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Al-Qaeda Hacker Caught 349

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the caught-by-accident dept.
anaesthetica writes "The Washington Post is carrying a story on a young man suspected to be the al-Qaeda hacker 'Irhabi 007'. From the article: 'Celebrated for his computer expertise, Irhabi 007 had propelled the jihadists into a 21st-century offensive through his ability to covertly and securely disseminate manuals of weaponry, videos of insurgent feats such as beheadings and other inflammatory material... The Internet has presented investigators with an extraordinary challenge. But our future security is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world.'"
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Al-Qaeda Hacker Caught More

Al-Qaeda Hacker Caught

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  • Wonderful. (Score:5, Funny)

    by ImaNihilist ( 889325 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @04:33AM (#14996956)
    Now we have to worry about people driving car bombs into ISPs. It's like DDoS attacks, evolved.

  • Hacker? How about script kiddie? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nomihn0 ( 739701 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @04:35AM (#14996960)
    As he provided seemingly limitless space captured from vulnerable servers throughout the Internet, Irhabi was celebrated by his online followers [From TFA]

    That's fascinating and all, but where is the cyber-terrorism we are quivering over? When is it going to be an offensive move rather than mere proselytizing?
    • I for one hope we NEVER get to see those al-Qaeda slime make an "offensive move rather than mere proselytizing." I cannot seriously believe you're suggesting that we should wait for a serious attack before we try to do anything to stop it. I for one am thankful that this guy was stopped before it escalated much further.
    • I think the actual reason for him being such a threat is his ability to dodge censorship. Seeing how much media attention the videos he (supposedly) spreads recieve, you can kind of guess of what importance he is. This will, of course, again be used to push forward with laws cutting down on internet anonymity. Cause why would you want to be anonymous if you're not a commie/terrorist?
      • The only reason he is a threat is because the professionally paranoid believe their own FUD. People still run around believing if you publish online it's like publishing in an old world newspaper and a lot of people will read it and believe it.

        Pure fantasy, your Internet voice is restricted to people who already believe it and look for it, with a billion pages out there, a few stupid sites are neither here nor there in the overall human consciousness.

        Though it won't stop self righteous gits from looking

    • It doesn't appear that he was a cyberterrorist per se. More like an online courier in illicit information. No one particularly had to worry about him blowing something up, but they do have to worry about the activities of the people he provided training materials to.

      Btw, I went to the movies yesterday to see that new Spike Lee film [wikipedia.org] and saw not on but two upcoming movies about 9/11. One's about the flight 93 [wikipedia.org] that got downed in PA, and the other is simply called "World Trade Center [wikipedia.org]" and it's directed by

  • Irhabi 007 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 26, 2006 @04:39AM (#14996968)
    Goat's milk. Shaken, not stirred.

    • Re:Irhabi 007 (Score:3, Interesting)

      by OutOfMyTree ( 810249 )
      Oh, come on, moderators, that goat's milk joke is funny...

      And it makes a legitimate point that has been ignored in other posts -- calling himself 007 indicates interesting things about his view of himself.
    • I was thinking the same thing. What kind of self respecting anti-westerner would use a James Bond Hollywood name as their online moniker.

  • your rights online (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pintomp3 ( 882811 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @04:39AM (#14996969)
    this should be filed under your rights online, since that is what will be disappearing soon. the terrorists are on the interwebs now. start up the survillence at the ISP level. if we happen to catch a people downloading music and movies, doubleplus good. osama is laughing his ass off watching us burn up our own constitution.

  • hold on hold on hold on (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So, let me get this straight, if you're a propagandist for a terrorist group, you're a terrorist?

    Yay. I wonder where this slippery slope ends up?

    Also, I find it odd that this alleged hacker chose a moniker that would sound more familiar to Republican voters than to someone who would wholeheartedly reject Western ideals (ie: your average terrorist).

    • Re:hold on hold on hold on (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tealover ( 187148 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @04:49AM (#14996994)
      Goebbels never killed anyone directly, but he was still a Nazi.

      You can play semantics if you want, the rest of us will live in the real world.

    • Re:hold on hold on hold on (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      It says in the writeup he distributed their weapon manuals, was involved in a bomb plot, and had stolen credit card information.

