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| FBI screwed up golden opportunity... |
| 2002-07-30 |
| 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." So it wasn't the feds — it was a guy who wanted to do something for his country and the feds fell down on the job... 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." "It is FBI policy to refer any action to higher echelons so as not to be blamed if anything goes wrong..." 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. He's talking about the one the FBI — or CIA or NSA — should be vitally interested in. The porn has nothing to do with whether or not he wanted to help the country... 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. Good move. Why didn't the feds do that? 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. Which wasn't at all an unreasonable expectation, since we're at war with international terrorism and we'd really like to collect all the information on them we can... 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. 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. Should have left it up to get the guys who hadn't gotten the word. But he was probably disgusted mos' to death by then... 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. Why'd he give up the site? That was a dumb move, even if the FBI didn't want it... Intelligence experts said the gamble on a fake Alneda site might not have been worthwhile. What the hell kind of "intelligence expert" would say a dumbass thing like that? 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. It would be available to everyone on the internet, John, because it's the internet. It's available to everyone by definition, just like radio traffic. With control of a major communications node, you could do all sorts of things: you could passively collect intelligence, thereby building a nice list of all the cannon fodder and wannabe's, all over the world; you could selectively disseminate disinformation; you could set up "operations" and grab large numbers of Bad Guys at a time... Think about it for a couple hours and you could come up with a whole bunch more. "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." Did that sentence make any sense at all? Didn't think so... Pike said that concern, coupled with the pressure caused by the Internet's breakneck speed, makes the lost opportunity understandable. No, it's not understandable. It's reprehensible and someone should be reprehended — as in fired. My respect for the FBI has hit bottom. The FBI is apparently not even making it as a police agency anymore, much less capable of conducting even rudimentary intelligence operations. Even if the operation had flopped, it should have been tried. "It's too new, and they were probably scared," Pike said. "And they might have well-founded fears." In other words, they were too timid and bureaucratic to take an opportunity that fell into their collective lap and run with it... Former CIA counterterrorism expert Vincent Cannistraro said relying on the public to do intelligence work is dangerous. Dangerous to whom, you ass? "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." Apparently they went to the wrong professionals. Or maybe they should have found some professionals instead of a bunch of guys who seem to regard the war on terror as something that could present hazards to career progression. I'm so mad I could spit. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #3 I could have written another six or seven paragraphs on this subject, but I was so mad I said to hell with it and went to bed, expecting to wake up in the morning living in a caliphate. Probably the FBI was the wrong agency to contact, but they should have put the guy in touch with the guys who are the right agency. Kaus said back in September that the whole 9-11 thing would have blown over by November. He was off by a few months, but he was right. I think the people who take this stuff seriously are in a minority and that by the time the next couple thousand casualties come we'll be regarded as (dangerous) cranks who don't understand that there are other things in life besides terrorist threats. The war on terror has already gone to being in many quarters "the war on terror," and in some "the so-called war on terror." I'm content to be a crank. I'm now convinced there will be another mass-casualty attack. When they have the predictable congressional hearings in its wake - possibly with a new Congress because the old one will be dead - I'll be agreeing with the statements that the feds didn't take it seriously enough and I'll be disappointed when they don't fire and/or jail the sons of bitches. I've alluded to my agnostic religious beliefs a time or two. I hereby announce that I've got religion: I'm converting to voudon as soon as I can find an FBI doll and a big enough box of pins. |
| Posted by: Fred 2002-07-31 06:08:13 |
| #2 I agree with Frank. I don't think the bureaucrats have the first idea about the power of the internet. They talk a lot, but there's damn little action. The fact that they couldn't find an "expert" in a timely manner is disturbing enough. The fact that they are making up excuses for the lack is truly frightening. These are the guys who are supposed to protect us?! |
| Posted by: Dee Bates 2002-07-31 04:31:26 |
| #1 I propose the immediate creation of the 1st American Provisional Volunteer Brigade ( Hacker Division) I too was furious when I heard about this, and I keep asking my tech breatheren " if we know that there are Al-Qaida websites and infrastructure why arent we doing something to shut them down?" why arent we as the tech community doing what we can to harass the enemy - or even the idiots who host their sites. I think Steve Gibson of GRC Research would know a thing to two about how to deny service to the goons. the 'thugburg' listing is a good start, can we consider listing known or suspected websites for these goons? We cant wait for the FBI to find this stuff out, they are trying to make sure theyve got their pensions locked up and dibs on the best parking space at the hawaii main office. Maybe its time we used Teddy Roosevelts 'Rough Rider' approach and gathered up a bunch of the cyber cowboys and whomped a bit of cyber-ass. For those of you afraid of letting the cyber war genie out of the bottle, Lets try to remember, these goons are trying to kill us,not people in a far away land, not just people in the uniform, but us. Our kids, husbands, wives and families, in our homes and places of work and in the most gruesome ways possible. If there was ever a justified use of the DOS attack, this would be it. |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2002-07-31 01:06:04 |