Fatwa Worthy? The Watched Are Watching

Well, it was only a matter of time before the jihadi’s would run across my site and today was that day. After I got into work today I checked the WordPress stats and immediately saw a jump in traffic from an IP I was familiar with. It was indeed the Al-Fallujah forums on a stealth server in Malaysia that I had profiled earlier on. The very one that was down last weekend. Guess they got them all back online.

The Muj copied my post and linked it on a new thread within the site this morning or last night. Thus far, the count on hits from that link have been near 300. The resulting thread has been interesting to read. You can see it HERE in English and in Arabic HERE

I have yet to go through all of the postings in the thread, but I am told that in there somewhere they made bones about making jihad on me… Heh. Meanwhile, I am capturing all the traffic to the site and have made contact with the POC at the Fed.

So far, the posts have been somewhat half baked but the above admonishment makes the point clear. They are worried about technical matters where online forums are concerned. Of course after the big roll up last week of the Saudi site, I have to wonder if they aren’t kinda shitting in their pants a bit now. You never know who might be running that site you are posting on Johnny Jihad…

I will continue my work.. But now “The game’s afoot” as Sherlock used to say…

After all Johnny, I don’t report everything I find on this blog…

CoB

Jihadi “Cool” The New Recruitment Approach

“Jihadi Cool” a term coined for recent turns in recruitment of mujahideen, more specifically, “western” would be jihadi recruits has made it into the news cycle. This method though has been evolving for some time now with the invention of As-Sahab and GIMF.

Given that the Muj want to recruit new “western” types into their fold they have to take a different tac with regard to attracting them. Of course the use of exciting ideas such as waging battle would appeal to the gamer types who play Halo and other first person shooter games. What these kids don’t know are the real horrors of war and dying.. But that’s nothing that the muj will tell them up front.

The real change though is the paradigm of losing the religious content that was really the base for the jihadi’s with regard to ther aegis in this war. One has to wonder at their motivations then if jihad is not core to Allah’s teachings in the Qu’ran. Perhaps it is just a general hatered of that which is different from them? Perhaps instead it is just a pervasive hate of just about everything. Maybe its just their lot in life…

At any rate, with this “Jihadi Cool” factor we are seeing more and more YouTube channels of content to be watched, that is until YouTube catches on to it being there and takes them down. I recently ran across another site that I had not seen before and through assessment, found that the author had also created a YouTube channel. The channel features the usual GIMF type of videos and propaganda. However, the features in English prove germane to this article. I have yet to see the rap videos though. I guess I will just have to take a cruise through the vids there to see one.

All of this though, shows the evolution of the “movement” There will always be hard core Jihadists who are devout, but it seems that the whole idea of “proxy” jihadi’s appeals to them now. I just have to wonder at how much they must loathe and like the idea of using the khafir as the instruments of destruction…

CoB

Al-Faloja Forums Fall Down… Go Boom…

It looks like Al-Falluja forums were part of the take down by the military/NSA last week. All of the mirrors are gone as well as the main site. This is one of the places I had been collecting on (previous post) and I am not sure if this was just collateral damage or if this was a main site of theirs. Interesting though, this site had some real good data including a message that OBL would be making a statement soon, and there was one this week (OBL message)

This all brings up the issue of why they took this site down and perhaps others. The arrest of 100 jihadi’s this week that was announced by Saudi kinda tips the hand I think. I believe that they had a massive plan and that the data was being trafficked on this site and others that were either being run by or had been compromised by the intelligence agencies. Either that is the case or, as the site that was taken down had affiliations with Al-Faloja, they may have just taken Faloja down to prevent blowback on themselves.

So, now I am going through the sites I have been auditing to see what’s left on the internet and what’s been taken down this last week or so. Thus far though, Faloja is the big one that is missing. With that though, I am going to segue way into talking about CAUI It seems that these sites may have been a direct effect of the NSA CAUI program. This has ruffled feathers at the CIA and other intelligence agencies but one has to look at the proportions of the arrests and the geopolitical/economic ramifications should the jihadist’s plans come to a successful conclusion. It would have been a nightmare with attacks on the main oil production facilities in Saudi being damaged or destroyed. The overall economic damage would have been immense as well as the capital it would have given the jihadi propaganda machine.

