Sunday, March 12, 2006

Al Qaeda's Web of Terror - How Al Qaeda Stays Connected


Al Qaeda's Web of Terror | MediaChannel.org: "How Al Qaeda Stays Connected?

According to Pakistani intelligence sources, the use of free and anonymous e-mail services such as Yahoo! or Hotmail by al Qaeda operatives is widespread.

To avoid being intercepted, the messages are not sent but saved in the account's draft box.

They can then be retrieved by other operatives by simply logging on to the same e-mail address — with a shared password.

This technique makes it impossible for intelligence services such as the British GCHQ or the American NSA to read these messages without hacking into the servers themselves, which they are legally prohibited to do.

And even if they do read these messages, intelligence services worldwide are confronted with a second hurdle: Al Qaeda's operatives speak in code words which makes it impossible for any outsider to understand their true content if they have not penetrated the organization already.

Such 'intelligence breaks' are extremely rare, but not unheard of. In October 2001, the British police arrested a French computer engineer linked to a major al Qaeda cell in Europe.

Kamel Daoudi was found in possession of a 'codebook' that later enabled Western intelligence services to decrypt thousands of e-mails and phone conversations that they had previously intercepted but had not been able to crack."

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