Israel
• Call it the Obama Intifada

Taliban Internet recruiting through the eyes of a detainee

Break the law and your new 'friend' may be the FBI

It's interesting how a private organization operating without any meaningful government oversight - the Electronic Freedom Foundation - believes it has a right to 'police' government agencies who are bound to the US Constitution and have to answer to executive, congressional, and judicial overseers. And the EFF does so, and their efforts are reported on, without the slightest trace of irony.

The author of the above linked news story reveals his true colors when he equates a real woman who created a fictional online identity in order to bully a child until the latter committed suicide, with the actions of hypothetical government agents conducting criminal investigations, describing these as "effectively the same activity... although for different purposes." Right. For the benefit of those who "report" on legal matters, we call those "purposes" intent, and it is commonly the presence or absence of criminal intent that determines what is or is not a crime. For example, if I break down your door to drag you out of a burning house, that is "effectively the same activity" as if I break down your door in order to shoot you once in the neck and once in the head. That the "purpose" is different is - I hope - obvious, yet in both cases I do in fact make a mess out of your door. Sorry about that...

The reality of Internet use by criminals is inadvertently captured by the article in the following:

Undercover operations aren't necessary if the suspect is reckless. Federal authorities nabbed a man wanted on bank fraud charges after he started posting Facebook updates about the fun he was having in Mexico.

Maxi Sopo, a native of Cameroon living in the Seattle area, apparently slipped across the border into Mexico in a rented car last year after learning that federal agents were investigating the alleged scheme. The agents initially could find no trace of him on social media sites, and they were unable to pin down his exact location in Mexico. But they kept checking and eventually found Sopo on Facebook.

While Sopo's online profile was private, his list of friends was not. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Scoville began going through the list and was able to learn where Sopo was living. Mexican authorities arrested Sopo in September. He is awaiting extradition to the U.S.

@ SoFIR
• Adam Gadahn makes the case for the weakness of al-Qaida Central

The astute viewer will note that the headline does *not* read
"cyber vigilantes charged with interfering in a lawful investigation"

The work of removing individual videos from YouTube, while tedious, is of enormous value. The global jihad is all about the videos, and the videos don't keep themselves in circulation, al-Qaida activists do. Every once in a while a video may come along that actually has some redeeming educational or intelligence value, but those times are rare. As for the YouTube accounts of these activists, the harder the bastards have to work, the better it is for the rest of use, because all these people are doing is building a case against themselves - they are demonstrating publicly the degree to which they are committed to the cause. For investigative purposes, and to make the most of available resources, we need to know who the most dedicated activists are. Once they are on the radar, smacking down their videos and YouTube accounts does no harm - the investigators are already reading their email and know damn well what they are doing online.

Such efforts are part of what I call a supply-side approach to dealing with jihadi media. For a host of reasons it is a much better approach than trying to track and investigate every person who happens watch one of these videos. Over time such efforts will likely result in the more risk-averse jihadis dropping out, while the risk-tolerant will remain active. The result of that selection process over time is that people who we can see active online in support of al-Qaida will be increasingly likely to be involved in real-world terrorist activity as well: risk is risk, and those who have learned they can tolerate it have this way of seeking out more of it. In case the investigative opportunities this represents are not clear, just remember that at the end of the day the Internet is a public place - we can see what people are doing on YouTube, but not what they are cooking up in their kitchen.

My best wishes to all concerned: job well done. That's one Little Blue AK for Jihad Jane, and one for each of her co-conspirators arrested in Ireland.

[1] I'm not going to link to any mainstream media reports about Jihad Jane's takedown - go here for more information: http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/

Note: it's not just you - of the sites in our current Top Ten list, 6 are down, and two (Hanein and Ana al-Muslm) should really be removed from the list. That leaves at-Tahaddi and Majahden as the only active jihadi forums as of 2010-02-28 20:15 Z.

PS: The al-Luyuth al-Islamiyyah forum is also available, but not very active - you'll find it here: http://www.leyoth.info/vb/

First the server was hacked, the database deleted, and the front page replaced with a page that attempted to infect each visitor with a virus. The attack appeared to have been aimed at the server, and all the sites on the server were treated similarly - in other words the jihadi site was just on the wrong server at the wrong time. What the Russian mafia did with the data *they* collected is anyone's guess.

Then the admins, in the process of attempting to restore the site, left not one, but a half-dozen copies of the database in plain view where the site's front page was supposed to be.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Location of the core membership of the
Ansar al-Mujahideen forum (English section)

US location data obscured for reasons that should be obvious

Evan Kholmann has just written an exposé of the Ansar al-Mujahideen forum which features - among other things - extended quotes from "private messages" exchanged by the forum's administrators and leading activists. It will be published in the February 2010 edition of the CTC Sentinel.

Make your time.

Thanks to a reader in Saudi Arabia for reminding me of the following incident - arguably one of the better examples of information operations Interent Haganah-style.

Keep in mind that the suicide bomber who struck the CIA base in Afghanistan late last year, Abu Dujanah al-Khorasani, was formerly an administrator of the al-Hesbah forum. It is likely that he was identified and captured by the Jordanians as a result of that activity.

The al-Hesbah forum, as far back as 2003-2004, was one of the most important, and certainly the most exclusive of jihadi sites. It survived the Montada al-Ansar forum (of Irhabi007 fame) and continued to operate until late fall/early winter of 2008. Actual cause of death has not been revealed, but likely was related to a kind of survivor guilt - all the other "top tier" jihadi sites having been scuttled earlier in the Fall of '08.

The administrators of the al-Hesbah forum were accused of colluding with the Enemies of Islam™ by the operators of the rival Tajdeed forum - the latter having suffered a near-terminal loss of members following an extended period of down-time as a consequence of the post 7/7 bombing backlash in the UK (Tajdeed was/is operated by individuals living in the UK). In particular the al-Hesbah admins were accused of assisting in the capture of Irhabi007 - a charge later proven to be without merit.

Enter Internet Haganah - stage right.

On 02 March 2006 I posted a report about the geographic distribution of the readership of the al-Hesbah forum - the administrators of that forum had, in fact, provided me with critical assistance in collecting the data (not that they were aware of it at the time).

Over at the Tajdeed forum, the brothers seized upon this as proof that al-Hesbah was in league with Satan:

click image to view archive of Tajdeed forum thread

A month later I posted the demographic data for the Tajdeed forum:

Note to jihadi website admins: when seeking agents of Satan,
I recommend first looking in the mirror