In the end, I really wish that the NSA and others had been able to keep the site up and just pass the data/make the arrests. However, it seems that they had their reasons for doing what they did. It does however leave the jihadis now wondering just what site is theirs and or has not been pwnd by some intelligence agency. This makes me wonder about their next steps. What is the likelihood that they are going to go underground with their comm’s or will they just be more careful and start creating more stealth sites?

Time will tell…

It also has me wondering whether or not a certain jokey might also be feeling a little more worried for DoS’ing sites that may indeed be run by certain intelligence agencies. Piss off the wrong people and ya might just find them at your door soon enough…. It’s much easier to get router logs from ISP’s these days ya know.

CoB

MID’s “Seventh Bureau” and You.

Two examples of Chinese firms buying U.S. companies are China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corp. (CATIC) and Huawei. In the first case, CATIC bought the American defense technology firm Mamco Manufacturing, a Seattle-based aircraft parts manufacturer, in 1990. CATIC has a direct connection to the PLA and probably wanted to use the Seattle firm to acquire aerospace technology. The U.S. investigation also found that Mamco technology itself was already under export limitations. Huawei has attempted to buy many foreign firms outright, includingU.S.-based 3com.

Huawei established a joint venture with the U.S. anti-virus software company Symantec in 2008, headquartered in Chengdu, China. At this point it only offers software in China, but STRATFOR sources say that if Huawei were to be used for Chinese intelligence, it could easily insert spyware into computer systems subscribing to the service.

In Hong Kong, agents are recruited by the MSS’ Third Bureau, which handles Chinese intelligence operations in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. One of their major tasks is purchasing targeted technologies through front companies. These businesses are usually not run by intelligence officers themselves but by people who have connections, sometimes overt, to the MSS.

One recent case involved the 88 Queensway Group, named for the address of an office building in central Hong Kong that houses many state-owned Chinese companies, along with the China Investment Corporation, the country’s sovereign wealth fund. A U.S. Congressional report claimed a possible link between the building and “China’s intelligence apparatus.”

“If” Huawei were to be used for Chinese intelligence? I would probably just say “when” but, I guess one can’t be sure unless there are some serious code checks going on in the US. Anyone you know actually done a security code review of Symantec lately?

The above text comes from a recent STRATFOR bulletin on Chinese espionage tactics and organizational structure. A rather enlightening piece really for anyone interested in how the Chinese juggernaut of espionage works. Of course when you think about it, their paradigm is much different than ours of any of the other intelligence agencies in other countries just from their “Human Wave” aegis.

What I really hope here is that more corporate types are actually able to get this content from Stratfor and get enlightened on how things work. As the report states, and many of us in the security business have known, is that the Chinese are VERY focused on industrial espionage. They also carry out this espionage in rather interesting ways.

Another fascintating factoid was the following passage:

In the past, a major criticism of China’s intelligence operations was the time it took to clone a weapons system — gather the information, reverse-engineer the system and put the pieces back together. By the time something was copied from an adversary’s arsenal, the adversary had already advanced another step ahead. That does not seem to be such a problem today, especially in those areas involving asymmetrical technologies such as anti-ship ballistic missiles, which China is developing on its own.

I believe that this paragraph infers a lot on the revelations about Operation “AURORA” and others like it of late. You see, traditional espionage takes more time to develop assets and get the data. With the new techniques of Advanced Persistent Threat technology, they can harvest the data at the speed of PWN. So, it’s in their best interest for getting the data and reverse R&D to just steal  it through hard to detect channels.

THIS is something that the mainstream media nor the “in the know” guys are not getting across to the masses. It is only natural that their paradigm would change and thus the “attacks” would ramp up.. Well, at least that we would finally catch on to the fact that they are doing this. We have been asleep at the digital security wheel far too long.

So, there you have it. Take a look at the report and read for yourselves.

“Know your enemy, Know yourself, Win the battle”

CoB

A Dagger To The CIA: How The CIA Has Been Neutered

The one thing all analysts shared was a disdain for the operatives and their cloak and-dagger pretensions. As far as they were concerned, the operatives’ “tradecraft” was a lot of hocus-pocus. Operatives were cowboys—and of questionable utility.

Analysts were convinced that most good information was right out in the open. All you needed was a good brain to make sense of it. And what you didn’t know from open sources, you could learn from intercepts and satellites.

