Ahmad Rahami’s Journal: The Sycophantic Nature of Failed Seekers

Ahmad Rahami, the new jihadi wannabe lone wolf du jour made a splash with his bombings of a dumpster and a trash bin on CNN and the other media outlets but let’s really take a closer look at Ahmed and his mindset with the release of his ersatz “journal of jihad” shall we? First off, I am tired of the media coverage and while this was serious, it just show’s you the level of recruit and planning that AQAP/AQ/da’esh have in the US presently and to wit, not very high. Frankly, looking at his journal pieces here I can only surmise that if Ahmad doesn’t have some sort of personality disorder it would greatly surprise me. On the other end of that spectrum, Ahmad clearly is a failed seeker acting out within the confines of his chicken shop malcontent diaspora in search of importance.

Ahmad opines the usual catch phrase diatribes seen in Inspire or Dabiq and on the web in general on the boards but seems to not really have a greater grasp of his own religion than most of the daeshbag recruits these days. Clearly he has been suckling at the tit of the jihadi propaganda machine and in fact had close contact with recruiters in Afghanistan and Pakistan where he spent a good deal of time in recent years on and off. These guys look for recruits who have weak wills and minds that can be easily swayed. Minds and hearts, ego’s in search of self importance that they lack presently but are told that they will be martyrs for the greater cause if they blow themselves or the far enemy up and it is bullshit.

 

All of the propaganda placed by these Khawarij are just a mental virus, neuro-linguistic programming, used to prey on the weak minded souls out there, those failed seekers in order to bring them in and turn them to the Khawarij will. For some time now the security services and governments of the world have been trying to see how they can combat these memetic viruses online and so far no one has been able to come up with a solid solution. Those wh0 are seeking will latch onto anything that they feel an attraction to and it has been since time immemorial. Cults, and religions both rely on this to build their base, belief is key and the means to that end is dogma.

In Ahmad’s diary we see this in action and we see the brain washing and self delusion that goes on here with the repetitive statements in this journal that he used to egg himself on to action. No doubt he wrote this out and continued to do so as he built the bombs. All of this, all the language is a means to an end to justify to himself his actions. Actions fed to him by the propaganda online, in person, and programmed into him and all the others who are willing to listen, to believe, and to act.

Weak minds.

Weak souls.

Pawns of the Khawarij.

I truly hope we can come up with a means to combat such memetic viruses but so far I see no hope of it. Prepare yourselves for the other weak minded jihobbyists out there to try and catch their own brass ring of importance. Just don’t let them enable fear to win and change the course of our governance to a fear based one… Well… One that is more so than it already is.

Dr. K.

Daesh: Islamic Millenarians or Just Propaganda?

A Cosmic War

A recent article in The Atlantic has staked the claim that daesh is a millenarian cult bent on bringing the apocalypse upon the world. The article uses recent materials from Dabiq (the daesh propaganda magazine) and cites interviews with the likes of Anjem Choudary to back it’s case that not only is the group Muslim (well that is a given right?) but also that they are battling to re-create the Caliphate to bring the end times upon us all. A great battle with Shaytan (شيطان‎,) and even Jesus will ensue and in the end the Caliphate will win and all kufr will be destroyed.

*hangs head*

After reading the article in it’s entirety I just had to sit back and wonder at the over simplification that just had been perpetrated on us all by this reporter. I think he frankly went to the George Bush school of Islamic Comprehension but I had to go back and read through all the issues of Dabiq to confirm or deny what the author was saying. Five issues of Dabiq later, I am still of the opinion that the article is off the mark where this is all concerned. I also believe that once again it is another classic case of a reporter writing about things without deep knowledge of them but yet speaking on them as if he were. Here are some salient facts that the Atlantic failed to talk about in this article;

• Hadiths Versus Qu’ran: Much of what daesh uses as exhortations and rationalizations for their actions come from the Hadiths (prophetic traditions) which basically are a grouping of sayings written long after the prophet was gone. So much of what is there is subject to doubt because this is based on memory or just made up whole cloth to be companion pieces and re-enforce certain ideals. This of course is also coming from religion and all religions have their books which were written a long time after the people involved had passed on. So the use of these even further separated texts from their original oral traditions that finally got written down is reason enough to doubt their validity.

• The Caliphate and Millenarian Prophecy: daesh seems to be only recently really interested in the millenarian slant on their battle with the kufr of the world and apostasy in general. In looking at their propaganda over the arc of their arrival and dominance it can be seen that this is a new feature. Specifically you can see this arc over the 5 issues of Dabiq magazine. This rhetoric over a cosmic war and the use of the eschatology concerning Rome, the Crusades, and the great battle with Shaytan (إبليس) frankly is only being leveraged now to give their base a boost as well as is a well thought out propaganda tool. The daesh want to recruit and they, unlike AQ/AQAP and Inspire found the right mix that has seemed to, in tandem with their actual taking of lands and creating a so called “caliphate” made all the difference in getting recruits to come to the new Afghanistan. This melange of things, rhetoric, tales of epic battles, use of ultra violent means, and the propganda generated from it is what daesh is about and using it, not necessarily I think do the core believe all that they are putting out there. I have yet to see Al Baghdadi speak on these things at all.

• The Language of Crusades and Rome: Another bone to pick here that I have is that the claptrap of using Rome and the Crusades is that they post date the prophet by quite a long time. You can see that daesh is carefully cultivating a look and feel using key words and ideals that resonate with people concerning the wound that is the Crusades. Honestly, this is just a hot button use of terminology and imagery that Bush only exacerbated when he said “This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while. ” I remember face-palming when he said this on live air. Now the daesh and their acolytes use this all the time as a rallying call evincing images of Salahuddin but removing any of his more temperate decisions or commands concerning the greater war on the lands of the ummah.

• Propaganda Wars and Recruitment: The article fails to take into account that nothing daesh says should be taken at face value. The reporter goes on to talk to a few true believers (aka the deluded) in Britain and elsewhere but, as you can see, they are not in Syria are they? They are propaganda mouth pieces only and the fact of the matter is that all of what we have seen has been carefully created propaganda by the media wing Al Hayat. When reporters talk about daesh and all of what has been going on of late they always remark on the professional quality of the videos and other media being put out. Well, there you have it, it is propaganda and if you just believe that this is all that daesh is about, well, you have been fooled. This is all a means to an end to intimidate as well as recruit.

• Politics, Power, and Money: No matter how much the daesh clothe their movement in the millenarian trappings that you see in Dabiq, this is not just about a cosmic war. This is about power and politics as well as money. The daesh are now trying to mint coins as well as raking in huge amounts from the oil fields that they have taken in Iraq. No doubt if the caliphate ever really normalizes you will see Baghdadi and his core living well somewhere, not in fact frugally with the people.

• The Apostasy of daesh and Islamism: Finally, the daesh are the most apocryphal and apostatic group out there today. The use of the hadiths to rationalize their brutality is just a means to an end for control over the people. Fear of violence clothed in snippets of hadiths is apostasy in itself. They have carried out atrocities that Salahuddin would be shamed by never mind the prophet and if they TRULY believed in the teachings of the various books, then they would not be doing these things. So when the arguments start over Islamism/Jihadism and their book being the source of all the ills of the world much of it can be blamed on this one dimensional reporting in the Atlantic.

Once You Name A Thing You Have Power Over It

I guess in the end this Atlantic article serves the purpose of the US and others who don’t have the wherewithal to take the time to understand Islam, the region, and its history to give them an understandable bogey man. After all, in looking at the US governments answers to daesh thus far I for one can see this simplification to be of use to them. It has been hard to troll the daesh as we have seen with the “Think again turn away” program by (@CEP) and a nuanced approach is, well, nuanced. Don’t get me wrong, this whole thing is as complex as it gets but if daesh wants to simplify it all to gather recruits with their cosmic war propaganda well then turn about is fair play right? So go ahead CEP, use this and troll the living daylights out of it.

Sadly though, I fear they won’t do this..

