Hackers can Destabilize Terrorist Information Infrastructure
littleMissPatriot
We're in a new kind of guerilla war that hackers are singularly poised to
fight. These terrorists are attacking the common person, and I think that
the common person can fight back. The loose networks of terrorist groups
rely heavily on information technology and the internet. I'd like to
encourage the members of the hacking community to find these peoples' (or
sympathetic) sites and servers on the network and completely incapacitate
them or better yet, launch targeted viruses on their machines.
This country does not excusively need to engage in armed combat to
retaliate. We can adopt their shadowy tactics and use them to fight back.
Do not be confused and target Muslim sites. That is like the creeps who
harass muslim people. Only target TERRORIST NETWORK SITES (these ones are
in the states, but you can do a little leg work and find others in countries
that sponsor international terrorism like Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria,
etc):
www.hizbollah.org
www.moqawama.org
www.almanar.com.lb
A place that will lead to identifying other terrorist sites:
www.ummah.org.uk
We're facing a very great threat of loosely-coupled, organizational networks
that increasingly rely on IT infrastructure to coordinate their movements
and recruit young disenfranchised, apathetic guys as suicidal pawns in a
sophisticated, dispersed movement. Sustained attacks against this
infrastructure (like nimda) may serve to destabilize, at least temporarily.
Destabilization means mostly hampering recruitment, and to a limited extent
ability to
coordinate and strategize.
Just think. Next time is not a potential, it is a certainty. Next time may
not just be a tv event for you. (If you're in CA, we're the 6th strongest
economy in the world. We are strong targets.) And next time it may not
suffice just to make a symbolic statement using brilliant tactics and a
masterful show of coordination. We know that members of this network have
WMD, and they have shown us that they have the means to deliver it.
littleMissPatriot
arguements I've been getting and already answered. This list is growing as
I increase the dialog.
1. Targeting servers maliciously as you suggest is illegal and violates the
hacking 'code of ethics'.
2. The activities that you're suggesting may interfere with our own
intelligence operations.
3. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Your view is
one-sided and does not address the societal conditions/US actions that have
made us the target of these attacks in the first place.
4. Neither Osama bin Laden, nor his associates have been proven guilty.
5. Even if al Qaeda is guilty, who are we to be judge, executioner & jury
and want to target those & affiliated sites? A civilized response demands
due process and the machinery of civilized society (ie: the government) to
exact punitive actions.
6. I like your ideas. Unfortunately, you are going to attract clueless
kids who have no skill or message. They will pull obscene "chicks with
dicks" hacks that will offend these religiously-motivated groups and
reinforce a distorted image in the terrorists' minds of the western evil
they are fighting.
7. Your view that this war can be fought on the technology front is
Utopian. War is war. Face the facts that we are going to be losing human
lives and stop broadcasting your unrealistic message.
8. What you propose is to attack the right of free speech of another group.
Attacking that fundamental right makes us just as bad as the people we are
targeting.
9. How do you know so much about these networks as you claim?
10. How is someone to define which site is a terrorist site?
11. It is wrong to suggest that a hacker act as judge/jury and executioner
towards terrorist online targets.
12. You are advocating net-terrorism. Plain and simple.
13. Do you have any idea about the can of worms that you are trying to
open?
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1. Targeting servers maliciously as you suggest is illegal and violates the
hacking 'code of ethics'.
I confess that I find this mentality to be a strange one at war time. If
you do not believe we should be defending ourselves and our civilization,
you are not going to agree with my message. However, if you can condone the
killing of our enemy as a means to
protect ourselves, it is puzzling logic by which you can draw the line and
hold the enemy's systems sancrosanct.
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2. The activities that you're suggesting may interfere with our own
intelligence operations.
I think this raises a very legitimate concern, but I don't think that it
would interfere. (our folks need all the help they can get anyway
-- they certainly didn't prevent these attacks...)
Here's my reasoning:
WEB CONTENT IS PUBLICLY-AVAILABLE INFORMATION
I think that these organizations are not using the web so much for
coordination & organization, as they are for spreading their ideology and
recruiting. There may be some images used as "signs", kind of like the shot
fired at the beginning of a track meet, but I would suspect that the real
business of strategy & planning carried out in these orgs is very much
like any other - using much more immediate and personal modes of
interaction. Hacking their sites is preventing their "message" from
getting out. The terrorist business is a business of sending "messages".