      So shut the fuck up and read it before you jump to conclusions.
      • The more interesting part of the writeup is that MI5-6, FBI, CIA and NSA are so effing inept that they could not catch him for 2 years and the only reason why his hacker identity was revealed was that someone correlated the fact that he was behind bars with the lack of messages.

        Considering that he was arrested and the police had all the grounds to get logs from his ISP as well as run proper forensics on his equipment we are talking about incompetence of truly biblical proportions here.

        This is a classic exam

    • So, let me get this straight, if you're a propagandist for a terrorist group, you're a terrorist?

      Yay. I wonder where this slippery slope ends up?


      He was arrested in the UK. IIRC it is now illegal to even say anything that could even be construed as "glorifying" terrorism, we are already slipping down that slope. You can now be imprisoned for 3 months without even being charged with anything.

      What a country.
      • As scary as that slippery slope may be, suicide terrorists make traditional methods of dealing with criminals problematic.

        Your only chance generally is to either convict them for shady reasons (Moussaoui, death penalty for not telling about an imminent crime seems a bit harsh in just about every context) or total surveillance (your honor, right after the part on the tape where he disobeys the Quran by fucking his fellow sucide bomber's girlfriend we can hear how he explicitly sings in the shower about blow

        • Re:hold on hold on hold on (Score:5, Insightful)

          by SetupWeasel ( 54062 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @06:17AM (#14997169) Homepage
          You create terrorists by wrongly imprisoning people. Preventing crime is not about putting people behind bars. It is about improving people's environment and standing so that they are less compelled to commit crimes. You have to be pretty damned pissed off about something to blow yourself up and kill innocent people. Maybe we ought to work on what is pissing said people off.

          It is funny that the city actually involved in the 9/11 attack is one of the most liberal cities in the country.

          • Re:hold on hold on hold on (Score:4, Insightful)

            by maelstrom ( 638 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @07:15AM (#14997288) Homepage Journal
            There are some people that are going to be pissed off no matter what. If we followed this attitude, we would still have Jim Crow laws because people like you would be trying to placate the KKK.

            Instead of coddling the KKK (terrorists), let us make sure that these groups have a ready outlet to protest the discrimination and poverty they undoubtably face. We need less Bin Ladens and more MLK Jrs from the Middle East, and no more Western apologists.

            • HA! What a way to turn an argument around! Coddling the KKK... Damn, I would have never thought you would find my true motivation.

              To be clear asshole (if I may call you that), I do not want to coddle the KKK or actual terrorists. That first part was a joke, you see. "Sarcasm" is what the kids call it these days.

              What I was saying in my previous post was: when you make living conditions for innocent people better, fewer of them eventually become criminals. Is that clear enough for you?

              "Violence begets violenc
          • You create terrorists by wrongly imprisoning people. ... Maybe we ought to work on what is pissing said people off.

            Osama hasn't spent any time behind bars, and neither have most Palestinian terrorists. Having a different religion and being near the Middle East seems to be what is required to make them angry.
            • >Osama hasn't spent any time behind bars, and neither have most Palestinian terrorists.

              Do you see OBL blowing himself up? The OP is correct that imprisoning people without due process does more to help terrorism then hinder it. You only have to look at Internment in Northern Ireland to see. Prior to that and the civil rights abuses the IRA had little to no support.
      • Australia under the new sedition laws is even worse.

        In sport, it has been traditional for Australians to if not support, then at least show some sympathy for the underdogs, especially if they were the home team. In war, that can get you locked up.

      • Re:hold on hold on hold on (Score:5, Informative)

        by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @05:48AM (#14997122)
        Close. Scarily, the "glorification of terror" is indeed an offence now, though the suspicion is that they wanted to be able to nail people like Abu Hamza, who stood up in the centre of london and praised al-Qaeda.

        However, the 90 day extension of the holding powers was stopped [bbc.co.uk] by parliament in Blair's first Commons defeat; instead the previous 14-day holding period (without charge) was extended to 28 days, which is still a dangerous piece of legislation for a liberal democracy IMHO.
        • Oh, I nearly forgot - there's also supervision of the holding orders by a High Court Judge, so at least there's some oversight of the process outside the police.
        • "However, the 90 day extension of the holding powers was stopped by parliament in Blair's first Commons defeat;"

          You make it sound like a success for freedom and democracy, that they didn't get the 90 days that even the Home Secretary was embarassed about asking for.