However, everyone should know that this is not just some epic battle of good and evil. Satan and Jesus. This is not a millenarian cult in the least bit at its core and to think so is just stupid. I hope at least that this article does not cause even more troubles with Islamophobia amongst the uninitiated and stir more hate. Frankly, as I have said on Twitter recently; “If you want to paint daesh as an apocalyptic cult you may as well also paint Christianity as well. I mean, they are the ones who wrote revelation right?” It’s not the book but those who use the book for their own agenda. In the case of daesh, they aren’t even using the book, they are just winging it.

K.

So here’s my thing….

VQX HWMVCUSE JQJFASSNTG QV! X HQ JD ISIAVVE!

Face it.. We are all PWND six ways to Sunday

Every frigging day we hear more and more about how the NSA has been emptying our lives of privacy and subverting the laws of this land and others with their machinations. It’s true, and I have been saying as much since the day Mr. Klein came out of his telco closet and talked about how the NARUS system had been plugged into the MAE West back in the day. We are all well and truly fucked if we want any kind of privacy today kids and we all need to just sit back and think about that.

*ponder ponder ponder*

Ok, I have thought about it and I have tried to think of any way to protect myself from the encroachment of the NSA and all the big and little sisters out there. I am absolutely flummoxed to come up with any cogent means to really and truly protect my communications. Short of having access to the NSA supercloud and some cryptographers I don’t think that we will not truly have any privacy anymore. If you place it on the net, or in the air. We have reached in my opinion the very real possibility of the N-Dystopia I have talked about before in the Great Cyber Game post.

As the pundits like Schneier and others groan on and on about how the NSA is doing all of this to us all I have increasingly felt  the 5 stages of grief. I had the disbelief (ok not completely as you all know but the scope was incredible at each revelation) Then the anger came and washed over me, waves and waves of it as I saw the breadth and scope of the abuse. Soon though that anger went away and I was then feeling the bargaining phase begin. I started to bargain in my head with ideas that I could in fact create my own privacy with crypto and other OPSEC means. I thought I could just deny the government the data. I soon though began to understand that no matter what I did with the tools out there that it was likely they had already been back door’d. This came to be more than the case once the stories came out around how the NSA had been pressuring all kinds of tech companies to weaken standards or even build full back doors into their products under the guise of “National Security”

Over time the revelations have all lead to the inescapable truth that there is nothing really anyone can do to stop the nation state from mining our communications on a technological level. Once that had fully set in my mind the depression kicked in. Of late I have been more quiet online and more depressed about our current state as well as our future state with regard to surveillance and the cyberwarz. I came to the conclusion that no matter the railing and screaming I might do it would mean nothing to the rapidly approaching cyberpocalypse of our own creation arriving. ….In short, we can’t stop it and thus the last of the five stages for me has set in. I accept that there is nothing I can do, nay, nothing “we” can do to stop this short of a bloody coup on the government at large.

I now luxuriate in my apathy and were I to really care any more I would lose my fucking mind.

OPSEC! OPSEC! OPSEC!

Speaking of losing one’s mind.. Lately people all have been yelling that OPSEC is the only way! One (the gruqq) has been touting this and all kinds of counterintelligence as the panacea for the masses on these issues. Well, why? Why should we all have to be spies to just have a little privacy in our lives huh? I mean it’s one thing to be a shithead and just share every fucking stupid idea you have on FriendFace and Tweeter but really, if you can’t shut yourself up that is your problem right? No, I speak of the every day email to your mom telling her about your health status or maybe your decision to come out etc. Why should the government have the eminent domain digitally to look at all that shit now or later?

If you take measures to protect these transactions and those measures are already compromised by the government why then should you even attempt to protect them with overburdened measures such as OPSEC huh? I mean, really if you are that worried about that shit then go talk to someone personally huh? I know, quite the defeatist attitude I have there huh? The reality is that even though I claim not to be caring about it (re: apathy above) I actually do but I realize that we no longer have privacy even if we try to create it for ourselves with technical means. If the gov wants to see your shit they will make a way to do so without your knowing about it. I fully expect someday that they will just claim eminent domain over the internet completely.

Fuck OPSEC.. I want my government to do the right thing and not try to hide all their skirting of the law by making it classified and sending me an NSL that threatens to put me in jail for breaking the law.

Fuck this shit.

CYBERWARZ

Then we have the CYBERWARZ!! Oh yeah, the gubment, the military, and the private sector all have the CYBERWARZ fever. I cannot tell you how sick of that bullshit I am really. I am tired of all the hype and misdirection. Let me clear this up for you all right here and right now. THERE IS NO CYBERWAR! There is only snake oil and espionage. UNTIL such time as there is a full out kinetic war going on where systems have been destroyed or compromised just before tanks roll in or nukes hit us there is no cyberwar to speak of. There is only TALK OF cyber war.. Well more like masturbatory fantasies by the likes of Beitlich et al in reality. So back the fuck off of this shit mmkay? We do not live in the world of William Gibson and NO you are not Johnny Mnemonic ok!

Sick. And. Tired.

I really feel like that Shatner skit where he tells the Trekkies to get a life…

Awaiting the DERPOCALYPSE

All that is left for us all now is the DERPOCALYPSE. This is the end state of INFOSEC to me. We are all going to be co-opted into the cyberwarz and the privacy wars and none of us have a snowball’s chance in hell of doing anything productive with our lives. Some of us are breaking things because we love it. Others are trying to protect “ALL THE THINGS” from the breakers and the people who take their ideas and technologies and begin breaking all those things. It’s a vicious cycle of derp that really has no end. It’s an ouroboros of fail.

RAGE! RAGE! AGAINST THE DYING OF THE PRIVACY! is a nice sentiment but in reality we have no way to completely stop the juggernaut of the NSA and the government kids. We are all just pawns in a larger geopolitical game and we have to accept this. If we choose not to, and many have, then I suggest you gird your loins for the inevitable kick in the balls that you will receive from the government eventually. The same applies for all those companies out there aiding the government in their quest for the panopticon or the cyberwarz. Money talks and there is so much of it in this industry now that there is little to stop it’s abuse as well.

We are well and truly fucked.

So, if you too are feeling burned out by all of this take heart gentle reader. All you need do is just not care anymore. Come, join me in the pool of acceptance. Would you care for a lotus blossom perhaps? It’s all good once you have accepted the truth that there is nothing you can do and that if you do things that might secure you then you are now more of a target. So, do nothing…

Derp.

K.

JIHADI’S HOLD LEGION OF DOOM CON CALL!! WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

AZIJ XXRZ HMCKIDACVA GZ UZZW!

The Legion of DOOM!

Yesterday the camel’s back finally snapped in my head after reading a post on Harper’s Magazine entitled “Anatomy of an Al Qaeda Conference Call”  which the author called into question the whole story that was put out by the Washington Times and their “anonymous sources”  The paper claimed that Ayman Zawahiri and all the heads of the various jihadi splinter groups got onto their polycom phones and their SIP connections to have a “concall” as we say in business today.

You all may remember the heady headlines in the last couple weeks where the mass media picked up on this story and began scribbling away on how the so called jihadi “Legion of Doom” dialed in for a sooper sekret meeting to plan the end of our Western Civilization. Now, I am sure some of you out there have seen my screeds (140 chars at a time more so recently) on just how we get played too often by the media and the government on some things but this, this is just epic stupid here. If you or anyone you know believed any of this claptrap coming from the media please seek psychiatric attention post haste.

Let me tell you here and now and agreeing with the article cited above, that the “LOD” did not have a skype or asterisk call to plan our downfall. At the most they likely had a meeting of the minds in a chat room somewhere within the jihadist boards out there or had a server set up somewhere for them all to log into an encrypted chat. I lean towards the former and not the latter as they usually lack subtlety online. Though, given the revelations from Mssr “Snowman” I can see how the prudent Ayman would want this to be on it’s own server somewhere and for people to authenticate locally and encrypted on a system that does not keep logs… But I digress…

Suffice to say that a group of leaders and minions thereof got together for a chat on <REDACTED> and that they talked about plans and ideas (from hereon I am going to coin the term ideating) for the destruction of the West and the raising of a new global caliphate. Does that sound familiar to you all? Gee, I can’t seem to put my finger on where I have heard that one before. … So yeah, there was a meeting, there were minions, and there were plans but here’s the catch; NOTHING WAS SAID THAT ALLUDED TO A REAL PLAN! No, really, there wasn’t any solid evidence that prompted the closing of the embassies all over. It was a smoke and mirrors game and YOU all were the captive audience!

