[iwar] [fc:Man.Hijacks.Al-Qaida.Web.Site]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-07-31 20:02:21
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:The.Societal.Costs.of.Surveillance]"
Previous message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Leaks.Or.Disinformation?]"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
Message-Id: <200208010302.g7132Lo18236@red.all.net>
To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List)
Organization: I'm not allowed to say
From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com
Precedence: bulk
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 20:02:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Man.Hijacks.Al-Qaida.Web.Site]
Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Man Hijacks Al-Qaida Web Site 
 
By D. Ian Hopper
AP Technology Writer
Tuesday, July 30, 2002; 2:02 PM 
 
WASHINGTON -- When Web operator Jon Messner gained control of one of
al-Qaida's prime Internet communication sites, he offered it to the FBI
to use it for disinformation and collecting data about sympathizers. 
 
What followed, he says, was a week of frustration. 
 
FBI agents struggled to find someone with enough technical know-how to
set up the sting.  By the time they did, the opportunity was lost as
militant Islamic Web users figured out the site was a decoy, said
Messner of Ocean City, Md. 
 
"It was like dealing with the motor vehicle administration," said
Messner, who runs Web sites, many of which sell pornographic materials. 
"We could have done something that could have seriously impacted things. 
It took me so many days just to get somebody who understood the
Internet."
 
Barry Maddox, a spokesman for the FBI's Baltimore office, said he
"cannot confirm or deny" that his office worked with Messner earlier
this month. 
 
"If we received information of any sort from anything related to 9/11 or
any continuing terrorist type activity, we would take it under
consideration and pass it on," Maddox said.  "We're not going to turn
down anything."
 
Though many of his Web sites involve pornography, Messner said he became
interested in Alneda.com, a militant Islamic Web site that promotes the
Al-Qaida terror organization and carries messages from its top members. 
 
Alneda originally was registered in Malaysia but has been chased out of
several countries after pressure by authorities.  It also has shown up
on computers in Michigan and Texas. 
 
Messner used a software program that probes Web site addresses whose
registrations are about to lapse, meaning the address will go into a
pool available for sale.  When it did, Messner snapped it up and filled
the site with Web pages from the original Arabic site. 
 
He hoped U.S.  officials could use the site for disinformation campaigns
or to collect data on visitors who used its message boards or other
resources. 
 
Even though some features didn't work yet, his decoy site fooled some
Web users. 
 
Almost immediately after putting the site online July 16, he saw
visitors from Arab nations and references to it on other militant
Islamic Web sites. 
 
"I (was) tracing back to hostile message boards that say when
translated, 'Praise Allah, the Alneda site is back up,'" Messner said. 
 
Since he couldn't write any new articles in Arabic, he needed the FBI's
help to keep the site alive.  He said FBI officials in Baltimore and
Salisbury, Md., encouraged his work but took too long to decide how to
help him. 
 
Within a week, other Arabic Web sites outed Messner's site as a phony
and warned visitors away.  He shut it down. 
 
Since Messner gave up the Internet address, the Alneda Web site is back
up again, this time hosted in Dayton, Ohio, and carrying a new interview
with an Al-Qaida field commander describing battles against American
forces. 
 
Messner said he handed over the data he gathered to the FBI. 
 
Intelligence experts said the gamble on a fake Alneda site might not
have been worthwhile. 
 
Rather than a traditional sting operation - a routine task for the FBI -
Messner's decoy site would be available to everyone on the Internet,
said John Pike of Globalsecurity.org.  That means the FBI might have
inadvertently helped terrorists communicate. 
 
"There is a difference between tossing a kilo of coke into a guy's lap
and then cuffing him, versus going out and selling it to little
children," Pike said.  "I'm sure there would have been somebody at FBI
who would have said this information is going to be publicly accessible. 
We don't even necessarily know all that is going to be communicated
here."
 
Pike said that concern, coupled with the pressure caused by the
Internet's breakneck speed, makes the lost opportunity understandable. 
 
"It's too new, and they were probably scared," Pike said.  "And they
might have well-founded fears."
 
Former CIA counterterrorism expert Vincent Cannistraro said relying on
the public to do intelligence work is dangerous. 
 
"It may be looked on as a large resource for law enforcement.  On the
other hand, it does lend itself to massive cases of abuse," Cannistraro
said.  "When it comes to monitoring the Internet and exploiting it, you
have to leave it to the professionals."

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Will You Find True Love?
Will You Meet the One?
Free Love Reading by phone!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/7dY7FD/R_ZEAA/Ey.GAA/kgFolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

------------------
http://all.net/ 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:The.Societal.Costs.of.Surveillance]"
Previous message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [fc:Leaks.Or.Disinformation?]"
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2002-10-01 06:44:32 PDT