Al-Qaeda's Growing Online Offensive 369
andy1307 brings us a story from the Washington Post about al-Qaeda's technological capabilities and the methods they use to protect themselves and their networks from opposing military forces. Quoting:
"US and European intelligence officials attribute the al-Qaeda propaganda boom in part to the network's ability to establish a secure base in the ungoverned tribal areas of western Pakistan. Analysts said that as-Sahab (AQ's propaganda network) is outfitted with some of the best technology available. Editors and producers use ultralight Sony Vaio laptops and top-end video cameras. Files are protected using PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, a virtually unbreakable form of encryption software that is also used by intelligence agencies around the world. [Al-Fajr, a propaganda distribution network] is heavily decentralized, with its webmasters generally unaware of one another's true identities for security reasons, intelligence analysts said. It also has separate 'brigades' devoted to hacking, multimedia, cybersecurity and distribution."
Aw, c'mon. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Aw, c'mon. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Aw, c'mon. (Score:5, Informative)
As a Muslim, I'm calling you on that one.
After having lived in Saudi Arabia for a year (admittedly 14 years ago, but I doubt the view has changed hugely since then) I can tell you that the primary gripe the population have there is the U.S. propping up an unpopular monarchy that is mismanaging and/or stealing the country's wealth. The U.S. could make friends of the Saudi people by simply telling the Saudi government that they're on their own. Then the Saudi royal family would need to either make the people happy, or prepare to be overthrown as soon as the last shipment of U.S. supplied weapons started rusting.
I don't know *anyone* (with the possible exception of that crazy lunatic in charge of Iran, who is about as representative of Iranians as the Saudi royals are of the Saudi people) who thinks the West is some evil regime that needs to be toppled. Heck, I live in a Western country quite happily. I've traveled extensively to Middle eastern countries and (remember I'm Muslim, with Muslim friends and relative and we all travel to Muslim countries, so I'm not pulling this out my backside) it's utter BS that Muslims have some kind of chip on their shoulder with regards to the West. The problem is Western interference in Muslim countries' politics, and that primarily is the propping up of the Saudi government. I think I can speak for the majority of Muslims when I say that Muslims don't like the Saudi government. They call themselves "custodians of Islam", yet they are a corrupt, self-serving bunch of monarchical fascists.
Oh, and we don't need the U.S. to come in and "liberate" the place. Just butting out will do the trick. They'll save the hundreds of millions spent on military support and they'll make friends of the majority of the Arabian peninsula to boot. Bargain!
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You do realize that the hand-full of raving maniacs,
that make up the Islamic terrorist movement is all most Americans and Europeans see of Muslims? I do agree it time to say to both the Saudis and the Israelis you've had 60 years to get your shit together the gravy train is coming to a stop.
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the primary gripe the population have there is the U.S. propping up an unpopular monarchy that is mismanaging and/or stealing the country's wealth
I agree with your post but it's not only support of the Saud government that upsets many middle easterners - it's also support of Israel - and I think if the US was at least a little more fair and impartial it would go a long way towards improving its image in the mideast because many there believe (and rightly so IMHO) that the US enables Israel to commit human
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As for as I know Timothy McVeigh isn't a Muslim but that didn't stop him from blowing up a federal building in Oklahoma City. You're naive to think terrorists are soley Muslim.
Islam = Evil is an entirely over simplistic view of the world.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The Sept 11 bombers were Muslim. (Using an outsider's definition, not getting what a real Muslim is just like I don't take pains to define a real Christian.)
2. Anyone who bombed the US in the Sept 11 attacks hate the West.
3. Therefore, all Muslims hate the West. Invalid
Damn, guy, get yourself a couple of logic and critical thinking books before you start calling bullshit. Don't be stupid.
Re:Aw, c'mon. (Score:5, Informative)
FYI: The Koran is the most widely memorized book ever. There is only one version, the original of which is in Arabic and has been translated to many languages. To my knowledge, there is no reputable printing of it in any language without the original Arabic side by side with the translated text. Such is the concern with keeping the message accurate and unchanged. The original Arabic is actually poetry with a highly coherent syntax, which makes obvious any attempt to modify it. Furthermore, given the massive number of people who know the book by heart, any altered version of it would immediately be noticed and pointed out.