As you can see from the article cited there seems to be a lot amiss with all of this now that some reality has been injected into the media stream of derp. Why was this all brought to you in the way it was put out there by the media? Was it only the demented scribblings of one reporter seeking to make copy for his dying paper? Or was there more to it? Was there a greater plan at play here that would have the media be the shill to the duping of the public in order to make them see say, the NSA in a different light in these times of trouble for them?

Makes you wonder huh?

DISINFORMATON & OPSEC

So yeah, a story comes out and there are “sources” sooper sekret sources that are telling the reporter (exclusively *shudder with excitement*) that the Great Oz of the NSA has intercepted a LIVE call with the LOD and that it had scary scary portents for us all!

WE. ARE. DOOMED!

That the NSA had help prevent a major catastrophe from happening because they had the technology and the will to listen in on a conversation between some very bad dudes like Ayman and the new AQAP leaders plotting and planning our cumulative demise.

*SHUDDER*

The truth of the matter though is a bit different from the media spin and disinformation passed on by the so called “sources” however. The truth is this;

• The “con call” never happened. There was no set of polycoms and Ayman is not a CEO of AQ.

• The fact is that Ayman and many of the other “heads” of the LOD were not actually there typing. It was a series of minions!

• The contents of the “chat” were not captured live. There was a transcript captured on a courier that the Yemeni got their hands on and passed it on to the Western IC. (So I have heard, there may in fact be a chance they captured the stream using this guys acct) the Yemeni that is, not so sure it was us.

• As I understand it, there was nothing direct in this series of conversations that gave any solid INTEL/SIGINT that there was a credible threat to ANY embassies.

There you have it. This has been WHOLLY mis-represented to the Amurican people. The question I have is whether not there was an agenda here on the part of one of the three parties or more.

• Right wing nutbag Eli Lake
• The “anonymous sources of intel”
• The “anonymous sources handlers”

These are the key players here that I would really like to get into the box and sweat for a while. After the madness was over and sanity let it’s light creep into the dialog, we began to see that these so called sources were no more or less better than “CURVEBALL” was during the run up to the Iraq war. In fact, I guess you could say they were less effective than old curveball because we did not actually go into another half baked war on bad intelligence this time did we?

Another question that should be asked here is why was this information leaked in this way to the press on an ongoing operation that I would say might be pretty sensitive. I mean, you have a channel into a chat room (or *cough* con call as the case may be har har) that you could exploit further and yet you decide to close all the embassies and leak the fact that you have closed said embassies because you intercepted their sooper sekret lines of communication?

*blink blink*

Holy what the Hell? What are you thinking POTUS and IC community? Oh, wait … Let me ideate on this a bit….

• The intel community is in the dog house right now because of the SNOWMAN FILES yup yup
• So a WIN would be very very good for PR wouldn’t it? I mean you don’t have to hire a PR firm to figure this one out right?
• HOLY WIN WIN BATMAN! We tell them we foiled their plans using sooper sekret means that the public hates for infringing on their “so called” rights and we can win hearts and minds!

Could it be that simple?

All joking aside though, think about it. Why blow an operational means of watching how the bad guys are talking UNLESS it was never something you really had access to in the first place right? You could win all around here (though that seems to be backfiring) IF the Yemeni passed this along and it was after the fact then how better to make the AQ set abandon the channel by saying you had access to it?

Right…

How better also to try and get a PR win by alluding (ok lying lying lying with pantalones on fire!) that you had compromised (you being the NSA and IC here) said channel! I guess overall the government thinks that the old axiom of “A sucker born every minute” still applies to wide scale manipulations of stories in the media to sway thought huh? Oh and by the way, if any of you out there think this is just too Machiavellian I point you to all those cables dropped by Wikileaks. Take a look at the duplicity factor going on in international realpolitik ok?

Political Wag The Dog

It seems after all once all the dust has settled that either one of two things happened here;

1. Eli Lake did this on his own and played the system for hits on his paper’s page
2. Eli Lake was either a witting or un-witting dupe in this plan to put out some disinformation in a synergistic attempt to make the IC and the government look good on terrorism in a time where their overreach has been exposed.

It’s “Wag The Dog” to me. Well, less the war in Albania right? I suggest you all out there take a more jaundiced eye to the news and certainly question ANYTHING coming from “ANONYMOUS SOURCES” on NATSEC issues. It is likely either they are leakers and about to be prosecuted, or there is a cabal at work and DISINFORMATION is at play using the mass media as the megaphone.

Sorry to sound so Alex Jones here but hell, even a clock is right twice a day.

K.

 

The Global Cyber Game

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I had been meaning to write about this before when I had originally read the text but things got in the way as usual (work, more work, some more work after that, Defcon/Bsides) Now though I am in a space where I can reflect back on this paper and write about it here for you all to see. The Defence Academy (UK) put this together to describe how we might approach “cyberwar” on the level of game play or game theory. They constructed a board and began to set to the task of creating game play and tactics given certain scenarios in the cyber world. (see image of game board below) You can actually play this game if you create a board from this design and work within the rules of game theory but this is not why I find this treatise so important.

What I find most interesting is the actual scenario’s that play out within the game play as well as the end game status that the paper puts it all down to in the end of N-Utopia and N-Dystopia. As one can gather from the inherent meaning of the words, N-Utopia means that we all work out our problems globally and work on bettering society (which in the Nash equations is the best play) or we end up with N-Dystopia, a Balkanization of the net, and warfare that scales all levels up to kinetic and will be the death of us all. Can you guess where I think we are right now on the N-scale? Yes, you’d be right to lean toward the N-Dystopia area. In fact I would even like to see that idea rendered in a new way with an older iconography, that being the Doomsday Clock analogy. Perhaps someone can take that up online and create one for the cyebrwarz eh?

Power Dimensions:

What must be taken into account in the great cyber game is that all of this is centered around power plays. The use of information as power, the use of information to effect actions vis a vis “power” and the varying types of power that are being wielded by the players. This paper covers this idea pretty well and should be required reading for anyone looking to study cyber-warfare along side Clausewitz and other more well known pieces of doctrine. Some however may already be familiar with the ideas of hard and soft power but let’s take that into the electronic warfare arena which is a bit harder to scope today.

• Hard power
  • Overt threats and rewards
  • Kinetic action
  • Coercion

• Soft power
  • Cooperation
  • Co-Option

Both of these types of dynamic play off of one another and work in tandem. There actually is a whole spectrum of power plays that can be derived from these basic premises but I will not go into all that here. To date I have seen an abundance of hard power tactics being employed on the game board and I fear that that seems to be what the governments of the world have locked on to as their aegis. I would love for more to try the soft power tactics and methods but I am too much of a realist to hope that it will ever really happen.

The game play today that we are all seeing unfold before us is the hard power of Stuxnet or the ramping up of every piece of malware and 0day conceivable being purchased by the US government or others in an effort to be superior when the battle comes. That is though when they are not using those said same exploits in the darker games of realpolitik that they are prosecuting now. As I see it now we are hurtling towards a massive cyberfail of our own making and the real cost of the bad play will be economies around the world and other collateral damage that may not be an apocalypse as we currently understand them to be.

The power dimensions portion of this paper is quite enlightening and you should broaden the scope of how those plays are made with information and the internet. One must understand the playing field as well as the weapon you wield. This is the main problem I have of late is that all too many people and governments are not understanding the game play, the field of play, nor the tools they are using (pieces) well enough to play the game well. This makes not only for bad play, but in this game there are real world consequences for us all when some government or actor does something immensely stupid.