IMPACT TO U.S. INTELLIGENCE CAN BE MITIGATED OR BENEFICIAL
Nothing is stopping a patriotic hacker from copying all info off site,
zipping it & notifying govt agencies anonymously and leaving on anon server
for authorities. Take all information off the site, give it to the US, then
SHUT IT DOWN,.
-> I actually think they'd appreciate the aggravation hackers are causing
the "enemy". It allows our government to spend money in other areas.
STATE-SPONSORED COUNTER-TERRORISM TACTICS AND STRATEGY ARE HIGHLY FOCUSED ON
HUMANINT
Kind of a further elaboration on the first point. Covert operations are
obviously waged on many fronts. Past accumulated experience of USA, France,
Britain and Israel shows that the real payoff is gained in human
intelligence operations: infiltration of operatives into these cells,
coaxing of double agents, etc. ->Hackers aren't getting mixed up in the
primary playing field
STATE-SPONSORED TECHNICAL COVERT OPERATIONS WORK ON ANOTHER PLATEAU
The kinds of technical efforts our government is engaged in (Echelon,
Carnivore, etc.) is way beyond the scope or capabilities of the hacker
community. The strategy and planning done using technical means involves
email, chat and more personal types of communication. They are listening to
everything (interpreting is another matter....). -> Hackers represent the
"entrepreneurial and creative spirit" of America engaging terrorists on the
"streets" of our information infrastructure, instead of in the "private
boardrooms" or "corridors of power".
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3. "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Your view is
one-sided and does not address the societal conditions/US actions that have
made us the target of these attacks in the first place.
I understand that certain groups may have legitimate beefs with this
government, and our foreign policy has not been perfect. But the people of
the WTC/Pentagon did not deserve what occurred. And an imperfect state has
the right to defend itself. And most importantly, our lives are being
collectively threatened by this loose federation of activists who make their
point by killing innocent people and trying to destabilize western society.
There are other ways to resolve conflict - leaders like Mahatma Ghandi & MLK
demonstrated how peaceful means can be effectively used by less powerful
peoples to reach resolution or advancement. This group of people is not
providing the American people with an option for peaceful resolution. We
are being put in the position of needing to defend ourselves against
unspeakable violence. These terrorists are not typical of Islamic society
and they have no agenda beyond destabilizing this (and all western) society
& replacing order with chaos. I cannot accept that potential outcome for
myself, or for my children.
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4. Neither Osama bin Laden, nor his associates have been proven guilty in
the acts of Sept. 11.
That is one point that disturbs me in our state-sponsored military action -
I just hope there are conversations ocurring on this topic that are not
publicly available. The actions that I'm suggesting are state-sympathetic,
not state-sponsored. In addition, they are non-lethal as our military
action certainly is. Even if bin Laden or his associates are not guilty in
Sept. 11, they are guilty of past acts against this country. Osama bin
Laden is a terrorist. al-Qaida is a terrorist network. Terrorists
performed the actions on Sept. 11. We are fighting a war against terrorism.
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5. Even if al Qaeda is guilty, who are we to be judge, executioner & jury
and as hackers target those & affiliated sites? A civilized response
demands due process and the machinery of civilized society (ie: the
government) to exact punitive actions.
In times of war, history abounds with exemplars of the civilian,
militia-oriented freedom-fighting
forces. The Jews in WW2 organized a civilian underground to attack and
confound the Nazis. Our revolutionary war against the British was fueled by
the civilian militia. In Israel today, off-duty/retired cops and soldiers
carry weapons as civilians to defend against the terrorist enemy. We are at
war, and we are at war with terrorists. Their target is not our government,
their target is the civilian population. The civilians on flight 93 were
judge, jury and executioners (and heroes to a degree that I can not even
imagine) when they attacked the terrorists and brought that plane down in an
unpopulated field. We are also under attack. As civilians we are able to
fight back.
+++++++++
6. I like your ideas. Unfortunately, you are going to attract clueless
kids who have no skill or message. They will pull obscene "chicks with
dicks" hacks that will offend these religiously-motivated groups and
reinforce a distorted image in the terrorists' minds of the western evil
they are fighting.