          Yet, you can still spend a month in police cells in the UK without having done anything wrong - the original 14 day limit was absurdly draconian (especially when the police aren't using more than a day or so of that time to investigate), and they
          • Well, I consider 28 days better than 90, especially given the amount of pressure the government bought to bear on parliament, including the attempt to try and guilt his own party rebels into it.

            Overall though, I DO find it a worrying piece of legislation for a liberal democracy, as I said at the end of the sentence you half-quoted.

      • Re:hold on hold on hold on (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @06:12AM (#14997162)
        >IIRC it is now illegal to even say anything that could even be construed as "glorifying" terrorism, we are already slipping down that slope.

        Oh come on. Google his name.
        (A) Younis Tsouli, 22, of Richmond Way, Shepherd's Bush
          he had in his bedroom a video, on a computer hard drive, showing how to make a car bomb
          he possessed a video, on a hard drive, showing a number of places in Washington DC and including a CRBN (chemical, radiological, biological and nuclear) vehicle.
          before October 31 this year he, with Mughal and others, conspired together to murder a person unknown
          he "unlawfully and maliciously" conspired together with Mughal and others to cause an explosion of a nature likely to endanger life in the United Kingdom
          he conspired to dishonestly obtain property from credit cards belonging to others
        His name came up after they arrested another guy with a working suicide belt. This isnt a case of the slippery slope, this is how you bust terrorist cells.
      • "IIRC it is now illegal to even say anything that could even be construed as "glorifying" terrorism,"

        Unless it's said by Sinn Fein? Gerry Adams said something about believing it to be easier to raise money in London than it is in DC these days this past St. Patrick's Day.

      • Re:hold on hold on hold on (Score:5, Interesting)

        by flossie ( 135232 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @11:56AM (#14998064) Homepage
        He was arrested in the UK. IIRC it is now illegal to even say anything that could even be construed as "glorifying" terrorism, we are already slipping down that slope.

        The UK on a slippery slope? Ridiculous! We tumbled and reached the bottom long ago. Now the government are just standing over us, pissing for enjoyment.

        A peace campaigner has been convicted under a new law banning unauthorised protests from taking place within half a mile of Westminster. She was arrested in October after reading out names of soldiers killed in Iraq at central London's Cenotaph.
        (Activist convicted under demo law [bbc.co.uk])

        A new Enabling Act will allow government ministers to alter any legislation at will, as long as the do not create any new offences which carry a penalty greater than 2 years imprisonment.

        (1) A Minister of the Crown may by order make provision for either or both of the following purposes-- (a) reforming legislation; (b) implementing recommendations of any one or more of the United Kingdom Law Commissions, with or without changes.
        (Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill [parliament.uk])

        And just in case we haven't got the message yet, the government are going to create a vast database (like the Stasi one, but more frightening and much more expensive) and force everyone in the country to be photographed, fingerprinted, iris scanned and required to notify the authorities of their whereabouts. (Identity Cards Bill [parliament.uk])

        Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame, All their attempts to bend thee down;
        Will but arouse thy generous flame, But work their woe, and thy renown.
        How wrong we were.

    • Re:hold on hold on hold on (Score:5, Insightful)

      by killjoe ( 766577 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @05:33AM (#14997081)
      "Also, I find it odd that this alleged hacker chose a moniker that would sound more familiar to Republican voters than to someone who would wholeheartedly reject Western ideals (ie: your average terrorist)."

      The worst thing is that we will never know what actually happened, what this guy did, how he did it, why he did it.

      There will not be a trial, the guy will be shipped off to some godforsaken place and be held forever under who knows what kinds of aweful conditions getting regular "pressure" from the CIA or the egyptian intelligence or whatever.