Cyber Games Today:

So what are we seeing today that has me worried? Well, we have the cybergames with Stuxnet and other malware to start. I liken the release of Stuxnet as skin to the release of a biotoxin or virus that eventually will be re-worked or manipulated into a more fearsome weapon. These are not one use tools, they are in fact re-usable and re-tune-able. Once these things are out there is no controlling them and with the idea of Stuxnet you have something that was used against one target but could affect hundreds more in friendly countries if they had the same configuration.

Another cybergame being played today is the new surveillance state that we find ourselves in. It seems in the case of the US we have people who are interpreting our Constitution to suit their needs under the rubric of protecting the homeland. This cybergame is all about information and the power dimension of controlling it. I have been watching this Snowden affair unfold and frankly I am frightened of the capabilities that the NSA has but I am much more scared that they claim that they are protecting us while a Snowden subverts the very systems they are saying cannot be misused. This particular cybergame when looked at, show’s all of the hard and soft power dimensions at play with the media and the law. This should also be brought into the cyber game play as well.

Yet another cybergame going on is within the public/private sector and I call the “Patriot Games” What I mean by this is that we have non state actors playing rolls of asymmetric warriors online to effect whatever change they see fit. A certain un-named clown for one is a primary actor in this space and really started the trend in my opinion. The cybergamers here are vigilantes nothing more and nothing less and may or may not have an effect on the grander scheme of things on the net and in public policy. For the most part however, these players are on the hard power end of the spectrum and thus just mostly come off as thugs.

Lastly, the cybergame that seems to be the one with the most chance of playing in the larger space is that of Anonymous. Anonymous has been able to leverage many players into semi cogent action and could in the future have a real effect on policy and other dimensions within the cybergame play. The only reason that I place Anon into this game is because of that mobilizing force that they seem to carry. If motivated and able to be cohesive enough this group could affect the greater games being played and have on a microcosmic scale thus far in recent history.

In all, the games that are being played, and they are games, all serve as a means to an end for those paying attention to understand and perhaps help those in the seat of power how not to play the game at all. Our petty squabbling on the internet is just that. The reality is that the net is important and much of our lives today require it to run smoothly but if the net were to go down permanently our society would not utterly collapse. We would survive and we would re-build. The question then becomes would we have learned from it and do things better the next time around?

Cyber-Utopia and Cyber-Dystopia:

The idea of Cyber-Utopia is a far fetched one in my mind and probably many others out there. This would be a great thing if we could make it happen but given the petty nature of our.. well nature.. We will only see this ideal wash up on the rocks and sink into the ocean rather quickly. In the Cyber-Utopia we all work together, we cooperate, and we work towards a better day. … And I just don’t see this happening barring some kind of alien intervention frankly.

Cyber-Dystopia though I am afraid is already the case in many respects. We are seeing an almost Balkanization of the internet today as it is never mind the games being played in reality with Stuxnet and cyberwar. If the N-Dystopia comes to pass we will find ourselves at war with each other constantly in a “cyberworld” much like the episode of STOS “A Taste of Armageddon”  where all warfare is carried out via computer simulations and only the casualties report to be disintegrated as a means to balance it all out. Today though we will see attacks on economies as well as infrastructures to effect “war” (economic, political, or other) on our enemies and the real world costs will have to be measured in profit loss or perhaps even actual loss of human life.

The cyber-dystopia though is more than just an outcome of war. It is the outcome from our own inabilities to work with each other and our ability to rationalize warfare through a non apocalyptic destruction of life. It will be a tit for tat war of attrition that will not lead to any clear victories and certainly not elevate our societies in any way and that is the sad truth of it. Ladies and gents we are already in the dystopia. We just may not understand that yet.

Understand the game:

So, I leave you with the paper: The Global Cyber Game pull it down and read it. Learn from it, play the game if you like, and spend some time thinking about it all. We are on the cusp of another evolution in our society that we have seen repeated in every other evolution we have had. We create something, then we weaponize it. Perhaps if more of us understand it and the pitfalls we can prevent the N-Dystopia from becoming any worse.

K.

Creating Your Own Privacy & ROI

img courtesy of XKCD http://xkcd.com/

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Preamble

With all the alleged revelations over the drift net surveillance happening to us all by the government I and others have been pondering the processes needed to protect one’s communications online and over the phone. Wired and other venues have put out reasonably ok articles on this but generally I think they have lacked on the ROI factor for the varying degree’s of surveillance that has been carried out for some time now, not just the NSA with PRISM. The immensity of it all I think can put one off on the idea of being able to keep their privacy especially given the pains that one must take to keep it on the nation state scale. However, there is much that could be done to have a modicum of privacy but one just has to understand the idea of OPSEC and have some technical base to work from in order to use the technologies such as TOR or CRYPTO in the first place. It is another thing altogether to keep that mindset every day and to understand the import of their use and the cause and effect that comes from failing to use them.

PRISM and NATION STATE SURVEILLANCE

As Ali (@packetknife) alluded to on the “Loopcast” recently with me, the idea that someone can completely deny the nation state program of surveillance is a tough one to swallow today. We all are connected to the net in some way whether it be your smartphone or some other connected device that we carry with us 24/7. In the case of the smart phone the utter and total pwn that goes on there is spectacular to think about. There is no need for tinfoil hat conspiracies about barcode tattoo’s on one’s neck here, all you really need is an iPhone and connectivity to know quite a bit about a person. This is why the metadata issue is a big one and people are seemingly unable to comprehend it. Let me clarify this for you all by also saying that not only are the calls to and from being easily monitored and mined (stored later for perusal when needed) by the NSA it seems, but also the GPS data as well. Remember the hubbub over the Apple collection of GPS data on the phones a couple years back? Remember the outrage on some parts over this? Well, now look at that in relations to how much of that data is accessible by the government too in this program. More to the point and this has not really been talked about, but are they correlating that data as well in the phone surveillance being carried out? My assumption is yes but like I said that seems to have been dwarfed and drowned out by the PRISM revelations.

Ok so now we are being data mined and correlated on the phone calls we make (metadata). Of who we are calling, how long we are talking, and when as well as  the GPS (location) as well?  All of that data is very informational about the habits of a person alone but start to analyze it from a personal and psychological perspective and you can build quite the dossier on someone without even having to listen to their conversations. Which I hasten to add that there are rumors of the caching of conversations generally not just under warrant from FISA. At this level, the nation state level of surveillance, one cannot hope to really be secure in their communications using technologies as they are because of the access the government has built for themselves post 9/11 with the Patriot Act as it’s fulcrum. Access mind you that we are giving them by proxy of the devices we buy and the services that provide the connection because without them we have no way to communicate other than in person or pen to paper with the post offices help right?

All of this though does not mean that the government is spying on you now. What it means though is that the legalities have been created or bent to the will of the government to have the illusion that the wholesale collection of all kinds of data for later use of anyone using these systems is legal. It also means that no matter the protestation of the government and the law enforcement bodies that they take all due care not to collect/use/surveill you vis a vis your data that there is a chance that someone within the system “could” and “might” do so outside of the rules and that is the problem here … Well other than the Constitutional, moral, and ethical issues that is. Just because it is against the rules does not mean someone won’t do it if they have the access. You know.. Like EJ Snowden having access to highly classified data that perhaps he shouldn’t have? Or furthermore the availability of Mr. Snowden being able to insert a USB drive into systems and siphon off said data to give to the press or anyone who’d listen right?

PRIVATE SECTOR or THE LITTLE SISTERS

Another issue that seems to be taking a back seat here is the notion of the Little Sisters to Big Brother. This idea springs from something I alluded to above in that the corporations that offer you the services (Gmail/ATT/Facebook etc) all collect data on you every minute of every day. They use this data for advertising, data mining, selling that data to other companies to form synergies on how to sell you on things etc. It is this practice of collecting all this data on us and our complicity in it that has given rise to the drift net approach that the government has taken with the surveillance programs like PRISM. The government is simply leveraging the capacities that are already there in the first place! You want to blame someone for this mess? Look in the mirror as you have allowed your data to be collected in the first place. YOU have placed your minute details out there on the internet to start with in email or posts to Twitter and Facebook for example. YOU are the culprit because you fail to understand OPSEC (Operational Security) and just scattered it on the net for anyone to see.