It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly when the operatives’ sun started to set, but many CIA insiders would point to John Deutch, the former MIT provost and Bill Clinton’s second CIA director. From the moment Deutch set foot in Langley, he made it plain that he hated the operatives, their swagger and arrogance. Deutch held them responsible for some of America’s worst foreignpolicy fiascoes, from the Bay of Pigs to the overthrow of Allende in Chile. In December 1995, he told The New York Times: “Compared to uniformed officers, [CIA operatives] are certainly not as competent, or as understanding of what their relative role is and what their responsibilities are.”

Deutch’s first shot at the operatives was his appointment of Dave Cohen as deputy director of operations, the CIA’s most senior operative. Cohen was an analyst who had never served overseas or run a foreign informant. Deutch’s message couldn’t be any clearer: Anyone can do an operative’s work.

The first thing Cohen did was order a “scrub” of every informant with dirty hands. Drug dealers, dictators’ minions, arms dealers, terrorists—Cohen ordered the operatives to sever ties with all of them. The only problem was, these were the people who mix well with our enemies—rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea and terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Al Qaeda. Deutch and Cohen didn’t care; they had a mandate to clean up the CIA, and that’s what they were going to do.

Headquarters ofiicers started taking more and more of the important jobs in the field. For the first time in the CIA’s history, analysts, reports officers, and logistics officers were given stations and bases to run. (As a reports officer, Kathy technically belonged to the directorate of operations, but in spirit she was much closer to an analyst.) Field experience no longer mattered, either for assignments or promotions.

As the CIA purged informants, it leaned on allies to do our dirty work in the field. Friendly Muslim intelligence services, not CIA operatives, were asked to comb jihadi circles. All this only got worse after September 11. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sucked the CIA dry.

In 2006 there were nearly 750 officers assigned to Baghdad station, mostly staff officers on their first overseas assignment. That number may not sound like a lot, but throughout the ’90s there were at most 1,200 to 1,500 CIA employees assigned overseas at any one time.

The rest HERE

A more concise appraisal of what’s gone so so wrong with the CIA I have not seen in print I think. Scheuer, Baer, Bearden, have all said much the same things in their books and interviews, but this captures it with regard to a real event that made the recent news. In context you can see clearly just how piss poor the agency has been run for some time now.

What the article does not cover here is that at the same time this sentiment was being fomented by the DDO and moves were made to place analysts into field positions many of the working field operatives retired (or were forced out) because they saw the writing on the wall. Baer covers this where in the 90’s he was investigated by the FBI for working on an operation with “unsavory” types. He was accused of murder and other things from a sanctioned operation. *Somewhat depicted in Syrianna*

He left soon after. The PC attitude was too much.

Meanwhile, this left the CIA without any real access to the actual bad people that they were supposed to be fighting against. As the article points out, the CIA then began to rely more on foreign agencies for their “dirty laundry” collections. By doing this, the CIA became much more susceptible to getting bad intelligence as well as being manipulated by disinformation.

By using the ISI for example, the CIA was being led down the primrose path many a time because many in the ISI were sympathetic to AQ. In fact, some of the ISI personnel were in fact AQ operatives. So where’s the good in all this? Nothing good can come from friends like these in the intelligence business. Much like the lack of understanding in the case of meeting with Balawi might have been tempered by the wishes of the GID to win the day and present a mole who could get close to OBL.

There just wasn’t enough vetting and relying on a flipped agent is always a tricky thing. Even more so when that flipped agent was so briefly in custody of the GID and likely tortured.

The issue of relying on foreign intelligence sources close to the regions and not having real “experienced” people in the field to determine if someone is credible to work with caused this incident in Khost. It’s simply because of the factors talked about above and the drive to make a mark for yourself in the eyes of the boss. In this case over eagerness and lack of real experience led to the deaths of 8 CIA officers. Officers mind you, who were high level assets for the CIA in the region.. As much as that may seem unlikely.

Meanwhile, we have things like the tearing down of the AQ sites recently against what the CIA wanted. The players of the game are at each others throats and this serves us not.

Here’s some news.. We need HUMINT in the field. We need experienced officers, and we need to get our hands dirty.

Unless there are some big changes planned I should think we are doomed to further and more spectacular failures. One has to wonder what has happened to all those fresh faces who joined just after 9/11…. Probably all analysts like “Kathy” now.

