Here's something I noticed.
Khan, in a posting of yours in July, 2004, you made the claim that there was an "ineffective anthrax attack at end of February of 2003." You then elaborated, as follows:
"Has been dubbed weaponised or semiweaponised.
Was thought to have encompassed both a letter campaign with threatening messages and an outdoor delivery trial.
Best estimate of date is 24 Feb 2003." [Boldface added.]
Links: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1165194/posts?page=112#112 and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1165194/posts?page=145#145
What I noticed was that the same date (Feb. 24, 2003) had occurred in an earlier FR discussion about the possible connection between the anthrax mailings and Internet worms/viruses. [I have placed all the instances of the date Feb. 24, 2003, in this posting in boldface, to make it easy to spot them.]
Before proceeding, a bit on the Nimda worm: It is known that the destructive Nimda worm was released on Sept. 18, 2001, exactly one week after the 9/11 attack (one week to the minute, as closely as one can tell). The destructiveness of this worm on the heels of 9/11 was sufficient that John Ashcroft made a televised statement on Sept. 18 that the worm was not known to be terrorist-related. Something no one knew on that date was that Sept. 18, 2001, was also the postmark date of the anthrax mailings to NBC News and the NY Post. In addition, a variant called Nimda.B was released some time between Oct. 5 and 9, 2001, matching the mailing date of the second set of anthrax letters. (Neither Nimda.B nor the second set of anthrax letters can be dated precisely.) This was observed in early November, 2001, but to this date it is not known whether Nimda and the anthrax mailings were really connected or whether it was a coincidence. (It's perhaps worthy of comment that both the Nimda and anthrax attacks involved putting a destructive payload in mail, whether e-mail or postal mail.)
Fast-forward two years, to late Dec., 2003. Frequent FR reincarnatee Van der Waals, who had expressed interest in the Nimda theory, noted that the Swen computer worm had been released on Sept. 18, 2003, and that a variant of Swen had been released on Oct. 9, 2003. These are the anniversaries of the two known anthrax mailings. The HTML used by the worm makes use of the code word "bacillus". Here's the link to this posting of Van der Waals: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1042297/posts?page=37#37.
I replied to Van der Waals, in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1042297/posts?page=40#40. Here's part of what I wrote at the time (Dec. 20, 2003):
... note that the worm called Swen is apparently the latest incarnation of the earlier Gibe worm, so 9/18/2003 and 10/9/2003 are just the latest two dates in a longer series of release dates.As you can see, the Feb. 24, 2003, release date of Gibe coincides with Khan Noonian Singh's purported "ineffective anthrax attack." Possibility 3(b) specifically pointed out the date Feb. 24, 2003, as a date of interest.So, here are three possibilities regarding Swen:
My guess is that it's just a coincidence - Possibility 1.
- Possibility 1. The dates are just a coincidence. If you look, you can find many things that happened on Sept. 18, and some that happened on both Sept. 18 and Oct. 9 in some year.
- Possibility 2. Someone who had nothing to do with the anthrax mailings intentionally picked the anniversary dates, just because he thought it would be a cool thing to do.
- Possibility 3. Someone who had something to do with the anthrax mailings picked those dates on purpose. But why would he do that? Two possible reasons:
- Possibility 3(a). Disinformation. This presupposes that the Nimda theory is false; the purpose of Swen would then be to divert resources into investigation of a (false) Nimda connection to the anthrax mailings.
- Possibility 3(b). To draw attention to the earlier release dates of Gibe/Swen:
Why draw attention to these earlier dates? I don't know, but that attention to the earlier Gibe-worm release dates is a predictable consequence of the later Swen releases on the anthrax anniversary dates. In this theory 3(b), it's as if someone is saying: "Look at the release dates!"
- Mar. 4, 2002
- Feb. 24, 2003
(There were also minor follow-up variants released on Mar. 16, 2003, and Mar. 24, 2003.)
Mitch,there WERE a few other things that match the September and October dates: On Sept.17 (as I recall) Pres. Bush publicly identified Osama as the "author" of 9/11;and on October 18 (again,as I recall)we began bombardment of AQ and Taliban in Afghanistan.
In Princeton, NJ-not far from where the second batch of letters was mailed,there were 2 large student demonstrations going on: one pro-war;the other anti-war.
Both demonstrations "collapsed" when word of the Afghanistan response was received.(Both factions had been on tenterhooks because the media had been speculating on the date for quite a while.)
I can picture someone at one of the demonstrations (the "Anti",seems more likely to me)hurrying away to a storage spot,retrieving a carefully wrapped package,and walking it to the mailbox,in direct reaction to the news.