Of course other bits are more arcane. Cookies, tracking data within browsers and the like also give away much data on who you are, what you like, and allow the marketers to tailor ads for you when you go to sites that pay for the services. The aggregate of all of this data makes a digital portrait of you that unless you take pains to disallow the collection, will be sold and used by the corporations to package YOU as the commodity. I mean, how do you think Facebook works? It’s a social contract to connect to others and allow Facebook to make money off of your habits. Zucky is not in this to win a Nobel Peace Prize here ya know.

So when you think about all this surveillance going on please remember that you are complicit in it every time you surf the web, make a facebook post, a tweet, or send an email unencrypted (Google analytics kids) because they are all sifting that data to “get to know you better” *cough* It’s just a friends with benefits thing as the government see’s it being able to just hit them with an NSL and plant a server in the infrastructure to cull the data they want. As long as it doesn’t effect the bottom line (money) for them I suspect their worries about privacy are, well, pretty low on average. I mean after all you have already signed away your rights have you not? The little sisters are insidious and subtle and I am afraid they have already become metasticized within the society body.

The Only Privacy You Can Have Is That Which You Make Yourselves

“The only privacy that you have today  is that which you make for yourself” is something I said a while back on a blog post or podcast and I still stand by it. It seems all the more relevant in the post Snowden world today. By creating privacy I mean leveraging technologies like encryption to keep your communications private and OPSEC to consider how you transmit information over the internet and telco. There are inherent problems though with all of these things as you can always make a mistake and end up leaking information either technically (an instance would be logging online with your own IP address to something) or process wise like putting your current location on Facebook and saying you’re on vacation for two weeks. It is all a matter of degree though and even if you are practicing OPSEC there are things outside of your control when the nation state is looking to spy on you. There are just no two ways about it, you can only fight the nation state so much with technology as they have more resources to defeat your measures eventually by end run or by brute force.

On the level of defeating the little sisters, well the same applies but with limitations. You can in fact surf the net on TOR with NOSCRIPT, cookies disallowed and on an inherently anonymized OS on a USB stick right? The little sisters can only do so much and they only interact when they see a profit in it. They after all are not looking to be voyeurs just for the fun of it. They want to sell you something or sell you as metadata right? However, if you start to anonymize yourself as much as you can and you are diligent about it you can stop the Little Sisters which in turn may minimize what the Big Brother can use too. The caveat is that you have to take pains to do this and you have to know what you are doing. There are no magic easy button offerings on the shelf that will hide you from them all and if you care then you will take the time to learn how to perform these measures.

ROI On Privacy

Finally, I would like to take stock of the fight here that you need to take on and what the ROI is for each adversary involved. In reality unless you go off the grid, change your identity and never touch another piece of technology ever again there is a high likelihood that your information will be tracked. One may in fact create a separate identity to pay bills with and use that one to surf online as well as other things but that is an extreme just like the idea of becoming a Luddite. There must be a middle road where you can feel that you are protecting a certain portion of your lives from the unblinking eye of the companies and governments that own or access the technologies that we use every day. You have to though, understand all of this and accept that in the end you may fail at keeping your privacy yours and yours alone. Come to grips with this and be smart and you can have a modicum of success if you are diligent.

A for instance of this ROI would be on the phones. If you TRULY want to be private then you have to lose your smartphone that you have billed to you and buy a burn phone. Cash is king and there is no information taken if you do it right. The unfortunate thing is that you then have to call only others who have the same burn phones out there without any metdata that ties it back to their real identities. You just try getting mom and dad to buy burn phones to talk to them on… It’s not that easy. So really, some of the ROI is minimized by the nuisance factor. The same can be said for the lay individual who is not going to go buy encryption products nor are they capable of installing a Linux system and running something like GPG. This is not going to work for everyone as well as not everyone is going to care about their privacy as the recent Pew poll showed where 56% of polled ok with surveillance program by NSA.

In the end it all comes back to the idea that you create your own privacy by your own actions. Do not trust that the government is going to protect your privacy and certainly don’t believe that the corporations will either. I mean, just look at how many spectacular fails there were on passwords that weren’t hashed or encrypted in any way by companies hacked by LulzSec. As well you should not trust the government, no matter how well intended, that they will be ABLE to protect your privacy as we have seen with recent events like Brad Manning’s theft of (S) data as well as now Snowden (TS/SCI) The actions of one person can be the downfall of every carefully crafted system.

So what is the ROI here? Well….

NATION STATE:

Crypto and anonymized traffic online will minimize your footprint but eventually they will break you if they want to. You have to be exceptional to fight the nation state level of surveillance. As for the driftnet out there well, unless you go luddite they have a lot of data to sift and commingle. They have a pretty good picture of who you are and much of that comes from the little sisters. Your ROI here is minimal because they have the power and the thing you MUST remember is that CRYPTO IS YOUR FRIEND!! Encrypt sessions for chat and emails and you will leave them with the task of either having to break that crypto or hack your endpoint to see the plain text. Make them work for it. Otherwise you may as well just BCC the NSA.GOV on each and every email today it seems.

LITTLE SISTERS:

The little sisters though are another thing. You can in fact obscure a lot of what you do online and through telco but you have to be diligent. It means time and sometimes money (burn phones or laptops in some cases) to obfuscate as much as you can. The ROI here is that IF you take these pains you are then able to deny them easy access to your habits and patterns. If you start using crypto in sessions and in communications like emails then you will be also geometrically heightening your privacy status. But you have to do it.. AND that seems to be the hard part for many whether it is laziness or apathy I am not sure.

Privacy is what you make of it… He says as he hits enter on a public blog post!

K.

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Malware Wars!… Cyber-Wars!.. Cyber-Espionage-Wars! OH MY

X

Flame, DuQU, STUXNET, and now GAUSS:

Well, it was bound to happen and it finally did, a third variant of malware that is ostensibly connected to the story that Mikko Hypponen posted about after an email he got from a nuclear scientist in Iran has come to pass as true. The email claimed that a new piece of malware was playing AC/DC “Thunderstruck” at late hours on systems it had infected within the labs in Iran. I took this with a grain of salt and had some discussions with Mikko about it offline, he confirmed that the email came ostensibly from a known quantity in the AEOI and we left it at that, its unsubstantiated. Low and behold a week or two later and here we are with Eugene tweeting to the world that “GAUSS” is out there and has been since about 2011.

Gauss it seems had many functions and some of them are still unknown because there is an encryption around the payload that has yet to be cracked by anyone. Eugene has asked for a crowd sourced solution to that and I am sure that eventually someone will come out with the key and we will once again peer into the mind of these coders with a penchant for science and celestial mechanics. It seems from the data provided thus far from the reverse R&D that it is indeed the same folks doing the work with the same framework and foibles, and thus, it is again easily tied back to the US and Israel (allegedly per the mouthiness of Joe F-Bomb Veep) and that it is once again a weapon against the whole of the middle east with a decided targeting of Lebanon this time around. Which is an interesting target all the more since there has been some interesting financial news of late concerning banks and terror funding, but I digress…

I am sure many of you out there are already familiar with the technology of the malware so I am leaving all of that out here for perhaps another day. No, what I want to talk about is the larger paradigm here concerning the sandbox, espionage, warfare, and the infamous if not poorly named “CyberWar” going on as it becomes more and more apparent in scope. All of which seems to be centered on using massive malware schemes to hoover data as well as pull the trigger when necessary on periodic digital attacks on infrastructure. Something that truly has not been seen before Stuxnet and seems to only have geometrically progressed since Langer et al let the cat out of the bag on it.

Malware Wars:

Generally, in the information security sector, when I explain the prevalence of malware today I often go back to the beginning of the Morris worm. I explain the nature of early virus’ and how they were rather playful. I also explain that once the digital crime area became profitable and firewalls became a standard appliance in the network environment, the bad actors had to pivot to generally tunnel their data from the inside out home through such things as a firewall. This always seems to make sense to those I explain it to and today it is the norm. Malware, and the use of zero day as well as SE exploits to get the user to install software is the the way to go. It’s a form of digital judo really, using the opponents strength against them by finding their fulcrum weakness.