CoB

CAUI: Dismantling of Saudi-CIA Web site illustrates need for clearer cyberwar policies

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 19, 2010; A01

By early 2008, top U.S. military officials had become convinced that extremists planning attacks on American forces in Iraq were making use of a Web site set up by the Saudi government and the CIA to uncover terrorist plots in the kingdom.

“We knew we were going to be forced to shut this thing down,” recalled one former civilian official, describing tense internal discussions in which military commanders argued that the site was putting Americans at risk. “CIA resented that,” the former official said.

Elite U.S. military computer specialists, over the objections of the CIA, mounted a cyberattack that dismantled the online forum. Although some Saudi officials had been informed in advance about the Pentagon’s plan, several key princes were “absolutely furious” at the loss of an intelligence-gathering tool, according to another former U.S. official.

Four former senior U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations, said the creation and shutting down of the site illustrate the need for clearer policies governing cyberwar. The use of computers to gather intelligence or to disrupt the enemy presents complex questions: When is a cyberattack outside the theater of war allowed? Is taking out an extremist Web site a covert operation or a traditional military activity? Should Congress be informed?

“The point of the story is it hasn’t been sorted out yet in a way that all the persons involved in cyber-operations have a clear understanding of doctrine, legal authorities and policy, and a clear understanding of the distinction between what is considered intelligence activity and wartime [Defense Department] authority,” said one former senior national security official.

The rest HERE:

I had been seeing traffic on the Muj sites that was claiming there were sites that had been set up by the CIA. It seems now that the rumours were true. Of course it was only natural that such a gambit be used to gather intelligence on the jihadists, but to unceremoniously tear down the sites is rather foolish in my mind.

By taking these sites down they have broken the chain in intelligence gathering from many perspectives. Sure, they may have stopped some planning or finishing touches on a certain attack, but, they have managed to make all of the users not only potentially move on to another site, but to change their modus operandi altogether.

Now the jihadi’s are likely to either start dark net sites, or use more traditional means of communication that would be on par with intelligence tradecraft. Means such as dead drops and encoded messages that are transmitted to one another via personal contact. Much as just after OBL learned that his SAT Phone was being listened to, he then began to talk directly to his people or send “runners” with messages ala Roman general methods.

Post this incident there has been a lot of talk about how this will create fallout for the intelligence gathering types. The CIA was opposed to this site’s being taken down but the NSA and the military won out much like they did during the run up to the now infamous UN session where Colin Powel presented the CBRN data on Iraq. I guess that the CIA is still in the dog house post Tenet’s “slam dunk”…

All of this brings up some good points though on how to handle the “Cyber Insurgency” that has been building over the years. Just what do you do about cyber jihad? What are the ground rules on a move like the one carried out by the NSA? I can bet there were more clients other than the CIA and  Re’asat Al Istikhbarat Al A’amah that are pissed about this intelligence gathering tool’s loss.

I foresee much more talking having to be done in the near future to hammer out the details of such things. For now though, expect the insurgents to re-group and come up with new ways to communicate.

CoB

Musashi’s Last Duel: Sasaki Kojirō

In April 13, 1612, Musashi (about age 30) fought his most famous duel, with Sasaki Kojirō, who wielded a nodachi. Musashi came late and unkempt to the appointed place — the remote island of Funajima, north of Kokura. The duel was short. Musashi killed his opponent with a bokken that he had carved from an oar while traveling to the island. Musashi fashioned it to be longer than the nodachi, making it closer to a modern suburito.

Musashi’s late arrival is controversial. Sasaki’s outraged supporters thought it was dishonorable and disrespectful while Musashi’s supporters thought it was a fair way to unnerve his opponent. Another theory is that Musashi timed the hour of his arrival to match the turning of the tide. The tide carried him to the island. After his victory, Musashi immediately jumped back in his boat and his flight from Sasaki’s vengeful allies was helped by the turning of the tide. Another theory states he waited for the sun to get in the right position. After he dodged a blow Sasaki was blinded by the sun. He briefly established a fencing school that same year.

Miyamoto Musashi’s last duel ends much like his first at age 13, but in this case he kills with less fury than he did on the occasion of his first duel. This last duel though was the epitome of his arts being perfected. The arts of not only swordsmanship, but also tactics.