      It's sick what has happened to our country. It's really really sick and aweful. The worst thing is that nobody really cares. Everybody will simply accept what the press and the president tells them. For all we know this could just be some high school student who thinks he is l33t. The president will call him a terrorists and the public will just buy it without any further evidence. We will never know.
    • So, let me get this straight, if you're a propagandist for a terrorist group, you're a terrorist?

      TFA: "The savvy, English-speaking, presumably young webmaster taunted his pursuers, calling himself Irhabi -- Terrorist -- 007.... Scotland Yard arrested a 22-year-old West Londoner, Younis Tsouli, suspected of participating in an alleged bomb plot. In November, British authorities brought a range of charges against him related to that plot....British investigators eventually confirmed to us that they believe

      • So he called himself "terrorist", and he was allegedly involved with a real-world bomb plot. So not so sensationalist.

        Back in the old BBS days, I often went by the name Necromancer - not very original, but I was a teenager. In spite of that name, I never did try to raise the dead or anything like that. Just because I called myself a thing did not make me that thing.
    • He was arrested for suspected participation in a bomb plot. He himself adopted the terrorist moniker with "Irhabi -- Terrorist -- 007".

      Nor is the 007 part of the moniker all that surprising given the fact that he is British (or at least based in England) and could also be taken as a name chosen so as to be understandable and resonate with westerners and thus instill fear in them (though I grant you it is likely pure childishness). Of course it could also appeal to potential terrorists familiar with weste
    • In what way is "irhabi" more familiar to Republicans than potential terrorists? Oh, you mean 007... news flash -- this kid is British. And 007 is familiar to people around the world regardless of religion or politics, much less "terrorist" affiliation. Also, the kid was busted for participating in a bomb plot, not for spreading hacking propaganda; it is only after they busted him that they figured out he had anything to do with this 007 character. But the moniker is not surprising at all. A lot of terr

    • Yeap, my thoughts exactly. Most of what he allegedly did goes right into the free speech category. Some years back there was the "Anarchist cookbook", a compilations of ways to blow things up (and likely yourself in the process). Lots of noise was made around weather it should be allowed online or not. The result? It's pretty easy to find on the net.
      What he "disseminates" is even closer to what free speech is about, because it has a lot of political content. I saw Fahren
    • Damn straight.

      If you're an accountant for a terrorist group, you're also a terrorist. If you sweep the floor for a terrorist group, you're a terrorst. If you are the pedicurist for a terrorist group, you are a terrorist.

      This is not difficult at all. What is difficult is drawing the line between terrorists and freedom fighters. Once you've decided a group is terrorist, then you also consider anybody who knowingly supports and advances the terror activities of that group terrorists. What they do doesn't
    • That's almost as ridiculous as saying that Joseph Goebbels isn't a Nazi either. I mean, he was a propagandist for the Nazi's wasn't he? So how could he be a nazi as well? Well guess what, they don't have to find you strapped with explosives to determine you're one of the bad guys.

  • The Net is SO scary! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by STDOUBT ( 913577 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @04:43AM (#14996980)
    "But our future security is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world.'" Bullshit. If my future security depends on the governments ability to destroy online anonymity, I want a different government. Make the borders secure. Packets of data don't scare me.
    • I agree with this, i mean seriously, terrorist and anti-iraqi forces launch mortar rounds at me on a daily basis. i'm not scared of their websites. It all comes back to the idea that military effectiveness will not win this war. There is a war of ideas and ideals out there that needs to be fought as well. Not that we need to go to war against allah or anything, but I'm talking about fighting people who are recruiting people to throw bombs at us is just as important as fighting the people who are throwing th
    • This is the govt admitting that ideas are the most dangerous things in the world. THis guy is (supposedly) disseminating knowledge and ideas. We can't have that.

    • Re:The Net is SO scary! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Milton Waddams ( 739213 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @06:41AM (#14997204)
      Packets of data don't scare me.


      You've obviously never seen tubgirl before.

  • 1 down, quite a few more to go (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anne Thwacks ( 531696 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @04:43AM (#14996982)
    If they can get him, then they should be able to get a few more of the spammers.
    • If they can get him, then they should be able to get a few more of the file swappers.
      br. fixt! (P2P makes baby jesus cry and supports terrorism and kills innocent children)
    • He wan't a spammer, but was an Islamic Jihadist hacker. The moniker (nom de guerre?)
      he chose would suggest that he was a British citizen rather than a recent immigrant.