And so, it was only natural that the espionage groups of the world would turn to malware as the main means of gaining access to information that usually would take a human asset and a lot of time. By leveraging human nature and software flaws it has been a big win for some time now. I was actually amused that Henry Crumpton in the “Art of Intelligence” talks about how the CIA became a very early adopter of the network centric style of warfare. I imagine that some of the early malware out there used by spooks to steal from unprotected networks was CIA in origin and in fact that today’s Gauss probably has some relatives out there we have yet to see by people who have been doing this for some time now and we, the general public had no idea.

Times change though, and it seems that Eugene’s infrastructure for collecting data is creating a very wide dragnet for his people to find these infections and then reverse them. As we move forward expect to see more of these pop up, and surely soon, these will not just be US/UK/IL based attempts. Soon I think we will see the outsourced and insourced products of the likes of Iran and other nation states.. Perhaps we already have seen them, well, people like Mikko and Eugene may have at least. Who knows, maybe someday I will find something rooting about my network huh? Suffice to say, that this is just the beginning folks so get used to it.. And get used to seeing Eugene’s face and name popping up all over the place as well.. Superior showman that he is.

An Interesting Week of News About Lebanon and Bankers:

Meanwhile, I think it very telling and interesting as we see the scope of these malware attacks opening up, that not only one or two countries were targeted, but pretty much the whole of the Middle East as well. Seems its an equal opportunity thing, of course the malware never can quite be trusted to stay within the network or systems that it was meant for can we? There will always be spillage and potential for leaks that might tip off the opposition that its there. In the case of Gauss, it seems to have been targeted more at Lebanon, but, it may have been just one state out of a few it was really meant for. In the case of Lebanon though, and the fact that this piece of malware was also set to steal banking data from that area, one has to look on in wonder about the recent events surrounding HSBC.

Obviously this module was meant to be used either to just collect intelligence on banking going on as well as possibly a means to leverage those accounts in ways as yet undetermined by the rest of us. Only the makers and operators really know what the intent was there, but, one can extrapolate a bit. As terror finances go, the Middle East is the hotbed, so any intelligence on movement of money could be used in that light just as well as other ways to track the finances of criminal, geopolitical, and economic decisions being made there. Whether it be corporations or governmental bodies, this kind of intelligence would be highly prized and I can see why they would install that feature on Gauss.

All of this though, so close to the revelations of HSBC has me thinking about what else we might see coming down the pike soon on this front as well. Cur off the funding activities, and you make it much harder to conduct terrorism huh? Keep your eyes open.. You may see some interesting things happening soon, especially given that the Gauss is out of the bag now too. Operations will likely have to roll up a bit quicker.

Espionage vs. Sabotage vs. Overt Warfare of Cyber-Warfare:

Recently I have been working on some presentation stuff with someone on the whole cyberwar paradigm and this week just blew the lid off the whole debate again for me. The question as well as the rancor I have over the term “Cyberwar” has been going on some time now and in this instance as well as Stuxnet and Flame and DuQu, can we term it as cyberwar? Is this instead solely espionage? What about the elements of sabotage we saw in Stuxnet that caused actual kinetic reactions? Is that cyberwar? If there is no real war declared what do you term it other than sabotage within the confines of espionage and statecraft?

Then there is the whole issue of the use of “Cold War” to describe the whole effect of these operations. Now we have a possible cold war between those states like Iran who are now coding their own malware to attack our systems and to sabotage things to make our lives harder. Is that a war? A type of war? All of these questions are being bandied about all the while we are obviously prosecuting said war in theater as I write this. I personally am at a loss to say exactly what it is or what to term it really. Neither does the DoD at this point as they are still working on doctrine to put out there for the warriors to follow. Is there a need for prosecuting this war? It would seem that the US and others working with them seem to think so. I for one can understand the desire to and the hubris to actually do it.

Hubris though, has a funny way of coming back on you in spectacular blowback. This is my greatest fear and seemingly others, however, we still have a country and a government that is flailing about *cough the Senate cough* unable to do anything constructive to protect our own infrastructure even at a low level. So, i would think twice about the scenarios of actually leaking statements of “we did it” so quickly even if you perceive that the opposition has no current ability to strike back.. Cuz soon enough they will. It certainly won’t be a grand scale attack on our grid or telco when it does happen, but, we will likely see pockets of trouble and Iran or others will pop up with a smile, waving, and saying “HA HA!” when it does occur.

The Sandbox and The Wars We Are Prosecuting There by Malware Proxy:

Back to the Middle East though… We have been entrenched in there for so so long. Growing up I regularly watched the news reports about Lebanon and Israel, Iran and the hostages, Iraq, Saddam, Russian Proxy wars via terrorism, Ghadaffi and his ambitions as well as terror plots (which also hit close to home with the Lockerbee bombing) You kids today might think this is all new, but let me tell you, this has been going on for a long long time. One might even say thousands of years (Mecca anyone? Crusades?) So, it’s little wonder then that this would all be focused on the Med.

We are conducting proxy wars not only because of 9/11 but also economic and energy reasons as well. You want a good taste of that? Take a look at “Three Days of the Condor” a movie about a fictional “reader” for the CIA who stumbles on to a plan to disrupt governments in the Middle East to affect oil prices and access. For every person that said the Iraq war and Afghanistan wasn’t about oil, I say to them look at the bigger picture. There are echoes there of control and access that you cannot ignore. Frankly, if there wasn’t oil and money in the region, I think we would have quite a different story to look on as regards our implementing our forces there.

So, with that in mind, and with terrorism and nuclear ambitions (Iran) look at the malware targeting going on. Look at all of the nascent “Arab Springs” going on (albeit really, these are not springs, these are uprisings) we have peoples who want not to live under oppressive regimes not just because they aren’t free to buy an iPhone or surf porn, but they are also oppressed tribes or sects that no longer wish to be abused. All of this though, all of the fighting and insurgency upsets the very delicate balance that is the Middle East. Something that we in the US for our part, have been trying to cultivate (stability) even if that stability came from another strongman that we really don’t care for, but, who will work with us in trade and positional relevance to other states.

In goes the malware.. Not only to see what’s going on, but also to stop things from happening. These areas can be notoriously hard to have HUMINT in and its just easier to send in malware and rely on human nature to have a larger boon in intelligence than to try and recruit people to spy. It’s as simple as that. Hear that sucking sound? That’s all their data going to a server in Virginia. In the eyes of the services and the government, this is clearly the rights means to the ends they desire.

We Have Many Tigers by The Tail and I Expect Blowback:

Like I said before though, blowback has a nasty habit of boomeranging and here we have multiple states to deal with. Sure, not all of them has the ability to strike back at us in kind, but, as you have seen in Bulgaria, the Iranians just decided to go with their usual Hezbollah proxy war of terrorism. Others may do the same, or, they may bide their time and start hiring coders on the internet. Maybe they will hire out of Russia, or China perhaps. Hell, it’s all for sale now in the net right? The problem overall is that since we claimed the Iran attack at Natanz, we now are not only the big boy on the block, we are now the go to to be blamed for anything. Even if we say we didn’t do it, who’s gonna really believe us?

The cyber-genie is out of the cyber-bottle.

Then, this week we saw something new occur. A PSYOP, albeit a bad one, was perpetrated by the Assad regime it seems. Reuters was hacked and stories tweeted/placed on the net about how the rebel forces in Aleppo had cut and run. It was an interesting idea, but, it was ineffective for a number of reasons. The crux though is that Reuters saw it and immediately said it was false. So, no one really believed the stories. However, a more subtle approach at PSYOPS or DISINFO campaigns is likely in the offing for the near future I’d think. Surely we have been doing this for a while against them, whether it be in the news cycles or more subtle sock puppets online in social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. The US has been doing this for a long time and is well practiced. Syria though, not so much.