Belief in the Koran as it is, is a core tenet of Islamic belief, and changing it or any of the other 4 core tenets (or "pillars") results in a different religion entirely. Just because a sect calls themselves "Muslims" doesn't make it so any more than Scientology calling itself a "Church" makes them a valid member of the family of Christendom. It is an illegitimate and unwelcome adoption of the word, and those who decide to change the Koran or use it for their own purposes really should stop calling themselves Muslims and come up with some new name for their religion. The guys at www.submission.org is one such group. They really aren't as friendly as you may think.
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Not quite sure where you got your information from, but AFAIK they don't go knocking door to door to get donations. Illicit activities provide the cash cow they need to survive including drug running and arms trading.
Re:Aw, c'mon. (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot selling pirated videos. Remember, BitTorrent supports terroists - always make sure you buy genuine DVDs.
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oh no, no need for bittorrent, you can pick up new first release DVDs of major studio movies for a buck or two at any bazaar in Iraq. MPAA should send in their own troops just to control piracy and bootlegging
Evil hackers (yawn) (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't imagine that it's THAT hard to create a fairly distributed network of "propaganda" outlets with most of the key people using encryption, small laptops, mobile communications....you know, stuff that most folks on this site do every day. And most of us aren't internationally wanted fugitives.
Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just more made-up generalized bullshit to get the easily-influenced people to go with more government spending on counteracting the nonexistent problem of terrorism. When was the last time terrorism was in your back yard? When did it affect you personally? How often is it happening?
And.. if it did affect you, chances are that your back yard is in Iraq..
The government keeps pushing 'Our enemy is huge, organized, centralized, and powerful' but we are seeing more and more than 'Our enemy is a disorganized populace tired of what the US is doing.'
It's like we're building a tank to try to destroy a wasp.. while the wasp keeps stinging everyone because we're sitting by its nest.
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a few thousand dead people from a few years back who, if they could be asked, would tell you that it's hardly a 'non-existant' problem. Is it being used to scare people for political reasons? Sure, just like most issues are bent to manipulate the sheeple. Is it real? Yes. Will they kill you if they can? Sure.
The world isn't black and white, all or nothing.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
At what point do we stop using the events on 9/11 as a blanket excuse for government to drive itself all over the backs of the American people? Yes, we should be reasonably vigilant against terrorism - but we should never give up a single bit of our rights!
We, the people, have to pay over $1trillion for the 'war on terrorism' using the 9/11 excuse.. Yet, there's little to no progress made for combating illegal immigration - while illegal immigrants are killing more Americans than died on 9/11 every year..
This is a sick fucked up system.. where our companies that directly benefit from wars also run our media.. who build up our screwed-up politicians.. who systematically screw America into oblivion. It's time we quit believing every goddamn 'trrrist' story and start seeing through the bullshit. Am I afraid of a terrorist coming after me or my family? fuck no.. Am I afraid of our out-of-control government? absolutely - look at history
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while illegal immigrants are killing more Americans than died on 9/11 every year.
[ CITATION NEEDED ]
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This is a sick fucked up system.. where our companies that directly benefit from wars also run our media..
So that explains what CmdrTaco is getting up to when he should be proof-reading Slashdot stories. Running a global defense corporation :-)
Rich.
Re:brxndxn GOT PWNED (Score:5, Insightful)
9/11 was 7 years, two clusterfuck wars, and $1trillion ago.. And it still was not in my back yard.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
There's also a few hundred thousand dead people in another part of the world who would tell you to put things into perspective and realize which is the greater tragedy.
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You mean Darfur? Sudan? Some other place where the US has not provoked those deaths intentionally, to solidify its presence?
More people should familiarize themselves with Operation Northwoods [go.com] and look at the date posted on that article, as well as the date of the original intent of those ideas.
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You do realize that the United States is bordered by four countries, Canada, Mexico, Russia and Cuba; two of those countries conspired to bury the US in nuclear bombs. The Military is tasked with having plans for every possible contingency and being able to provide the civilian Government with the requested plans and implement on short notice. Just because a plan exists doesn't mean anyone is championing its implementation.
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That plan was evil, and should never have even been drafted, let alone approved by the military and brought to the Secretary of Defense. The people who proposed it should have been brought up on treason charges.
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Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a few thousand dead people from a few years back
And since then, as many people have died in bathtub related accidents.
it's hardly a 'non-existant' problem.
Indeed. Neither are bathtubs. Almost 300 people die every year in bathtubs. Both terrorism and bathtub related fatalities are serious issues that need to have appropriate levels of funding.
Will they kill you if they can?
