Berg's encounter with "terrorist" revealed

CNN ^ | 5/13/04 | Kelli Arena

[gandalftb]

According to Berg, his son was taking a course a few years ago at a remote campus of the University of Oklahoma near an airport. He described how on one particular day, his son met "some terrorist people -- who no one knew were terrorists at the time."

At one point during the bus ride, Berg said, the man sitting next to his son asked if he could use Nick's laptop computer.

"It turned out this guy was a terrorist and that he, you know, used my son's e-mail, amongst many other people's e-mail who he did the same thing to," Berg said.

Government sources said Berg gave the man his password, which was later used by Moussaoui, the sources said.

[PJ-Comix]

Who gives out thier password to strangers?

I don't even give my password out to friends.

[Toskrin]

This is a fishy story from Berg's dad. However, another thread details E-mails that Berg sent from Iraq to friends in the tower business. It seems he claims to have been pretty busy with climbing towers in Iraq. Berg detailed a story about how he almost got killed by an Iraqi who thought he was stealing equipment from a tower.

Also, keep in mind that Berg could have been held by AQ for over a month before the execution occurred. Plenty of time to grow hair and a beard, lose a lot of weight, and also to start to think that your captors weren't going to kill you.

[miss marmelstein]

This is the first thing I picked up on - the hair and beard. He looks very Islamic. This is turning out to be one of the creepiest stories to come out of this war.

[miss marmelstein]

Geez, maybe this is some horrible, morbid, real life version of the opera "Tosca." You know, the hero thinks his enemies are really his friends, thinks the firing squad will fake it but surprise! they don't.

[BluH2o]

... Nick seemed as though he had no concerns of his life being in danger ...

He was probably told by his captors this tape session was intended to send a message, nothing else. They wanted him calm and fairly relaxed ... they indeed did send a message, it wasn't the one the victim thought it was going to be.

[TigersEye]

But they saw the Jewish name Berg, and the Israeli passport stamp, and that trumped his ANSWER credentials.

Not only that but wouldn't the typical Muslim Jihadi mindset fall along the lines of "we don't need no steenking help killing all you infidels?"

[Triple]

Not necessarily have to be online at the time.

The bad guys have a way to defeat 'carnivore'. I am not going to be the one to tell you the method, if you can't figure it out yourself.

It is strange, and even stranger if Berg's puter was used more than once to compose an email message. (Was Berg an asset?)

Regards,

[spectre]

... Nick seemed as though he had no concerns of his life being in danger ...

"He was probably told by his captors this tape session was intended to send a message, nothing else. They wanted him calm and fairly relaxed ... they indeed did send a message, it wasn't the one the victim thought it was going to be."

No doubt in my mind it happened this way.

sw

[Euro-American Scum]

It's the Daniel Perl syndrome. Perl believed his leftist credentials and pro-Pali sympathies protected him in arab areas and allowed him special access to terrorists.

Object lesson for anyone trying to do the same thing in the future: Terrorists don't care about leftist credentials. The only good American is a dead American, in their eyes.

[Triple]

Since there is enough already out there, allow me to speculate on the email account password sharing.

The bad guys have a way to defeat carnivore. The way they do this is by logging into an internet based email account (yahoo email) and composing a message - with no send to address.

save the message and log-off (no send executed)

The message sits on the yahoo server.

The next bad guy logs on to that very email account (note the passing around of Berg's password) reads the message then deletes it.

Carnivore never gets to intercept the email - because it is never sent.

Berg was either used by the bad guys, for his email account (probable), or he was an intelligence asset and this was a setup to access Moussaui's communication network (less than zero probability).

If the later, this guy was a hero - and a new star will go on the wall - with no name attached.

If the former, this guy was today's version Forrest Gump.

Regards,

[swheats]

Here's a question for everyone to ponder: Is it possible that Berg was a contact for Al Queda cells in the US, and when he was arrested and questioned in Iraq, the terrorists realized he had been compromised so they killed him at a convienent time?

Considering insurgents killed 18-22 of thier own, with mortar attacks, while held in coalition custody in jail it's definately possible.

[Free Trapper]

If Berg had been helping the terrorists in any way,he could have been seen as a liability once he had met with them and had more knowledge of them or their operations.

The terrorists might not have trusted him "not" to break when being questioned by our intelligence people if released or killed him on the "slightest possibility" that he was a double agent.

[1066AD]

I wasn't doubting you, just saying I thought he'd know better than to give out p/w etc to a stranger.

[swheats]

I can't even imagine the father's thoughts right now. He has jeopardized his life and business to protest this war.

I hope this is his wake-up call.

[Henk]

There was even a suggestion, by medical experts on some other thread, that the decapitation was not the real thing.

Come on, they have his headless body.

[Poohbah]

Carnivore never gets to intercept the email - because it is never sent.

Factors to consider:

• Multiple logins
• Geographically diverse locations
• Insufficient time for a single user to travel from Location A to Location B

Carnivore might trigger on all three criteria being satisfied. Raise "might" to "would" if the email address was already under suspicion.

Remember, the information is still traveling over a network to get to and from the webmail server.

If you really want to beat Carnivore, send email--but never forward it from the same account. For example, an email is sent to Account A, with encryption. Reader A downloads email at a Starbucks or a Schlotsky's Deli via Wi-Fi, then disconnects. Email is decrypted and read.

Most of the email is padding--i.e., bulk intended to disguise the true length of the message. The actual message is cut-and-pasted into a new email, with different padding, encrypted with a different algorithm, and sent from a Account B.

The guy with the laptop then walks around with a Wi-Fi-equipped PDA, looking for an unsecured Wi-Fi network (which are legion--and usually unauthorized by the company hosting them).

He then boots up his computer, logs into the network, and sends the email from Account B.

Carnivore will have a very hard time connecting the two events, because they don't share a common IP address, email account, or message content.

[Travis McGee]

Exactly. And connecting dots, we have brilliant engineering student Nick, traveling from Oklahoma to Mosul, helping Iraqis to spiff up their email skills.

[Grampa Dave]

Click the cartoon above for Backhoe's indexing of this incredible mess.

[arthurus]

Another poster said that the cut was done the way one who does such things would cut the head from a sheep in butchering it.

[Cobra Scott]

Not to detract from Berg's capabilities, but all I really get out of everything is that he was a tower climber, not an engineer. Changing light bulbs at 300 feet or even 30 feet in the air is something I greatly admire and respect, but I think out of 40 million Iraqis there would be plenty willing to do just that.

I am convinced that the real story lies in what he was doing in Ghana.