I have mentioned the other events above, but here are some links to stories for you to read up on it…

• PSYOPS Operations by the nascent Syrian cyber warfare units on Reuters
• Hezbollah’s attack in Bulgaria (bus bombing) in response to STUXNET and other machinations
• Ostensible output of INTEL from Gauss that may have gotten HSBC in trouble and others to come (Terrorism funding and money laundering)

All in all though, I’d have to say that once the players become more sophisticated, we may in fact see some attacks against us that might work. Albeit those attacks will not be the “Cyber Pearl Harbor” that Dr. Cyberlove would like you to be afraid of. Politically too, there will be blowback from the Middle East now. I am sure that even after Wikileaks cables dump, the governments of the Med thought at least they could foresee what the US was up to and have a modicum of statecraft occur. Now though, I think we have pissed in the pool a bit too much and only have ourselves to blame with the shit hits the fan and we don’t have that many friends any more to rely on.

It’s a delicate balance.. #shutupeugene

Pandora’s Box Has Been Opened:

In the end, we have opened Pandora’s box and there is no way to get that which has escaped back into it. We have given the weapon framework away due to the nature of the carrier. Even if Gauss is encrypted, it will be broken and then what? Unlike traditional weapons that destroy themselves, the malware we have sent can be easily reverse engineered. It will give ideas to those wishing to create better versions and they will be turned on us in targeted and wide fashions to wreak as much digital havoc as possible. Unfortunately, you and I my friends are the collateral damage here, as we all depend on the systems that these types of malware insert themselves into and manipulate.

It is certainly evident as I stated above, our government here in the US is unable to come up with reasonable means to protect our systems. Systems that they do not own, Hell, the internet itself is not a government run or owned entity either, and yet they want to have an executive ability to shut it down? This alone shows you the problem of their thinking processes. They then decide to open the box and release the malware genie anyway… It’s all kind of scary when you think about it. If this is hard to concieve, lets put it in terms of biological weapons.. Weapons systems that have been banned since Nixon was in office.

The allusion should be quite easy to understand. Especially since malware was originally termed “Virus” There is a direct analogy there. Anyway, here’s the crux of it all. Just like bioweapons, digital “bioware” for lack of a better term, also cannot be controlled once let into the environment. Things mutate, whether at the hand of people or systems, things will not be contained within the intended victims. They will escape (as did all the malware we have seen) and will tend to have unforeseen consequences. God forbid we start really working on polymorphics again huh? If the circumstances are right, then, we could have a problem.

Will we eventually have to have another treaty ban on malware of this kind?

Time will tell.. Until then, we all will just be along for the cyberwar ride I guess. We seem to be steadily marching toward the “cyberwar” everyone is talking about… determined really to prosecute it… But will it get us anywhere?

K.

Jihadi Sites Fall Down… Go Boom… Again.

3.22.12

Mohammed Merah, kills 7 people and plans on killing more but is cornered in his home. He is tracked by his IP address when he attempts to buy a scooter online. Merah holds up in his apartment for 30 hours before being killed in a gun battle. The French put out the word that they are going to crack down on Jihadi online content, or much more to the point, if they catch you looking they are going to arrest you.

The laws are still being haggled over.

3.23.12

On or about the 23rd of March, the sites that are usually monitored by certain people and organizations began to wink out of existence online. The sites started to have trouble then just went offline. It was obvious at the time for me and some others that these were not just the run of the mill DDoS attacks, but instead, the sites had been either RM’d offline by attackers or they had been yanked offline by the increasingly twitchy admins.

The sites stay down and are supplanted by the likes of As-Ansar for traffic, but basically, the boards go quiet… Paranoia builds.

3.27.12

Muhrad Hussein Almalki is arrested in Valencia Spain. He was the admin of “Ansar Al-Mujahedeen network” and praised Merah for his killings online. His online name is أمين المكتبة  It is suspected that the librarian is in charge of more than one of the sites that eventually goes down.

4.3.12 to 4.5.12

On the 3rd of April, the domain for shamikh1 and its server is moved to a hosting service in the Caribbean. On the 5th of April the site comes up again. The admin sends out an email to all members:

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

بشرى سارة
عودة شبكة الجهاد العالمي

الإدارة

All of the data from the site is back online and it seems the backend has been cp’d elsewhere before the takedown occurred.

4.6.12

Some of the sites have returned like Shamikh others have not. Out of the 5 it seems that at least a couple are still down and others seem to be under attack in other areas.  Almadad is now under attack it seems and is as of this looksee down.

Questions:

At first I thought that perhaps players within the patriot hacker movement may have been involved, and perhaps they did after all, but, it seems to me more so now that the timing of the events all point toward a concerted action by governments. The hacking of the sites likely was done via bad installs of the PHP and SQL installations on the boxes that the databases resided on. There must have been actionable intelligence on some actions that the AQ boys and girls were planning or, the powers that be decided it was time for an interruption. You see, at least one of the main sites is back and it would seem they are back in business pretty quickly. Of course they have had this happen in the past and have moved servers and domains quickly enough.

Now, the questions though are the following:

1. Was this takedown the work of governments
2. If it was government and the dbases are all back up as they were before… Then this means that they are compromised. They seem unchanged
3. The admin’s were twitchy enough before with all of the attacks by the jokey’s of the world and other <REDACTED> things that happened. So how are they going to react now?
4. If this was the patriot hacker movement, then why no bragging?
5. Did DGSE have anything to do with this? They seemed pretty motivated given the chatter online post the Merah incident that they planned some actions soon in France
6. Last time there was a big takedown, there was a large roll up of players soon after… Should we expect some more now?

Overall, many have been asking the questions out there, even <REDACTED> news services have been asking me. I cannot say what has really transpired because it’s above my pay grade, but, if you look at the evidence you have to come to some conclusions here.

Conclusions:

• I lean toward a government sanctioned action perhaps using those patriot hackers.. But more likely it was a group of “SPOOK” hackers
• The sites had been compromised for some time and the word was finally given by whatever government service/agency/power to pull the plug
• They knew the sites would return, it is possible that someone took over for the likes of the librarian but… One has to wonder if maybe shop has been set up as a honeypot
• If it’s not a honeypot, then it shows the resiliency of the movements within the technical area and that they can stand up a site fairly quickly and seem to have a DR program up

Interesting times indeed. I would keep an eye on the news for a couple of things…

1. Some very specific drone strikes
2. Arrests
3. VERY jumpy admins of other sites.

K.

9/11/01 Ten Years Later: Thoughts On The War On Terror

9/11/11:

Recently, I found myself on NPR speaking about 9/11, ten years later and some of the experience has dulled to a point where I no longer feel like I have some sort of PTSD. However, in talking about it, I began to think about how things are going with the war on terror low these many years later. With the recent events of killing Osama Bin Laden, and the roll up of other key players (be they arrested or in many cases, killed by hellfire missiles shot from UAV’s)  I have to say that I am feeling somewhat optimistic about the war on terror.. At least from the perspective of breaking AQ’s back so to speak.

We have seen over the past few years particularly, a movement (AQ) that has been foundering because of more than a few factors;

• The net is tightening around them, more countries are getting more agile at intelligence sharing
• Their aegis of caliphate and jihad is being dulled by the Arab Spring
• Their titular leader OBL is dead and their new leader is perceived as the old man who yells at you to get off the God Damn lawn by the foot soldiers
• They are having recruiting trouble because it is harder to get to their ‘training’ countries. This is due to much more monitoring on borders
• AQ as an organisation has been marginalised due to its own set of strict rules
• AQ has, once again, been marginalised or contained. Its message is more diluted as many spin off (splinter) orgs have formed
• The takfiri movement is failing, not too many takfir want to be shahid suicide bombers
• New converts are not finding themselves similarly motivated to become shahid for the movement by wearing the vest
• The online jihad has been foundering, they are not technically as adept as they would like to be and keep getting shut down
• Due to being shut down online much of the time, they are not able to recruit and ingrain the “jihad” mindset as easily
• Due to the jihad being online, the converts are not as controlled by management, and thus there is no re-enforcement of belief to make them act

So, in many ways, the war on terror has been effective in marginalising the AQ core, but, at the same time, new groups have popped up. Lone wolf attacks (radicalising online and acting) is the predominate way that AQ/AQAP have seen as the future of the Jihad. I have personally seen them grapple with not only the technology but also the propaganda war itself in their magazine “Inspire” They have been trying to figure out ways to propagandise, radicalise, and re-enforce the word of Jihad by keyboard as opposed to the Madrassa . This in particular is problematic for them as they are used to that madrassa method. By getting kids in the door at a young age, abusing them, and only teaching them the wrote recitation of the Koran in tandem with their particular spins on Jihad, had they created so many shahidi. It’s just not that simple online trying to reach out to more Western minds who have not been controlled in such a way.