If any terrorists wanted to kill Americans they'd be selling oil to Americans. That would nail about 50K citizens every year, 20 times more efficient than blowing up random things.
The world isn't black and white
And in a greyscale world, 'terrorist killings' merit about the same level of attention as bathtub safety.
Censorship is bad, OK? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is surprising that the Washington Post would run editorial against free press as a news article.
This is flabbergasting. Does the US stand for democracy and freedom of speech or is it a place where you can't get Al-Jazeera on cable TV? When you step over the lines of disrupting military communications into full blown censorship, you become the oppressor.
The disproportionate use of force is obvious because it's aimed at you. Domestic spying aims at identifying and disrupting communications deemed unfavorable to US interests as defined by GWB and corporate interests. The idea is to keep any opposition disorganized, despised and ineffective. If you want to know how far it goes, have a look at Fox News "mistakes" about the democratic presidential candidate, Osama Barak.
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That's awesome buddy. I'll still be chuckling about that one tomorrow. Thanks man.
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You want the government who caused you to become a target to now prevent you from becoming a target?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And what happens when it's the government's propping up of despots who brutalize their own people, or supplying biological weapons to those despots (then 20 years later invading that country for possessing biological weapons)?
There are some things a free man shouldn't back down from under the threat of
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Hrm.. Pakistan, Lebanon, Thailand, Algeria, Chechnya.. none of those are my back yard. Let them do as they please - we need to leave them alone. They'll fight it out.
And, the 'tiny' amount of muslims in the US still amount to millions - and they're pretty damn peaceful here. I don't see anything wrong with them.
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So, is it reasonable to assume from your comment that you believe Islam is the source of terrorism? So, all we have to do is eliminate Islam, and the world will be safe? There wouldn't be any reason they're doing these things, just that they're Muslim? What about the peaceful Muslims? What about the terror acts not carried out in the name of Allah?
the boogie man will get you (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I realise it's the government's role to instill fear, uncertainty and doubt in the population but, if that's all they've got then I reckon we're all pretty safe.
Re:the boogie man will get you (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is coming from a government that can't even catch organized gangs spamming and selling prescription drugs online....presumably where it is a LOT easier to follow the money trail.
Nothing to see here.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
> And this is coming from a government that can't even catch organized gangs spamming and selling prescription drugs online....presumably
> where it is a LOT easier to follow the money trail.
And..uh..the same government who created/were responsible for the rise of groups like Al-Queda in the first place through its policy of arming/training fundamentalists in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
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Although some incredibly stupid things were done especially regarding Afganistan it wasn't quite as stupid as that. It was mostly Saudi extremists behind the start of it although they were also our allies in an earlier gulf war against Iran.
Reagan's attempt to restart the cold war for whatever weird reasons he had certainly sent a lot of money to dubious groups in Afganistan but they were alread
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, I think you're a little loose on the timeline there.. Reagan was trying to END the cold war by economically breaking the Russians.
The Russians occupied Afghanistan, and the only faction with the 'fight' was the Mujahdeen. [some of whom became the Taliban].
So yes, unused weapons have a LONG shelf life, and yes, the Taliban undoubtedly retained what we sent over there [like Stinger missiles used to shoot down Russian Mil-Hind gunships].
If you really need a perspective on this, Adam Curtis's _The Power of
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Freedom protects freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
The more I see this stuff the more I remember a philosophical point my history teacher told me once. In the revolutionary period, the "news papers" were far more attacking and had far more offensive rumors and accusations.
Now we see freedom being abused to spread "their" propaganda better than "our" propaganda. Whether or not we have the monopoly of truth is debatable. However, we are in a fight here and the *only* way to win a war of ideas is the freedom of expression of these ideas and hope that your ideas win.
As an american, I'm not sure our ideals, as currently practiced, will win. We have to do a better job of things. Al Qaeda is only winning the war of ideals because we, the western world, have turned its back on democracy and society in favor of raw and savage unregulated capitalism which is destroying our economies and an aggressive preemptive war strategy designed to suppress any dissent in foreign nations which is emptying our treasury.
Suppressing information is not a way to win the hearts and minds of people, especially while we are doing such a bad job living up to our ideals.
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I personally would like to see some of these videos and in particular the Q&A session that the Al-Quaeda leader held. But not speaking Arabic, I probably wouldn't be able to find a copy I understand, even if I knew where to start looking for this material. If the propaganda is that impossible to stop, anyone know where I can find it? It's always interesting to understand where people are coming from.