It seems to me lately, that the art of tactics has been pretty much lost on our society. Perhaps its the Eastern mindset that we just lack here in the states, but, overall I think its a cultural thing more than anything. In Japan, the tactics of “business is war” have been practiced since post WWII, but here in the west (US) that only came to our collective consciousness in the 80’s when they started to kick our collective economic asses.

Of course now Japan is still in decline as an economic power while China rises. However, what I am aiming at here is not just about economics. I am actually attempting to further this thought process to the area of “cyberwar” and our predicaments where our national security is concerned.

Back to Musashi and on to Cyberwar:

Musashi was a consumate swordsman but like I said, also a great tactical warfare fighter. He created the two sword technique (“Ni-Ten Ichi Ryu”) that in the end, would be, in his hands, unbeatable. He used this technique in tandem with psychological warfare to unbalance his opponents and gain utter dominance. He had the tools to win the battle before it was really fought in essence.

The same can be said about cyber warfare. If you have the tools and the mindset, you can effectively render your opponent impotent and win the battle without actually needing to wage all out war. The Chinese tactician Sun Tzu said much the same in his treatise on war “The Art of War” and I feel that both of these men have much to say that should be applied to todays cyber threat-scape.

Throughout my career working in information security, I have always noticed a certain lack of understanding on the part of corporations as entities as well as that which comprise them. The people who run them where technical security is concerned are either not able to comprehend the issues at hand, or, more likely, to not really see these things as a real danger. Is it a lack of awareness or is it a lack of care? Perhaps a little of both. Whats more, in todays environment, I have seen companies accept risks that are known and should be mitigated because it would cost too much or burden the end users to fix them. This to my mind is not seeing and understanding the tactical threat-scape.

Musashi and Sun Tzu both taught being aware of the battle space, yourself, and your enemy. Japanese “salary men” still today use these tenets to wage business and are often successful at it. I suggest that we too apply these approaches to the work of information security, its application, and the process of teaching its precepts to everyone involved. After all, when individuals and companies cannot as a whole understand the basic threat that an un-secured network printer in a secured area presents, there is a fundamental disconnect that needs to be removed.

This is a failure to understand and be aware of your threat-scape… And it will lose the battle for you.

APT and Snake Oil Cure All’s

Within the last weeks I have seen a trend in twitter and in blogs on the internet from security practitioners about the APT and cyberwar problems. Howard Schmidt claimed that; “There is no cyberwar” and, as the new Tsar of the cyber area for this country, has been taken to task on this statement. I myself have written of my lack of faith in Howard’s understanding of not only the threat-scape, but also his own newly acquired title. The essence though here is that there are many pundits, salesmen, and interested parties looking to cash in or have their say on this. It’s really signal to noise at this point.

Meanwhile, the anti-virus, NAC, SIM, and other vendors have begun their putsch to promote their products that can stop APT in their tracks. This has been of concern to many of the security wonks on the blogs too. You see, the fact is the APT is not a malware one trick pony that a behavior based or signature based model can always detect. The APT or Advanced Persistent Threat is not just the tools they use, but the people who create and use them… And they are more than likely familiar with the precepts of war that Sun Tzu and Musashi taught.

When the APT saw that their malware was being detected by AV, they looked at the threat-scape to them and adapted their stratagem to defeat it. The looked at the castle and saw that the weakness lay with the way things got out of the castle as well as the natures of those who live within. Just as I have written before about the War for Troy and the Trojan Horse, so too have the APT thought things through seeking the weaknesses and exploiting them. In the case of the APT, they basically saw that they could ex-filtrate the data out of the environment through the weak point of regular traffic. They basically stegged the flow with signal to noise.

So now, we have the vendors in a lather trying to sell solutions to a particular vector of attack while the APT will move on to look once more at the threat-scape and change the battle plan to once again evade their new “products” and go unseen while they take the data and win the battle. In essence, the vendors and the clients have failed to understand the nature of the APT and the battle space on a level that is key to winning. They lack the mind set it seems as a whole to this problem in favor of a quick fix solution that will “cure all”, much like the sideshow snake oil salesmen of old.

APT, Cyberwar, Government, and YOU

In the end, I am advocating that we as a whole begin to understand the threats and the technologies better and not be so reactive after the fact. Our government needs to understand the threats as well as the technologies in order to create appropriate responses and proactive measures to prevent us having to be reactive. So far, our governments answers have been lackluster to the point of the president having a big red easy button to shut down the internet should there be a threat. This is no answer, and thankfully it was struck from the bill this week.