Instead, what we have seen is an increasing number of mentally unstable individuals (Emerson Begolly, Malik Hassan, Richard Reid, etc) be drawn in by the propaganda online and then go on to commit “lone wolf” acts of terror. Frankly, these people are no more a real terrorist threat (these radicalised and mentally ill folks) than the average spree killer. However, since they hang their hat with the Jihad and AQ, then, they become more of a perceived threat to the masses.. Erroneously I think.

The Elephant With Its Trunk In Our Collective Coffee:

Reflecting on all of what I state above, I then find myself pondering the costs of those wins for us. Two wars ongoing for those 10 years, our nations economy failing rapidly from the outpouring of money into said wars (and of course all of the other malfeasance that happened with wall street, bankers, etc etc) that at present, just seem to have no end. Can we in fact do anything in Afghanistan substantively? Or, are we just the next country to fall into a morass and not heeded the history of the region as well as the immortal words of Vizzini in Princess Bride “never get involved in a land war in Asia”  So many have failed at trying to tame the region and all have fallen to a tribal society that has not changed that much in a thousand years. Add to this that we have just come off looking like the new brute occupying their lands, and we have the trifecta of imminent failure.

Meanwhile, at home, we have, over these ten years, traded our freedoms for perceived security. There are so many arguments to be made here, but, I have to say that there have been excesses and misuse of power. Our government has become ungovernable and radicalised into three parties, and we the people have little say any more because corporations are now “people” according to the court system (just look up the idea of the ‘super pac’ *see Steven Colbert for more) We have indeed traded security for privacy and the right to be a part of how we are governed by our own apathy.

Frankly, its rather scary. Of course all of the losses to privacy can be directly attributed to 9/11 and the land grab after it within the intelligence collective and government’s desire to outsource those same collection means as well as war-fighting capacities (Xe aka Blackwater ring a bell?) I’m afraid that much has been done in the name of liberty and freedom that we as a people might not like so much. So it is kept from us by over classification and secrecy. The panoptacon has been built around us all and, like the frog in the pot, we just don’t feel the heat as we are too happily playing with our new iPhone.

Are we really more secure from these enhanced rights the government has? Or is it that we have prosecuted the war in a much better way intelligence wise as well as boots on the ground to stop these guys in country? It seems to me, that back in the day the NSA could do all of this type of surveillance on other countries and it was all good. Now, they see everything and have the right to work in the US…

So just how many of these terrorist arrests were made in the US?

How many US jihadi terrorists were caught by the FBI due to the enhanced continental powers granted?

Am I just missing all those headlines? Because I am not remembering too many plots being stopped here. So, yes, we have traded privacy for a perceived security by allowing the government carte blanche… And no, we are not better off for it.

Of course now with the advent of Anonymous and LulzSec, we have a new kind of terrorism (albeit one that has not been uttered yet or legislated into existence) Just how long will it be before we see this happen? All of it proves though, that there is no fool proof way to insure security. We, as a people need to understand this and come back to our collective senses. Look at Europe, specifically look at England..

Do you want a camera on every corner? (almost there)

How about shotgun mikes? (almost there too)

The infrastructure is being built around you fellow frogs… Time to talk to your legislators about this if it concerns you.

Looking Ahead:

As I see it, the days of AQ are starting to wane and the days of the crazy lone wolves is just the same as it was before. All the attempts at radicalising have failed really to raise an army. I think we are winning the overall battle against Jihad… But.. We are losing the battle for our own country. Ask yourself this though; “Once AQ and the like are gone, just who will all these methods and technologies be turned toward? With no major enemies to watch, will it all be decommissioned? Somehow I doubt that.

For every time someone mentions how Facebook is so perverse about personal privacy, please take a step back and think about the government under which you governed. With all of the morass we find ourselves in, and how much we complain collectively about it being the governments fault, please ponder that said same government has the technologies available to do whatever they like and then mark it secret. Never to see the light of day.

I do hope the war on terror ends, but I shudder to think about what will happen after it does.

K.

 

Yes Virginia, There Are Hackers and Spooks On Militant Boards…

A prominent poster on the elite password-protected jihadi web site Shumukh has told fellow forum members his account on the site has been hacked to send spyware to fellow forum participants.

The user, who goes by the handle “Yaman Mukhadab,” posted on August 28 that “it seems that someone is using my account and is somehow sending messages with my name to the members,” according to Flashpoint Partners, which translated the discussion for Danger Room. Shumukh uses software from vBulletin, which allows members to send private messages to each other.

Mukhadab’s handiwork has attracted attention beyond the forum. He was one of the contributors to the site’s lame recent attempt at creating a fantasy target wishlist comprised of American security industry leaders, defense officials and other public figures.

From Wired

Yeah, yeah, yeah, once again Wired got a little tidbit from Evan Kohlmann to keep his Flashpoint company relevant and in the news. Blah blah blah. Look, Adam is it? Yeah, Adam, there is much more that goes on on this site and the myriad others that Evan isn’t telling you. Sure, this guy Yaman got a little twitchy and he is right to be so lately. There has been A LOT of other things going on on both sides of the fence lately that ol’ Evan hasn’t let you in on, or more likely, has no clue of.

• There are hackers, both at the behest of the government and those not avowed going at these sites. Some are just knocking them down for periods of time (Jester etc)  Some who are auditing the sites and actually interacting at times with the players after owning them, and SOME who are just hacking the shit out of the sites and wreaking havoc. The latter was seen back a month or two ago with the take down of Ansar. They just RM’d that sucker, but, the jihadi’s had a backup and they were online within days. (which you mentioned.. good)

• Most of these sites have sections where the the newbies are being taught hacking skills. Some of these tutorials are low level (like the lulz types we saw not too long ago *protect your MACIP’s) Others are quite well versed in hacking and have tutorials on the level of something to worry about. In fact, some of these sites contain the works of friends of mine in the security community that they have posted as research. Within these sections we have areas where the jihadi’s have an assortment of upload/download sites for malware (mostly these are older packages) but some of the newer posts have malware and creation kits that are up to today’s standards (which you failed to mention)

• The version of AQAP’s “Inspire you talk about was tampered with *cupcakes* as well as one version did in fact have a trojan. (which you failed to mention)

• The list of targets wasn’t so much lame as it was a new call to the “lone wolves” on these boards to act on it. There is a change in the way these guys are waging jihad that is not really covered by Evan and you. Did you know for instance that there is a Facebook Jihad (propaganda war) that is ongoing? As well as guys like Abu Hafs Al Suni Al Suni are advocating for a ‘stealth jihad’ ? Yeah, they are, and they have been busy trying to propagandise and get the word out to those lone nutjobs that might in fact try something like say, pick a name off of that ‘lame’ list as you called it. It wouldn’t be so lame after they actually whacked someone would it?

Sure, a good deal of this and the other jihobbyist sites are full of dreck, but, there are pockets of true believers, and your little piece in Wired downplays it all.

For more:

GCHQ/SIS AQ Media PSY-OP: Messin With Jihobbyists

Also try this little Google Search for spyware posts on the board. They have been busy.

As a side note, the Jihadi’s also went further and opted to go after the MEMRI organization as well. In a later post by Yaman, they list out the leaders of the org as targets as well. What makes me wonder is which one of them has a log and pass for MEMRI (hint hint MEMRI check your logs)

 

 

 

All in all, another bang up job Wired… *sarcasm implied*

K.