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I don't accept government censorship. If this country (I am in the UK) is to be democratic, then the people of the country must be able to make their own judgements on what is said, not trust the government shown to have lied in these areas before to tell you what is said and what it means whilst hiding the source from you.
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As an american, I'm not sure our ideals, as currently practiced, will win.
And you wonder why the US government wants to suppress freedom.
Re:Freedom protects freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
You make a good point, I would like to see more commentary that reflections the position that you take whilst at the same time acknowledging the risk and threat that we do face.
Agreed!
Like a disease, the threat of Islamic Fundamentalism will not go away, and if left to fester it will cause bigger problems for generations to come. This means we need to be continuously proactive about many things including our freedom of expression.
Don't you mean: Like a disease, the threat of Fundamentalism will not go away, ...... Why pick on Islam? Fundamentalists of all flavors are absolutely ready to destroy the world to see their end game religious prophecy come true. As far as I can tell, religious fundamentalists are ALL bat shit crazy idiots with weapons. Scary stuff.
Having said that, this article is empty. So "they" use free encryption software and the internet to commnicate, ok, I think I guessed that myself.
It's not that the article is empty, it's using empty rhetoric to insinuate that AQ (?) is using sophisticated technology to fight their enemies. Oh noes, they are not a stupid bunch of idiots with rifles. OMG, they know about the Inernets!
Simply put, it's fear mongering.
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Just a thought: Christian fundamentalism is seen as you describe for one reason; it is forced to live side by side with people of reason and has not yet been allowed to infuse the governments with it's dangerous agenda. Should America and other Western societies fail to prevent that from happening, it will be just as dangerous. It is subdued by rule of law, not benign and harmless. Any thought otherwise is hubris. The Christian/biblical principle of an eye for an eye is how warlords escalate their acrimony
Al Qaida = CIA (Score:2, Interesting)
Blowback.
HAIL RED ARMY IN AFGHANISTAN! Extend the gains of the October socialist revolution to the peoples of Afghanistan!
The Trotskyists were right.
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1980: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
2000: The enemy of my enemy of my enemy is... my enemy.
Politicians should take up, like, basically Boolean logic, y'know?
Which Al-Qaeda? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm confused. Is this new decentralised online digital five-nines 256-symmetric multimedia Al Qaeda the same bunch of guys who are starving, cut off from support, and cowering in fear for their lives in caves?
Just wondering.
Mission Accomplished (Score:5, Insightful)
To fight the Qaeda we must suspend the Constitution, take off our shoes and surrender our toothpaste getting on airplanes, invade Iraq (but not Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, but maybe Iran), pay $5 a gallon for gas. Rich people must pay no taxes, but everyone else must maximize oilcorp, pharmaco, telco, and bank profits, and hand Social Security and Medicare over to Wall Street. Free 12MPG Hummers for everyone with a credit rating, and subprime mortgages for everyone without one! Because that's the American Way that the terrorists hate us for.
I feel safer already.
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Outlaw PGP, Freenet, Tor, etc. (Score:2)
Uh oh. PGP is a terrorist tool. We better outlaw it!!! Or at least investigate anyone who uses it.
Distributed content networks are a terrorist tool. We better spend money counteracting such activity!!!
Looks like someone's been paying attention [slashdot.org].
Absolute Rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)
Karem
Common toolsets, similar to TPB even! (Score:4, Interesting)
What irks me about this article is not the technical content itself, it's the power of association that has been at the heart of this conflict from the very beginning.
Planes were crashed, and someone with weakly-diversified chromosomes indicated the Iraqi terrorists hated us, so we blamed them.
We were "at war" with "Iraq", so anyone who might look even a tiny bit middle-eastern was assumed to be a terrorist, and that was dumb.
Now we believe they use common network failover tactics and widely-used encryption software to protect their network, things that several thousand North American network engineers do on a daily basis, but the laypeople will think these are "terrorist tools".
Be warned, I'm biased here, and I'm personally concerned about the use of such finger-pointing tactics against The Pirate Bay, who are well known for employing the same techniques to ensure their uptime and continue to deliver their anti-copyright message, which the right-wingers consider a threat - to the common pureblood, that makes copyright offenders strangely similar to Iraqi terrorists. I'm talking about the same people who coined the term "freedom fries".
There is no al qaeda (Score:5, Insightful)
it's faceless monster created to give us a common enemy.
it doesn't exist.