That is certainly a risk. Tagging acts that are offensive to the Islamic
faith only serve to reinforce a world picture that sees western influence as
an influence of societal disintegration and justifies jihad for the people
who are trying to kill us. I'm hoping that if someone is smart enough to do
damage to terrorist sites, they are smart enough to do it in an appropriate
manner.
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7. Your view that this war can be fought on the technology front is
Utopian. War is war. Face the facts that we are going to be losing human
lives and stop broadcasting your unrealistic message.
I am not suggesting that a "Hacking War" be the only front that this "war"
be fought on, simply another front. We're facing a very great threat of
loosely-coupled, organizational networks that increasingly rely on IT
infrastructure to coordinate their movements and recruit young
disenfranchised guys as suicidal pawns in a sophisticated, dispersed
movement. Sustained attacks against this
infrastructure (like nimda) may serve to destabilize, at least temporarily.
Terrorist groups will not be aided in completing objectives that might hurt
you if they have to be sidelined by annoying and humiliating attacks on
their own defenses and organizational infrastructure.
+++++++++
8. What you propose is to attack the right of free speech of another group.
Attacking that fundamental right makes us just as bad as the people we are
targeting.
It is a fallacy to perceive this as an issue of free speech. It is
most certainly not: This is an issue of survival. I do not advocate
abridging the rights of any of the people within this country, or in the
countries of our allies. But I can absolutely say that we are about to see
more deaths in this country at the hands of these terrorists. No one has
yet debated me on that statement. At a certain point for each of us, it
will come too late once special people that make each of our lives a rich
experience are butchered more mercilessly than animals. This is not a
pleasant rhetorical debate. We are at war with these people.
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9. How do you know so much about these networks as you claim?
I'm not sure that I claimed anything that is not published freely and
available to people who want to educate themselves on the nature of
terrorist organizations, their methods and anti-terrorist strategy. I
suggest you read the book "Countering the New Terrorism", available as a
free .pdf on the Rand site, www.rand.org . (This is a Washington think-tank
and their analysis done in this book published a couple of years back is
chilling in a post Sept. 11 world.) I also suggest you read the analysis
available on http://www.ict.org.il/ . These sources are just a start and I
will be updating this FAQ with more information in future.
Read the research and analysis and come up with your own conclusions.
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10. How is someone to define which site is a terrorist site?
As we know, al Qaeda is a loose affiliation of fundamentalist-islamic
terrorist groups. They have several affiliations that are well-known and
well-accepted by those that analyze these matters. I'm not being facetious
here, but it doesn't take much smarts to figure out that a site
congratulating the perpetrators of Sept. 11, admitting to terrorist acts in
the past, posting photographs of hostages that it has taken, making vague
threats as to atrocities that they will perpetrate in future, is
terrorist-oriented. Here's a few well known terrorist organizations who
have taken credit for acts in the
past:
Hizbullah
al Qaeda / Osama bin Laden
Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA)
Hamas
Egyptian Islamic Militants (Gamat al-Islamiya)
I suggest you check out the resources at http://www.ict.org.il for others.
They also have a very good article on "defining terrorism", which
unfortunately, is like defining pornography.
+++++++++
11. It is wrong to suggest that a hacker act as judge/jury and executioner
towards terrorist online targets.
In times of war, history
abounds with exemplars of the civilian, militia-oriented freedom-fighting
forces. The Jews in WW2 organized a civilian underground to attack and
confound the Nazis. Our revolutionary war against the British was fueled by
the civilian militia. In Israel today, off-duty/retired cops and soldiers
carry weapons as civilians to defend against the terrorist enemy. We are at
war, and we are at war with terrorists. Their target is not our government,
their target is the civilian population. The civilians on flight 93 were
judge, jury and executioners (and heroes to a degree that I can not even
imagine) when they attacked the terrorists and brought that plane down in an
unpopulated field. We are also under attack. As civilians we are able to
fight back.
+++++++++
12. You are advocating net-terrorism. Plain and simple.
No, we are fighting terrorism. This time, a state is not our enemy which
makes this confrontation unique in history. Our enemy is a network of very
malicious and evil people. I am advocating civilian resisitance to
terrorism by pitting one loosely-coupled network of individuals against
another one. We are at war.
+++++++++
13. Do you have any idea about the can of worms that you are trying to
open?
Do you have any idea of the can of worms that we have to fight in order to
survive?