Posted on 08/01/2004 7:50:32 PM PDT by conservative in nyc
I maintain that Dan Pearl's killers were ID'd this way.
Recall that they were sending messages to the NY Post and the WS Journal. And it was clearly reported that they were using Hotmail.
Well, Hotmail stamps the IP address of the sending computer into the email header, and that makes it relatively easy to ID the sender, esp. if they were sending from an Internet cafe (IIRC, they were).
Several of the perps were nabbed within a week (alas, too late for Dan Pearl).
Except that all the free email systems record the IP of the computer from which you're logging on.
How hard do you think it might be to monitor all of the new Hotmail or Yahoo accounts being created from within the Pakistan netblocks?
Not very.
When you log on to the dummy mailbox at an internet cafe, and type in the message, then save it to the drafts or any other folder, the plain text is transmitted from the cyber cafe across the internet backbone to the e-mail host's servers. The process is reversed when the intended recipient of the e-mail logs on and retrieves the message.
If the clear text is intercepted and proves to be of interest, then the intercepting entity has the IP address and location of both internet cafes, and perhaps more importantly keywords and account information that can possibly be used in further interception filters.
If the text is not sent in clear text, the packets then become prime targets for interception by virtue of not corresponding to any known language patterns. The use of enencrypted plain speech which uses innocuous words approaching normal grammar and sentence structure to transmit hidden messages would fit the definition of a code, as opposed to a cipher, and the risk there is that an interested third party might obtain a copy of the key while it is still in use.
Not to say that the method suggested wound't help improve security, just to illustrate that no method of electronic communication is foolproof.
As to why information regarding terrorist activities is sometimes held and sometimes released, three guidelines will help you understand what is going on.
One, When there is no operational advantage to withholding the information, and there is an operational or other advantage in releasing the information, the information is released. If there is no operational advantage to withholding the information, but there is also no operational or other advantage in releasing the information, the information is withheld.
Two, when the operational or other advantage in releasing the information outweighs the operational advantage in holding the information, the information will be released.
Three, when information is publicly released without the Administration's approval you will usually see public outrage over the leak. If you do not see outrage expressed publicly, the release of the information probably wasn't a "leak".
By observing a pattern of released information on a given topic over an extended period of time, you can draw conclusions about whether a mechanism for unofficial release of information is in place. Repeated releases, attributed to anonymous officials, that do not result in official public outrage, indicate the existence of a back channel mechanism for releasing sensitive, questionable, or otherwise non-attributable information.
Note that I do not suggest nor deny the existence of such a mechanism in this case, nor will I in a public forum. If you are intersted, odds are you have already been compiling your own statistics.
An excellent overview of US military interrogation theory and practice in Afghanistan can be found in "The Interrogators - Inside the Secret War Against Al Qaeda", copyright 2004, written by Chris Mackey and Greg Miller (pseudonyms, with the text approved for release by US intelligence review) and published by Little, Brown and Company, a subsidiary of the Time Warner Book Group.
#3: Keep them too busy running away to engage in any offensive moves. Deport all non-citizen Muslims immediately and let their own diseased cultures deal with them. Let the US-citizen Muslims know that if anything further happens, it's straight to the internment camps for them, where we will provide a standard of living commensurate with their lands of origin.
Can't ever get enough bashing of that corrupt, disbarred, dope-smoking, draft-dodging, pathologically lying, impeached rapist.
So you want us to Move On? How Dem-like of you.
Asked for comment, John Kerry deplored the issuance of terror warnings, saying "These terror warnings serve no purpose but to scare the people into supporting a trumped-up terror war." Asked what he would do differently, he responded "Well....I'd do more of them." (/sarcasm)
Because the President has said that when specific and credible information is available and can be shared with the public, it will be. Because we have a President who does what he says he will do.
Prairie
Not to throw any cold water on this business of the last 24 hours, but does anyone remember The Man Who Never Was with Clifton Webb?
there was some speculation on fox and friends this AM that when this computer engineer was captured, the code keys for encrypted messages was captured intact, allowing intelligence experts to decode a wealth of previously undecipherable data. Seems plausible to me, and is somewhat reminiscent of the U.S. capture of German cipher equipment during W.W. II.
BAD NEWS OSAMA, WE'RE READING YER MAIL !!.
Slainte,
CC
It's been "sanitized" of those un-PC terms, long before it hits the papers. They don't want to piss-off the Muzzies.
GO PRESIDENT BUSH!!!
Also, letting them know that we know and that we're prepared may make them drop these plans. As someone who lives a few blocks from the NYSE and survived 9/11, I prefer this to waiting and giving them more of an opportunity to blow us up again.
Clinton had EIGHT YEARS -- from Somalia and the first WTC bombing through the USS Cole -- to do something, and didn't have the guts to do anything but kick the proverbial can down the road.
If he had done something more than lobbing a few cruise missiles at a third world aspirin factory -- oddly timed to coincide with his ex-girlfriend's grand jury testimony -- we might not be in the situation we currently find ourselves.
I agree that re-electing Bush is one of the most important things we can do to defeat the terrorists! But if we let the media rewrite history and try to lay everything at Bush's feet (as with this "new al qaeda" bull$hit), that makes it that much harder to keep him in office.
We have no choice but to remind people that al qaeda was, essentially, allowed to grow and roam around unfettered on Clinton's watch. People *have* to know that it was his cowardice and fecklessness that allowed them to metastasize, instead of being cut off at the knees.
I know you're joking, but there is an element of truth to that!
Perhaps the fundamentalist Islam takeover of Iran? Maybe that radicalized the whole fetid region, and encouraged the bastards?
Indeed. Obviously, we had some nice intercepted communciations traffic from this source. Just as obviously, Al Qaeda knows from this article that the methods involved have gone bust.
You don't have to do that and somebody should know better.
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