term martyr at best.

What nation could try him let alone hold him? The US? Hell we would have enough people who regularly post here decrying that let alone people protesting everywhere.

Then when you try him exactly who is going to want to keep him? Which country wants a permanent living flashpoint in their borders?

For every reason I could see taking him alive I can find many more for having him dead. There are people in this world who simply serve no purpose in keeping alive. Yes it is a sad observation but until people acknowledge that the world isn't going to get far. You cannot simply wish people to be good. Some just are not fit to be part of society, some merely see society as something to destroy.

I guess it would make some people feel better about themselves, magnanimous even, to hold these types indefinitely but I find the who generally want this have no skin in the game to begin with.