Re:Editors-of-Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
It's from a reputable source. Besides, there's nothing really strange about this. The idea of using PGP and decentralized servers makes perfect sense. The dubious bit is that warning lights go off in my head every time someone mentions Al-Qaeda because usually it's someone trying to scare me for political reasons.
Don't miss the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
The tech is interesting but besides the bigger point:
He's winning because censorship always backfires. The censored party, no matter how wrong, gains an air of truth. The technology used to carry the message does not matter. Attacks on Al-Jazeera and websites were a terrible mistakes almost as bad as invading Iraq, torturing captives and legal immunity for contractors. We have acted as badly as our supposed Islamo-Fascist enemy and our talk about democracy, freedom of press and human dignity rings hollow.
Re:Don't miss the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
He's winning because censorship always backfires.
No, he's winning because it WORKS. Are you seriously claiming the west censors the muslims more than the muslims censor the west ?
I'll just post a link to how "the economist" looks in a muslim nation :
http://jturn.qem.se/2006/more-pictures-of-iranian-censorship/ [jturn.qem.se]
Terror works, and so does censorship. Using violence to advance a political position works. So what went wrong in the beginning in Iraq ? To little agressiveness on the american side. This whole rules of engagement thing.
Al-qaeda on the other hand, placed bombs in a girls pre-school and detonated the bombs when american soldiers brought back a lost girl. 28 of the children died and both soldiers (and the girl they protected) survived.
And somehow the western press means by "proportionalism" that the US should be less agressive, imagine. The Iraqis know perfectly well how muslims fight : kidnapping kids, wives and old people and executing them en masse in hopes of demoralizing an enemy, have been normal features of muslim conquests everywhere.
All indigenous cultures of northern africa have been totally obliterated by islam : from the ancient egyptians (who still existed when the muslim caliph ordered the library of alexandria burnt down), to the pseudo-roman carthagens, to berbers and tons of other cultures.
Terrorism works. Sooner or later other people will start catching up to this message.
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Re:Don't miss the point. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thugs are thugs.
Terrorists are thugs with brains.
They plan their attacks. They calculate the victim's reactions, not the immediate body count. A terrorist's first goal is to control, murder is simply the means to an end.
Education does not prevent terrorism, it actually helps people become better terrorists. You can't pull that shit off unless you're smart and have trained skills. It's a whole lot more complicated than just squeezing a trigger at anyone that's wearing a different kind of funny hat (or none at all). They have chemists, engineers, architects... it's like a government organization's evil twin, with all the same powers and none of the rules.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Really ? Educated people are not violent, you say ?
Care to show us your unbiased research data ? If anything, an education gives you more information upon which to base your judgement of a person's worth. If you're chemically unbalanced (like me), that information can make you want to kill even more.
*licks lips* Golly, you sure have a pretty mouth.
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You can't win a war on terrorism by killing terror (Score:3, Insightful)
You can only win a war on terrorism by disabling terrorist cells and changing the behavior and thinking patterns of the individuals in leadership positions.
I don't buy the idea that terrorists are the best hackers in the world.They probably do use PGP, they probably do know about computers, but chances are they run Windows, and run commercial closed source software with backdoors in it.
Even if they run Linux it doesn't mean their passwords can't be cracked to their webservers.
I hope when we have a new Presi
Re:Don't miss the point. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what you mean by "the west" or by "muslims." The concepts are distractions used to justify things which are wrong. If we look down on censorship we must not practice it ourselves.
When agents of the US government censor, torture and otherwise violate the US Constitution, enemies of the US can claim hypocrisy. The US must act better to be perceived as better. Principles are more important than "proportion". Conquest, censorship, torture and other lawless behavior is immoral and a losing strategy. Anyone can can point to it and say, "See here what US democracy, free trade, tolerance and liberty are all about."
Re:Don't miss the point. (Score:5, Interesting)
how muslims fight : kidnapping kids, wives and old people and executing them en masse in hopes of demoralizing an enemy
Hiroshima/Nagasaki anyone?
the ancient egyptians (who still existed when the muslim caliph ordered the library of alexandria burnt down)
Yeah. That's what you say. Others say otherwise. Besides, the attack on science is not a muslim thing. It's a religious thing.
So you can crawl back to your hole again and stay there until you figure out how to properly make a point instead of swinging flawed biased pseudo-arguments around. Oh and while you're there, remove the blindfold and read a couple of things. History books are advisable though read more than one author. Books written in the last and before last centuries are also advisable (There were not any neocons back then, only imperialists).