The government also needs to listen to the experts in the field and employ them to help mitigate our vulnerabilities without the usual “Washington Two Step” that is so prevalent. This whole flap over Schmidt’s lack of understanding or using a company line to allay the fears of the masses is just one case in point. Schmidt needs to be able to speak the truth if he knows it as well as have a position that carries some gravitas. Thus far it seems that he is in fact a neuter.

Schmidt’s comment on cyberwar also needs to be looked at from the perspective of tactics. There is no cyberwar is not an answer. Cyberwar means more than actual physical warfare as well as it not should be merely perceived as espionage. Cyberwar is more than just malware and thievery, it’s a tactic in a larger warfare scheme and we as a country are still unable to comprehend this outside of certain military purviews. Where this really becomes an issue is that most of our infrastructure in this country is held privately and thus its up to the owner to protect them.. Or, not as the case has been.

Lastly, there is the element of you, the general public. Employees of those same companies that run the infrastructure. Private citizens who are on the same internet as the rest of the companies and countries who do not understand the precepts of computer security as well as OPSEC. How many people today have way too much of their lives open to the internet? How many of those now household machines you use to connect to the internet are not secure? Lack virus scanning utilities? Have kids as well as yourselves opening every e-card they get and wondering afterwards why their systems are now slow and their bank accounts drained?

The general public today is not aware of the precepts of security in computing never mind many of the issues surrounding their daily operation. They just turn them on and they work. Both of these knowledge bases should be inherently taught at some level just as you need a license to drive a car today. I say this because now, you and your machine could be just one in many systems that comprises a botnet that DDoS’s a government entity or a business at great cost or as a pre-cursor to other attacks. You, are a part of the problem and you must be cognizant of that fact.

End Game

In the final analysis I am just putting this article forth to those who would read it. Perhaps the Western mind is just inherently unable to understand Eastern thought. Perhaps we are just a fat and lazy self interested country who’s apathy and arrogance just gets in our way of comprehension. Who’s really to say? However, we as a country have to learn that the issues above must be learned about and proactively worked on. Otherwise someday we may find ourselves in the dark without power to run those nifty machines that we rely too much on. The same machines that the government relies on too and will also collapse should there be a successful attack against our infrastructure.

Now is the time for proactive moves…Do we have the fortitude to move forward?

Musashi went from being a 13 year old rage filled boy with a stick to a master swordsman and tactician. Can this country do the same and protect itself?

Adam Gadahn, Azzam Amriki’s Dawa 22 Propaganda

Dawa 22 *ask for pass and method of encryption to unlock*

The recent video that almost coincided with rumours of Azzam Amriki’s capture is a telling piece for the likes of Al Qaeda. It seems that Azzam and his pals have decided to adopt Nidal Hassan as a Mujahid but not “fully” as Gadahn says in the video. What I would really like to know is just how much of a “plan” Hassan’s act was as opposed to a spree shooting on the part of a mentally unbalanced individual.

Of course I have not heard much at all out of that whole case pretty much since he came out of his comtaose state post the shooting. Anyone heard anything about anything he has said about why he did it all? There has been some talk about his contacts with known mujahid types via email, but was he really locked and loaded by them with a formal plan? Gadahn seems to make that play within the video, saying that Hassan had planned things out and was methodical about it. I just don’t buy that.

Azzam/Gadahn goes on to propagandize would be followers to not only look at military bases as “high value targets” but also to look upon any target as high value as long as it strikes fear into the “crusaders” as he calls us as well as could strike a blow against our economic security. Overall, the propaganda stream is the usual ideology, but is mostly in English. This is important because of all of Al Qaeda’s efforts to reach out to non Muslims and indoctrinate them into jihad.

I would hasten to bet that Gadahn was indeed brought into the fold for this very reason. I think that he was thought of as a conduit for further recruitment of non muslims from the start. In short, I think he is just another Nidal Hassan who has been warped to jihad by his “peers” and now is their mouthpiece. Just another JihadJane really.. He’s just closer to OBL and Ayman.