      OTOH, spammers fit rather well into the disinformation war that the USA and British
      governments have maintained since before the start of the Iraqi war. After all, viral
      marketing is still just marketing, all in the name of capitalism. Spammers need only
      be "turned" by our collective governments to become additional ag-prop dis

  • Hacker? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Posting beheading videos and uploading traning manuals makes you a hacker?

    Boy the bar really has been lowered, hasn't it.

  • yep, so they caught him... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @05:03AM (#14997021) Journal
    But I bet he's glad he wasn't caught by the *AA !!!

    Kidding aside, its interesting how the PR against him makes him sound evil incarnate... Next, this will be used to hobble our on-line rights so they can catch more of the terrorists... not a good thing IMO. Of course, I can't speak for everyone, but the PR is a bad sign. Criminals are criminals, no matter how bad they are. Sensationalizing the story, or the criminal, only serves nefarious purposes IMO.

  • just copyright one of the recordings (Score:5, Funny)

    by bxbaser ( 252102 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @05:22AM (#14997057)
    and let the riaa go after him.

  • The new standard ? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Eivind ( 15695 )
    Is that the new definition of "terrorist" ? Soemone who; covertly and securely distribute inflammatory material ?

    Weaponmanuals and if you like, training using them is available perfectly openly. I suppose if you partake in such while looking Arabic you get looked at strangely these days. Still, there's nothing even remotely illegal about either.

    It is true that secure, anonymous communication is a benefit to those with criminal intentions. But that's a small price to pay for the benefit they provide to t

    • Re:The new standard ? (Score:4, Informative)

      by lasindi ( 770329 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @08:26AM (#14997455) Homepage
      Is that the new definition of "terrorist" ? Soemone who; covertly and securely distribute inflammatory material ?

      No, it's not. Clearly you didn't RTFA.

      First of all, this guy was discovered accidentally -- he was arrested for what he was doing offline (allegedly plotting a bombing), not online. Second of all, what this guy did online wasn't merely post "inflammatory material" on various forums. He was actively breaking into servers to covertly host data, like videos and messages. If you go on an online forum today and post "Support the Jihad against the Western infidels!", you can't be arrested (at least in the US; I understand that the laws in the UK may have changed so that it is illegal). If you go and break into someone's server and then put your message there, then you might be in trouble.

      In short, this guy isn't being arrested because he was exercising his right to free speech. What he did would have been illegal if the material he was posting had been propaganda supporting Bush's agenda.

    • Re:The new standard ? (Score:2, Informative)

      by lixee ( 863589 )
      Is that the new definition of "terrorist" ?

      "Irhabi" means terrorist in Arabic. That should be more than enough to put him behind bars.

      Judge: So what did this guy do?
      Prosecutor: He's a self-proclaimed terrorist.
      Judge: Can't argue with that.
      • "Irhabi" means terrorist in Arabic. That should be more than enough to put him behind bars.

        Lots of people adopt stupid names online. I remember seeing someone using the name "AxEMuRDeReR" in a FPS game (possibly with slightly different capitalization -- I wasn't paying that much attention).

        Judge: So what did this guy do?
        Prosecutor: He's a self-proclaimed axe murderer.
        Judge: Can't argue with that.

  • The ACTUAL charges. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bob Cat - NYMPHS ( 313647 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @05:32AM (#14997077) Homepage
    Before anymore of you spout off about how this guy's use of his free speech rights is what got him into trouble, RTFA!

    "Tsouli has been charged with eight offenses including conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to cause an explosion, conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, conspiracy to obtain money by deception and offences relating to the possession of articles for terrorist purposes and fundraising. So far there are no charges directly related to his alleged activities as Irhabi on the Internet, ..."

    LOOK! No Internet-publishing charges! They found out who he (allegedly) was by accident!

    My only question is where are the Internet spooks who should be hunting these guys? They break into servers in the US and put beheading videos on them, and no one bothers to check the logs? Where are the honeypot jihadi forums? Is anybody looking into wtf http://www.whois.sc/irhabi007.com [whois.sc] is all about? Is the owner a fan or an identity theft victim?