Re:Don't miss the point. (Score:5, Informative)
Example: Menachem Begin, orchestrator of the bloodiest terrorist attack of the 20th century in King David Hotel in Jerusalem, with a death toll of around 90 people, men women and children both Jew and Muslim.
I think there were quite a few larger terrorist attacks in the 20th century. Air India flight 182 resulted in 329 deaths by itself (1985). Of course since it was mostly Canadians who died and was masterminded by Sikhs instead of Muslims it has been ignored by American media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_182 [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What went wrong in Iraq? I don't think aggressiveness was the biggest mistake. Obviously being there itself was a massive mistake, but the largest mistake was disbanding the Iraqi army. All those guys suddenly out of work, seeing their country overrun by foreigners, with all that training, and all that spare time. Not to mention all those mouths to feed. They essentially did what a lot of US troops do when they leave the army - join a private military force. In the US it's Blackwater, in Iraq it's one
Re:Don't miss the point. (Score:4, Interesting)
Go evidence for that? Most historical texts I read talk about the tolerance of Muslims in the lands they aquired. And killing of women, children or elderly in war is directly forbidden, see this excrept from a hadith by prophet Muhammad(source [usc.edu]):
"I advise you ten things: Do not kill women or children or an aged, infirm person. Do not cut down fruit-bearing trees. Do not destroy an inhabited place. Do not slaughter sheep or camels except for food. Do not burn bees and do not scatter them. Do not steal from the booty, and do not be cowardly."
I doubt this. And multiple historians dismiss it as a hoax [wikipedia.org].Again, got evidence?
Re:"Muslims burned Alex. library" hoax (Score:4, Interesting)
Dude, it's not easy to go into a fruitful conversation with you when you're accusing every opinion you don't accept with "Islamofacism", Saudi lobbying and so on.
And bringing an unrelated edit from wikipedia doesn't prove that the article I referred to is wrong, especially that my referenced article cites several sources including books by Alfred J. Butler and Lewis Bernard, who are hardly the victims of influence by Muslims.
I concede that the Milligazette might not have been the best source to cite. Here's another article [bede.org.uk] from a Christian web site stating, again, that the story of Muslims burning the library is dismissed as a legend.
It's funny thay you mentioned "Jahillya". I'm an Arab and I learned a lot of Jahilia poetry at school including the Mu'allaqat [wikipedia.org], for example, which were collections of some of the best Arabic poetry before Islam. And their full text was preserved, along with much of the Arabic culture of the time.
I can receite to you some lines of them if you want :)
(yeah, I know, I linked to wikipedia again but their text references a public domain edition of Encyclopedia Britannica this time, you can check it yourself).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
(I know it's beside your point, but the evidence I cited was from Hadith, not the Quran, and I'd rather not have the two confused!)
To answer your question,
1- I was replying to a poster who thought that "kidnapping kids, wives and old people and executing them [...] have been normal features of muslim conquests everywhere". It's much easier for both sides to communicate openly when the communication
Re:Don't miss the point: WEAKNESS is the enemy. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes.
I was against the Iraq War from day one because it was not a war where we could win AND be the good guys.
Here's the thing about war:
It's not like in the movies. It's not a heroic clash of noble men. It is crawling in the bloody filth and tearing each other's eyes out. That's war.
How do you win a war?
Kill. Kill and kill and kill and kill and kill. Kill until there is no more fight left in the enemy. Kill until their sense of community is destroyed. Kill until they have no reason to go on
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How do you wage a war on a country, while trying to save the country?
That's the problem in Iraq (as with Vietnam). Using the Army as nation-builders is flawed. The Army exists to kill people and blow stuff up.
Re:Editors-of-Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
The dubious bit is that warning lights go off in my head every time someone mentions Al-Qaeda because usually it's someone trying to scare me for political reasons.
Normally I do the same, but the article specifically mentions al-Qaeda by name (not "the terrists", "insurgents", "extremists" or "evil-doers"), refers to the "tribal areas of western Pakistan" and accurately characterises those areas as "ungoverned" (no ambiguous "war on terrorism" angle), and then refrains from drawing unwarranted conclusions about what may or may not be going in Iraq, Iran and Syria.
I'd say that's a trifecta.
