U.S. Web site said to offer strengthened encryption tool for al-Qaeda backers

Computer World ^ | Jan 23, 2008 | Jaikumar Vijayan

[Robert357]

An Arabic-language Web site hosted on a server located in Tampa, Fla., is apparently offering a new version of software that was designed to help al-Qaeda supporters encrypt their Internet communications.

The new encryption tool is called Mujahideen Secrets 2 and appears to be an updated version of easier-to-crack software that was released early last year, said Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing Corp. in San Jose.

The tool is being distributed free of charge on a password-protected Web site that belongs to an Islamic forum known as al-Ekhlaas, according to Henry and a blog posting by the Middle East Media Research Institute. (...snip...)

Henry said that he contacted the FBI about the al-Ekhlaas site and its contents last weekend. But as of this afternoon, the site was still up and running. .(...snip....).

Efforts by groups that support al-Qaeda to develop their own encryption tools appear to be driven by concerns about possible back doors being built into publicly available encryption software, Henry said. He added that the upgraded Mujahideen Secrets tool could cause problems for law enforcement and antiterrorism agencies that are tracking the activities of such groups..(...snip....).

"Up to this point in time, we have been able to discount al-Qaeda's use of the Internet as an attack vehicle because of their use of outdated and easily thwarted technologies," Henry said. But, he warned, that could begin to change if al-Qaeda backers start adopting more up-to-date tools.(...snip...)

Six prominent electronic jihad groups have emerged on the Internet, according to MEMRI, which said that four of them had their own Web sites "through which they recruit volunteers to take part in electronic attacks, maintain contacts with others who engage in electronic jihad, coordinate their attacks and enable their members to chat with one another anonymously."

[Robert357]

It is interesting that jihadists are getting so technology oriented and that this is being discussed in more mainstream documents.

I hope that NSA's budget keeps up with this kind of thing.

[C210N]

With all the quad-zillions of bytes going thru the internet, its helpful for the terroristas to help us by marking their communications with tidy encryption wrappers. Now, FISA-type applications need only watch for these encryption-encoded messages and thus can be much more efficient in achieving good results.

[BGHater]

Lol.

Tampa, FL.

MacDill Air Force Base
Headquarters, United States Special Operations Command (HQ, USSOCOM)

[jveritas]

One of dozens of links to download "Mujahedeen Secrets II" as posted on Ekhlaas terrorist forum: http://www.badongo.com/file/7280516

[jveritas]

NOC4 Hosts Inc/ Hivelocity.net located in Tampa Florida hosts the two largest terrorist forums on the internet Al-Ekhlaas and Al-Hesbah.

[Shryke]

I, too, have developed a free encryption program for terrorists. It's unbreakable.

One example of the encryption would be thus: the phrase "Allah be praised" would be encrypted as "Allahay ebay aisedpray". They shall never have to fear our NSA again.