    • Yeah, exactly. Way too many people here just assumed that he was being charged for "propaganda", without bothering to RTFA. Hey, if you could be arrested for propaganda in support of the enemy, I can think of quite a few people who'd also be eligible for prosecution. Except the Feds haven't touched them...

      The internet spooks are hunting these guys, more than most of us will know. Except most of that evidence will likely never see the inside of a courtroom. It's used instead to build up a picture of the ter

    • Re:The ACTUAL charges. (Score:3, Informative)

      by daigu ( 111684 )
      It looks like you are not familiar with what conspiracy is used for in the legal system of the U.S. government. The fact that there are no other charges should make you pause. Here's a clue:

      "In order to establish a conspiracy offense it is not necessary for the Government to prove that all of the people named in the indictment were members of the scheme; or that those who were members had entered into any formal type of agreement; or that the members had planned together all of the details of the scheme or
      • It looks like you are not familiar with what conspiracy is used for in the legal system of the U.S. government. The fact that there are no other charges should make you pause. Here's a clue:

        Here's a clue for YOU. The guy is a British subject, and was arrested and charged in the United Kingdom.

        So why are you quoting US law?

  • Criminal? Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AfricanImpi ( 879572 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @05:53AM (#14997129)
    RTFA, not only did this guy hijack servers for his own use (which is most surely a criminal act), but he did so in order to disseminate weapons manuals and the like not only propaganda material. It is a common and long-standing principle in Western countries that providing aid and comfort to the enemy, most especially in terms of technical assistance, is a crime. It would be wrong to view the arrest of this man as "one more erosion of our rights", because the right to support the enemy has never existed. Save your energy to defend real victims, not this guy.
    • He's only been charged, not yet convicted, until that time calling him a criminal is simply wrong. No matter who he is.
    • It is a common and long-standing principle in Western countries that providing aid and comfort to the enemy, most especially in terms of technical assistance, is a crime.

      Define 'enemy'. Any allied regiment previously provided with "aid and comfort" as well as "technical assistance" by these Western countries may become an enemy if there are enough political and economical interests that would require that.

      This has been like this for decades, nothing new there, but I'd hoped that by now it should be cle

  • Everytime I read an article like this the following quote from Ben Franklin pops up in my head:

    Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

  • 'Kiddies (Score:2, Funny)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 )
    When are they going to catch all the dirty little script kiddies who mass-defaced Danish websites with death threats? These people are most likely the suicide-bomber wannabes who were told to stay home by their big brother because they were too young.

    I expect its not so much about catching them, more about using them as keys into cells. Every-time they do something online they are providing an opportunity to be traced and hopefully this will lead to some big busts. Trading a few weapons manuals and videos o
  • An evil terrorist has a website up that shows completely open manuals for weapons, oh the horror! Quick, put the NRA in jail this very instant!

    And even more evil, hes not on the side of the US and write bad things about it. Off to the thought ministery and reprogram him, cant have that can we?

    Its pretty darn sad how little value the word terrorrist has theese days. Nowadays ot seems to mean smalltime criminal punk with the wrong skin colour. Racism? You bet it is.

    Take a look at the numbers, how many of your

    • Heja fucking Sverige (Score:3, Insightful)

      by upside ( 574799 )
      So you didn't read TFA, did you? You just wanted to spew.

      For your benefit: Tsouli was arrested because he was a bomb plot suspect. They found out he was a known "hacker" later. "Tsouli has been charged with eight offenses including conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to cause an explosion ..."

      Feel silly? You should, and ashamed because your comments are callous as well as stupid considering "car accidents" like 9/11, the London bombings and Theo van Gogh's murder. Accidents happen. Murder doesn't just happen.
  • "The short career of Irhabi 007 offers a case study in the evolving nature of the threat that we at the SITE Institute track every day by monitoring and then joining the password-protected forums and communicating with the online jihadi community"

    Come on, RTFA closely. Given the proclivities of Slashdot readers this may make for interesting reading but it is neither news nor does it say anything about our "rights" nor any erosion of them.