Just as importantly, using the fear card (as was done for Iraq) is a no op. Pakistan already has a nuclear program, is and will continue to be an ally, the political and social realities there are so complex that no one would dare try to make talking points out of them for news media, and the US military would prefer to stay out of such inaccessible regions altogether. And then, of course, there's no oil.
As for the possibility that this will draw additional attention to the subject of encryption on the part of the administration, or lawmakers in general, I don't see that happening except, perhaps, at the periphery. The use of encryption is as commonlace as it is widespread. That means the issue, if there is one, involves everyone from big business to the military to ordinary folks checking their email.
Re: (Score:2)
The dubious bit is that warning lights go off in my head every time someone mentions Al-Qaeda because usually it's someone trying to scare me for political reasons.
Yup, and the next question to ask is what are they trying to scare you away from?
The answer in this case is privacy. Al-Qaeda uses PGP! They'd like people to link those two things together if possible. If you're obeying the law you have nothing to hide! And so on.
"online offensive" (Score:4, Insightful)
No doubt they do have some IT and media-literate people, but so what? That's not an "online offensive" except in the metaphorical sense of "offensive" that Pepsi would use about their forthcoming marketing campaign. (campaign, another military word coopted by marketing types.)
Nothing to see here etc etc.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
valid critique (Score:2)
Re:valid critique (Score:5, Insightful)
So asking for proof before buying into a scare campaign into which our tax dollars are being spent at an unprecedented rate is being dismissive? You, sir, represent the political apathy among the masses that allows government to get away with what it does.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To quote XKCD, "Did that man just go crazy and jump out the window?"
Seriously, what are you talking about?
The Washington Post, I can expect, at least checked its facts. They also cited references. If you read through them, you'll see that Al-Qaeda does indeed have an Internet-based propaganda machine and that they were staging Q&A sessions.
In fact, the article sounds critical of the US, saying that we're getting our asses kicked because of incompetence. That ought to be pretty good Slashdot material.
Als
Re:valid critique (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right. I, too, have a propaganda machine, as well as encryption and other scary things. I.e., I have a blog up at www.mrnaz.com and I use SSH from time to time.
Scary.
The article is suggesting that the US is getting their asses kicked not because that's actually what's happening, but becuase telling US citizens that that is what is happening will cause them to clamor for more tax dollars to be spent making rich defense industry shareholders even richer.
Re: Not trying anything heavy handed? Are you freaking nuts? The most expensive military campaign in HISTORY is not heavy handed?
As for proposing rights infringement, are you really that naive that it has to happen *in the same article*? So If you see one article scaring you about "terrorists using encryption" and then another about how police need to have more and more power to probe your private life, you're unable to put 2 and 2 together?
I have no words.
Re: (Score:2)
I give up. You win. Of course, I was referring to the entire war and every article about it when I was responding to someone who asked for proof about this particular article. I also am sure that all communications originating from Al-Queda are in no way propaganda material. And clearly, when I said nothing heavy handed was going on, I couldn't have been referring to this article. I must have been referring to everything the US has done in its history.
I was wrong. I apologize. I will never do it again.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, I was referring to the entire war and every article about it when I was responding to someone who asked for proof about this particular article.
Well maybe I wasn't clear enough, but the whole "yawn... next" phraseology was intended to address this article as the latest in a series rather than an atomic item, separate from all other instances of media and abuse-of-truth contexts.
As you say, the reporting and subject matter in this piece (as a single item devoid of any context) is not controversial.
Re: (Score:2)
Then I demand proof of collusion. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Then I demand proof of collusion. :-)
:-) It's not required [wikipedia.org] for group action.
Re:valid critique (Score:4, Interesting)
Americans are people who think two hundred years is a long time;
Europeans are people who think 200 mile is a long distance;
Arabs are people who think 1000 years is only short time and have had trade routes spanning continents for millennia.
Re: (Score:2)
Encryption and privacy helps us fight the terror. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see how we can be safe from terrorists when terrorists can have access to all our medical records, our financial history, our identity, and basically track our every move.
Yeah we are supposed to win a war against terrorists who have more privacy and security than we do?
PGP is good. Privacy is good. The reason PGP and privacy is good is because you can't have security without privacy, and without security you can't have liberty, and without liberty then the terrorists win, because what else is worth
Re: (Score:2)
In this case, though, I have no reason to doubt its validity, and I certainly didn't come away from it thinking I should let the government curtail some of my rights.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance though. The fact that Al Qaeda is using the internet and tools such as PGP is also being used (certainly in Europe) to justify banning "hacking" tools and pervasive monitoring of the internet. We as technical people can see that neither of these actions will do anything to prevent the original prob
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yawn. Proof please. Next.