It seems also that while I was locating this file I also came across this page where GIMF claims that a message from OBL is coming soon. In short, there has been an uptick in chatter these last few days on the sites I have been looking at. I am wondering whats up. I am also wondering now what the deal is with the alleged capture of Gadahn in Pakistan. At first ISI was all over that reporting that they captured him, then it was “maybe” then it was someone else. I have yet to hear the real dope on this.

In the meantime, I have begun collecting user names from Al-Faloja. The site has certain flaws that allow for more mining of user data.

الجبهة الإعلامية الإسلامية العالمية GIMF
قناص الجزيرهSniper Island
عبد الرحمن الانصاريAbd Al-Rahman Al-Ansari
القناص الزرقاوىSniper-Zarqawi
معاذ الأنصاريMaaz Ansari
ناصر الدين التميميNasir Al-Din Al-Tamimi
محمد المسلمAl-Musallam
عبوة لاصقةPackaging Adhesives
قناص خراسانSniper Khorasan
عبد الحميد الأيرلنديAbdel-Hamid Irish
عبد الله المهاجر1 Abdulla Al-Muhajir 1
صالح العوفيSaleh Al
صقر السليمانيةSaqr Sulaymaniyah
حمزة النجدي Hamza Al-Najdi
mohamed1971
حيدرة الشاميHydra-Shami
Ibenfalastin
كريم المغربي Moroccan Karim
Time Of Terror
مالك الغريب Owner of the strange
أبو ذر المهاجر Abu Dhar Al-Muhajir
الفـاروق عمر Omar Al-Faruq
محبّ رؤية الرحمن Loving Vision Rahman
سياف دولة العراق الإسلاميه Sayyaf Islamic State of Iraq
امير الاعظمية Amir Adhamiya
عاشق للإرهاب Love Of Terrorism
أبو الهيثم الأثري Abu Al-Haytham Archaeological
أبي عبد الله المغربي Abu Abdallah Al Maghribi
تماضر بنت الحارث Tomader bint al-Harith
مسعر حرب2 Priced War 2
سفير القاعدة Al Qaeda Ambassador
جليبيب الارهابي Gelebeb terrorist
الإرهابي المدمر Devastating Terrorist
ابو الاحنف الشيباني Abu Ahnaf Shibani
محب الملاحم Loving Epics
كلاشنكوف 1 AK1
ماجد الشمري Majed Al-Shammari
asiftek
الخنساء Khansaa
دمعة تائب Contrite Tears ADMIN
algo4hm
ابوعبيدة* Abu Obeida*
اسد الثغور Lions of the gaps
jund1986
ابو بردة Abu Burdah
احمد جاب الله Ahmed Jaballah
أبو عبد الله السلفى Salafist Abu Abdullah
باغي الهدى Seeker of guidance
ابو دجانة العراقي Dujana Iraq
راية الدولة The Banner of the State
ناحر الصليب Nahr Cross
سلمان الکردی Salman
أبي حفص البنشيري Abu Hafs Alpincheri
ابومهاجر الجوفي Eboumahjr undergound
فيحاء الشام Rainbow-Sham
abuhamza1
قناص الحسبة Sniper Arithmetic
كتيبة الخرساء Batallion Mute
ابو طلحة الليبي Abu Talha Al-Libi
رائد1 MAJ1

Thus far Maltegos of a few of these names have turned up some interesting links. I will be posting more once I have all the data collated. The vuln assessments have been going well. Slowly but well. I should have some more interesting tidbits in the near future.

If you wish to use the data above for your own searches.. Be my guest.. *hint hint*

CoB

Iran arrests 30 accused of U.S.-backed cyber war

(CNN) — Iran has arrested 30 people for waging what it called an organized, U.S.-backed cyber war against the nation, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported Saturday.

Iran’s judiciary said those arrested were funded by the United States beginning in 2006 and that they planned to destabilize the country, according to Fars.

A State Department spokesman declined to comment on the report Saturday night.

The Iranian judiciary said that former President George W. Bush supplied $400 million for the cyber war project, Fars reported.

One branch of the project, dubbed the “Iran Proxy,” was capable of infiltrating Iran’s data banks, sabotaging its Web sites, and facilitating contacts between Iranian opposition figures and U.S.-funded media like Voice of America radio and Radio Farda, according to Fars.

The judiciary also said the United States used anti-filtering software during recent demonstrations against the Iranian government to wage psychological war against the nation, Fars reported.

