Threat Matrix- Daily Terror Thread (4):

New York Post ^ | February 24, 2004 | By NILES LATHEM

[Revel]

February 24, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has dispatched the elite commando force that hunted down Saddam Hussein to Afghanistan for a new operation aimed at getting Osama bin Laden, officials said yesterday. Military sources confirmed that members of the shadowy Task Force 121, the unit that conducted the high-tech search for Saddam and his henchmen, have recently begun operating in the remote mountainous region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where bin Laden and key al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives are believed to be hiding. The Task Force is made up of highly trained Delta and SEAL commandos, as well as CIA paramilitary operators. It operates outside normal military channels.

[MamaDearest]

It would, however, serve its purpose of causing confusion and mayhem.

[SCR1]

There are only a handful of NAPs, take them down and the internet is toast.

"In the United States, a network access point (NAP) is one of several
major Internet interconnection points that serve to tie all the
Internet access providers together so that, for example, an AT&T user
in Portland, Oregon can reach the Web site of a Bell South customer
in Miami, Florida. Originally, four NAPs

- in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and San Francisco -

were created and supported by the National Science Foundation as part
of the transition from the original U.S. government-financed Internet
to a commercially operated Internet. Since that time, several new
NAPs have arrived, including WorldCom's "MAE West" site in San Jose,
California and ICS Network Systems' "Big East." -."

[oceanview]

OK, its time to officially ignore this guy on this thread. He's out of the matrix!

[magnumsgirl]

bookmark-must get back to work

[Old Sarge]

Psyops simulation or something real?

Simulation.

We're gearing up to do similar training in KY next month. No biggie, just inter-agency operability.

It also lets the bad guys know, that we can deal with whatever they toss at us. And this is just what we want them to see...

Part of warfare is the mind-screw...

[watchwoman]

"Its time to officially ignore this guy (Daleel) on this thread. He's out of the matrix!"

Yeppers...I don't see much use in posting his comments anymore either (except perhaps to inject some comedy into the thread, as Mossad hinted.)

I notice not much has been heard/seen from our old friend "EOM" lately - he/she must have gotten tired of the games.

[all4one]

Level 3 Outage Affects Internet, Cause Unknown (February 24, 2004)

Between 1:45 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, many popular Web sites were either slower than usual to load or more likely not to load at all, according to Internet performance measurement company Keynote Systems. On a typical day, Web sites take less than 3 seconds to respond and can be loaded successfully at least 85 percent of the time.

Level 3 Communications Inc, a major internet backbone provider, suffered a significant outage of parts of its network yesterday, which left many internet users without a connection, and which also slowed down the internet overall.

A spokesperson for the company said in a brief statement: "We are investigating the cause of the problem, which has been fully resolved." He would not comment further, not even to explain the extent or nature of the problem.

A spokesperson for Keynote Systems Inc, which tracks the performance of web site performance, said Level 3 had told it a hardware problem was to blame, but rumors were flying last night about a distributed denial of service attack.

Keynote said average response times from the top 40 business web sites it tracks was down to four seconds between 1.45pm and 3.30pm US Pacific Time, from an usual average of below three seconds. Availability dropped to below 85%.

The problems on Level 3 were most prominent at its facilities in San Diego and London, Keynote said. The company measured response times over eight seconds and availability below 60% at Level 3 facilities during the outage.

Level 3 says it serves 92 markets in the US and Europe, and has an 18,900 miles of network in the US, another 3,600 miles in Europe.

The company provides wholesale bandwidth, modem banks, and infrastructure services to a number of major US ISPs, including EarthLink and Covad Communications, both of which were hit by yesterday's outage.

EarthLink's support web site said at 6.50pm US Eastern Time: "Currently Level 3 is experiencing major problems on their network. This is causing us to see packet loss and latency across the board nationwide."

Unsubstantiated reports on DSLReports.com yesterday claimed that Level 3 had started blocking ICMP (internet control message protocol) packets during the outage, which could be suggestive of DDoS countermeasures.

It was further suggested that the incident may be connected to an ongoing packet war between groups of malicious hackers. However, any attack against a provider of Level 3's scale would have had to have been huge indeed, making the DDoS scenario seem unlikely.
http://www.cbronline.com/currentnews/d315bf335bbc533c80256e4400386088

[Mossad1967]

Daleel: YOU'RE FIRED!!!!

[StillProud2BeFree]

But who's going to be our Joker?

[Mossad1967]

"Joker" is to good for that peice of S**t.

I would love to squash that little cockroach.

I'm sick and tired of his BS!!!

[jerseygirl]

Hi JP- I'm reading through your 300 level post about the Saudi exercises, trying to catch up.

[jerseygirl]

re: Ukrainean pilots- this was on the 3rd thread I think. Will try to locate it after I catch up with the matrix.

[swarthyguy]

Two of bin Laden's sons work for the Saudi government


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085292/posts
Saudis 'called home' from Guantanamo
upi via bloomberg no url | 2/25/4

[Velveeta]

bookmark

[knak]

I'd look through my back posts, but that would take days, I'm not with it today. My power has been out for an hour and I got an email from my dad this morning. He had to have emergency surgery yesterday after his dentist (putting in an implant) dropped a tool down his throat!!! He's back home now and ok, thank God. Anyway, I can't hardly concentrate today. I hope it's a slow news day or I'll never get caught up!

[rickylc]

Ok, this is from DEBKA, so take with a grain of salt, but if it's even 25% true, it's very scary!!

Al Qaeda Builds a Euro Army

According to French counter-intelligence, al Qaeda has recruited in France alone between 35,000 and 45,000 men and is organizing them into military-style units.

They meet regularly for training in the use of weapons and explosives, combat tactics and indoctrination and are controlled from local and district command centers under the organization’s national French command.

In Germany, Al Qaeda has recruited 25,000 to 30,000 men.

The British domestic intelligence agency MI5 estimates 10,000 faithful have joined up in Britain, providing Blunkett with more than ample cause for concern.

[jerseygirl]

"However, any attack against a provider of Level 3's scale would have had to have been huge indeed, making the DDoS scenario seem unlikely. " Unlikely, but possible.

[jerseygirl]

Your poor Dad! I hope he is OK!!!

[knak]

Thanks, I hope so too. He's 80 and lives alone. But if he says he is ok, I have to believe him. I just can't believe it. It's like one of those stories you read about on the net. Not your own father.