    The only question it raises is why has the Washington Post seen fit

  • DragNet (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @11:54AM (#14998054) Homepage Journal
    "Looking further, they found that the cards were used to pay American Internet providers on whose servers he had posted jihadi propaganda. Only then did investigators come to believe that they had netted the infamous hacker. And that element of luck is a problem. The Internet has presented investigators with an extraordinary challenge. But our future security is going to depend increasingly on identifying and catching the shadowy figures who exist primarily in the elusive online world."

    The "investigators" didn't trace the well-known propagandist's Internet packets from his well-known websites to his terminal, to his person. No mention of a labyrinth of anonymizing proxies, or ever-changing public login terminals. They busted a credit fraudster and discovered his other, more dangerous gigs.

    Meanwhile, the NSA, Echelon and other global "security" agencies are snooping on hundreds of millions of people's traffic. Supposedly to protect us from people like this Qaeda asshole. But they don't do even the basic network forensics a corporate IT department would immediately do when trying to find a bad guy.

    Maybe if they caught the few, highly destructive bad guys like this Qaeda asshole, their "security" budgets would dry up. Maybe they've got their own reasons not to hit too hard against online credit fraudsters - collusion with international mobs, spooking the insurers, stumbling across covert finance networks for national "intelligence" agencies.

    They're getting $HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS, invading our privacy, imprisoning people without evidence they're suspect, invading unrelated countries, breaking laws to spy on us at home. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard's traditionally tight nets of reasonable evidence and human intelligence have caught a terrorist operative. Who actually spreads terror, publishing the propaganda about terrorist attacks widely.

    The demonstrated answer to these terrorists is our well understood police techniques. The justice system we've developed over hundreds of years, that is based on evidence and logic. Not only does it prove who did what when, but it avoids the damage caused by destroying liberty in the name of protecting it. Now we'll watch the mass media pump this arrest for more money and power for secret government operations that don't actually work.

  • computer expertise? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @11:58AM (#14998077) Homepage Journal
    Umm... how hard is it to "securely disseminate manuals...." ? Secure web pages.. geesh. Any 10 year old can do that in this day and age.

  • Washington Post? The stenographers club? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Catbeller ( 118204 ) on Sunday March 26, 2006 @12:35PM (#14998224) Homepage
    It Came From the Washington Post.

    Listen: the Post has swallowed the hook, line, sinker, and fishing trawler for over ten years now. They gobbled down the fake Clinton scandals verbatim from Ken Starr, and for the last four years have spectacularly slurped down every worm dangled in from of them from the faked intelligence for weapons in Iraq to aluminum tubes to Colin Powell's magnificient self destruction in front of the U.N. presenting descredited notions from Cheney's little Special Office of special intelligence.

    They and the NY Times have been shown that they've been hosed like third graders accidently playing in a Vegas poker game, BUT THEY STILL KEEP SWALLOWING THE SAME LINES OF BULLSHIT FROM THE SAME DAMNED LIARS. I think they're in too deep, there at the editorial offices of WaPo. They can't admit that they've been absolutely wrong on every worshipful point in this fake "war" against a common noun. The paper of record is in too deep.

    The "terrorists" from 9-11 died in the damned planes. And there weren't enough in the whole world to man the twelve planes they wanted to fly that day, according to the 911 commission. The only real terrorists left alive after 9-11 were the head of al queda and bin laden (he was the financier of the attack, not the movementleader) and these "warriors" haven't caught them after five years.

    Posting stuff doesn't make you a terrorist. That's a thought crime.

    This is bull. They can't get the real men who had something to do with 9-11, so they manufacture these little "victories" against no-one who get to be tortured by farmboys in gulags around the world until they die.

    There is no "Terror" you can have a war against. Every stupid move against the fringe and uninvolved MAKES men and women who want to kill you. We've torrtured thousands of probably innocent people. George and the WaPo will get their "terrorists" until the end of time. Like the "war" against the idea of "communism", they define who the enemy is, make a pile of money, control the zeitgeist, and declare it over when they find some new enemy after the last enemy stronghold is a mafia-run nation whose main export is prostitutes. Drugs, communism, atheism, terrorism, whatever, they'll always find some new thing to terrify and entertain people with, until the last superhurricane wipes out Washington DC.

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