Iranian media reported last month that individuals alleged to have ties with Radio Farda — which means Radio Tomorrow in Iran’s Farsi language — were among seven arrested by the Iranian government.

I just don’t buy any of this crap Mahmoud. I think this is more likely a pitiful attempt to explain away more arrests of dissidents in your country. There are a few reasons why I don’t buy it.. Let me explain;

1) You’re a liar and completely out of touch with reality Mahmoud

2) You and your hard line religious freaks just need excuses to make people who want freedom or more to the point, an honest election, disappear

3) $400 million to fund a program to get comms together for your detractors? Really? All they really would need is TOR and Gmail man

4) Umm if we want to infiltrate your databanks all we need to do is call the NSA

So Mahmoud, your really stretching here aren’t you?

CoB

Security experts: Don’t blame Internet for JihadJane and other recent terror scares

By Michael Booth, The Denver Post

Published: Saturday, March 13, 2010 11:15 PM EST

It’s not the Internet. It’s the unstable surfer at the keyboard that constitutes the threat.

Internet terrorism and crime experts hedged their outrage when reacting to the arrest of Leadville’s Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, who was released Saturday without charges. Yes, they said, the Internet provides ample opportunity for disgruntled, lonely or violent people to meet up for criminal ends.

But social media, from chat rooms to Facebook, have become so widespread they are no more or less dangerous than society as a whole, these Internet observers said. And the technology cuts both ways: If alleged plotters like Paulin-Ramirez and “Jihad Jane” are using the Internet to plan crimes, rest assured law enforcement and watchdog groups successfully employ the same tools to foil them.

“Anyone who is trying to use the Internet for crime is falsely under the illusion that they are anonymous and won’t get busted,” said Steve Jones, author of “Virtual Culture” and a professor of communication and technology at the University of Illinois-Chicago. “Consider it an Internet-based `neighborhood watch.’ I’m not more concerned about the Internet than I am about the rest of the world.”

Internet connections can make for notorious nicknames and chilling chat-room transcripts, but the method of communication may not have that much impact on terrorism, said Jeremy Lipschultz, an expert in communications law and culture at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

The rest HERE

Ummm yeah, Steve, you seem to be misunderstanding the problems faced here. Sure, there are people like me and others out there cruising the boards, but, the “authorities” are kinda behind the curve on this stuff.

Believe me Steve, I know. I have had dealings with the authorities.

So, yes, if you are on the internet and looking to do bad things AND you don’t know how to be stealthy, sure, eventually, you will be caught. However, if you are careful and you know what you are doing, then it may take some time if at all to be caught.

Case in point, look at our whole APT and cyber security debacle ongoing in the US. The CyberShockwave CNN mess is just the tip of the digital iceberg when talking about how inept our government and its minions are in dealing with the problems in cyberspace.

Better yet, lets look at the 559 million dollar haul recently cited by the FBI taken by cyber criminals. Any clues? Suspects? Not like they can round up the usual crew huh? It’s just not that easy with our current infrastructure to capture traffic and catch those who were committing the crime. Nor are the cops, even the Feds up to the task of trying to capture these offenders.

Here’s a quote for you from a recent exchange I had with the FBI:

“I don’t know anything about this stuff.. I do drug cases”

This from a field agent tasked with looking into a cyber oriented incident. What I am saying here is there is a big gap and the criminals and jihadi’s are using that to the most.

So Steve, you obviously don’t have a clue about cyber security issues. The real ones to worry about surely aren’t the guys and gals just using chat groups to talk to Jihadists, these “Jihobbyists” but let me remind you, it was a group of guys who were NOT cops or feds, that caught on to Jane and then reported her. Of course all of this AFTER she had activated and tried to whack a cartoonist. An act in which she failed mind you.

Oh, and Steve, did you know she was doing all this on YouTube? I mean really, just how friggin sooper sekret is that huh?

Duh.

Were Jane and others out there tech savvy or trained to be, they could be much more dangerous. In fact, the moniker “jihobbyist” has taken a turn in meaning. You see, the feds thought of Jane and others as “mostly harmless” but, as you can see they were wrong.

No, worry about the Jihadi’s who are technically savvy and trained in computer skills who know how to use a TOR router, encryption, email dead drops, etc. Those are the ones to worry about because even if one of us non cops are watching, we may not catch on.  Never mind the cops/feds who are playing catch up.

CoB