Proof for what? That they're producing propaganda? Do you really doubt that?
Re: (Score:2)
They're using Sony stuff, so they can't be dangerous.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder if a law about handing over your keys could be invalidated based on the fifth amendment if it came to a legal trial. It seems to violate the bit about not having to bear witness against oneself.
Re: (Score:2)
Proof that it is something I should be overly concerned about.
Who is asking you to be overly concerned about it?
Proof that this isn't some prelude to removing the rights of ordinary citizens to use encryption, or to demand they give up their keys to the Government upon request, as in the UK. Proof that the propaganda I should be worrying about is the one from abroad, and not the harder-to-detect propaganda that comes from a reputable source.
1) How would one prove these?
2) Where is that mentioned in the article or summary?
Nothing is as easy as cheap skepticism.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Who is asking you to be overly concerned about it?
Then why is it news?
This just in - terrorists don't leave their passwords on post-it notes underneath their keyboards.
1) How would one prove these?
That's not my problem. I am not the governmental apparatus which has been heading in those directions.
Simply I'm laying down why I am skeptical.
2) Where is that mentioned in the article or summary?
It isn't - these are my extrapolations.
Nothing is as easy as cheap skepticism.
No - inaction is far easier - we, the citizenry, have been recently far too guilty of that however.
Partly an ad for PGP? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do people who don't agree with the policies of the U.S. government really buy their encryption software online, using their credit cards? From a company in Menlo Park, California?
Shouldn't all encryption software be open source? Otherwise, how do you know it is secure? Maybe an unhappy employee built in a back door.
Oh, and TrueCrypt [truecrypt.org] encrypts entire hard drives, including the boot partition.
The mention of political enemies of the U.S. government using closed-source software from a U.S. company makes me wonder about the entire article. Quote from the article: "Files are protected using PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy, a virtually unbreakable form of encryption software that is also used by intelligence agencies around the world."
I'm VERY doubtful about that. The U.S. government, under the present administration, has established that it can require companies to cooperate, and to keep the cooperation secret. That means that any U.S.-made product could be suspect. That's one of the unintended consequences of being sneaky.
Re: (Score:2)
Do people who don't agree with the policies of the U.S. government really buy their encryption software online, using their credit cards? From a company in Menlo Park, California?
Nope, they warez it like the rest of us.
Or an ad for Sony? (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't it funny how TFA mentions that "producers use ultralight Sony Vaio laptops and top-end video cameras"? I wonder why the make and model of the cameras aren't mentioned. They got close enough to know which laptops those guys use, but have no idea of where they are hiding...
Re: (Score:2)
It's beautifully crafted propaganda, and it's a huge problem for
us,"That is how I would characterize this article!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree, proof please. It seems they want to scare the sheeple...ZOMGZORGZ you might die ... soonish.
Again, what do you want proof for? That they would produce propaganda or that they're taking security measures? Or what? Of course, there will be people that will want to use this to create undue alarm, but I just can't figure out what you and the parent are skeptical of and need proof for.
Re: (Score:2)
It just seems that they pull stuff out of their arses and report on it.
It seems to me to be an interesting, reasonable article...sources, attributes and all of that. It doesn't even seem to me to have an alarmist tone. Is it earth-shattering news? No, but I guess I don't see what they pulled "out of their arses."
What we are implying is that Al-Qaeda might not be what we are told it is...
Very possibly. But, if I just wanted to be a skeptical little shit, I could always just quote the parent and reply, "Yawn. Proof please. Next."
Re:Editors-of-Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
if I just wanted to be a skeptical little shit, I could always just quote the parent and reply, "Yawn. Proof please. Next."
Any time Al-Qaeda is mentioned, it is to sell copy or to push an agenda. Preferably both.
When rights and statutes are being trampled upon all over the world with no proof that what we are giving up is worth less of that which we sacrifice, it is the duty of the populace to question their governance and its mouth, the media, in all its forms.
If that makes me a skeptical little shit, then so be it.
Re:Anyone could prove (Score:5, Funny)
You know, it may not be FUD. Imagine if Al-Qaeda and Anonymous joined forces! Then we'd be truly fucked. Their tagline would be: "Taking down the West for Epic Lulz"
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry you lost that war 10 years ago.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
you obviously don't get access to any of the HD videos, that's for brown people only.