Here's a problem the U.S. Govt. helps foster along (it's thousands of years old, actually, and I'm not sure we can just be mum on the subject given our Govt.'s idiotic past meddling), and now WE may (as usual) have to pay the price because of it. I can see it now: "Encryption use now illegal by U.S. citizens due to terrorist concerns." Sounds like a pretext for more control to me.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010206/ts/crime_encryption_dc_3.html
Extremists Said to Be Scrambling Messages on Web
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Muslim extremists, including Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), are posting encrypted -- or scrambled -- photographs and messages on popular Web sites and using them to plan attacks against the United States and its allies, USA TODAY reported Tuesday.
The newspaper quoted U.S. law enforcement officials and experts as saying that extremists were using e-mail, computerized files, and encryption to hide maps and photographs of their targets, and instructions for carrying out attacks, on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and other Web sites.
The Internet has become a new form of the ``dead drop,'' a Cold War-era term for where spies left information, the paper quoted officials as saying.
They said the messages were scrambled using free encryption programs set up by groups that advocate privacy on the Internet. Those same programs also can hide maps and photographs in an existing image on selected Web sites. The e-mails and images can only be decrypted using a ``private key,'' or code, selected by the recipient.
USA TODAY said officials cited security concerns in declining to name sites where such material had been hidden. Experts said, however, it was difficult for law enforcement agencies to intercept the messages.
Bin Laden, a dissident Saudi businessman, has been indicted for the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and has been named as a possible suspect behind last fall's bombing of the USS Cole destroyer in Yemen.
Four alleged bin Laden associates went on trial Monday in federal court in New York for the embassy bombings.
``To a greater and greater degree, terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and bin Laden's al Qaida group, are using computerized files, e-mail, and encryption to support their operations,'' CIA (news - web sites) Director
George Tenet wrote last March to a closed-door session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to the USA TODAY report.
Officials say bin Laden began using encryption five years ago, but recently increased its use after U.S. officials revealed they were tapping his satellite telephone calls in Afghanistan and tracking his activities.
``We will use whatever tools we can -- e-mails, the Internet -- to facilitate jihad against the (Israeli) occupiers and their supporters,'' the paper quoted Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant Muslim group Hamas, as saying in a recent interview in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites). ``We have the best minds working with us.''
********
These terroist morons remind me of the gun-confiscation crowd (aka the gun-control crowd). They only thing that will beat them, at least in the short term, is extreme resolve and force. They're not going to be swayed by reason, only by (I'm sorry to say) total devastation. Unfortunately, our freedoms (not to mention lives and dollars) may be sacrificed for this foreign problem.
DAL
P.S. Only an idiot would put actual info. of this type on the Internet; just about any code can eventually be broken. I suspect this is a ruse by bin Laden to funnel false info. to his enemies and divert their attention/resources elsewhere. So we may lose a little more freedom for nothing.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010206/ts/crime_encryption_dc_3.html
Extremists Said to Be Scrambling Messages on Web
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Muslim extremists, including Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), are posting encrypted -- or scrambled -- photographs and messages on popular Web sites and using them to plan attacks against the United States and its allies, USA TODAY reported Tuesday.
The newspaper quoted U.S. law enforcement officials and experts as saying that extremists were using e-mail, computerized files, and encryption to hide maps and photographs of their targets, and instructions for carrying out attacks, on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin boards and other Web sites.
The Internet has become a new form of the ``dead drop,'' a Cold War-era term for where spies left information, the paper quoted officials as saying.
They said the messages were scrambled using free encryption programs set up by groups that advocate privacy on the Internet. Those same programs also can hide maps and photographs in an existing image on selected Web sites. The e-mails and images can only be decrypted using a ``private key,'' or code, selected by the recipient.
USA TODAY said officials cited security concerns in declining to name sites where such material had been hidden. Experts said, however, it was difficult for law enforcement agencies to intercept the messages.
Bin Laden, a dissident Saudi businessman, has been indicted for the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and has been named as a possible suspect behind last fall's bombing of the USS Cole destroyer in Yemen.
Four alleged bin Laden associates went on trial Monday in federal court in New York for the embassy bombings.
``To a greater and greater degree, terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and bin Laden's al Qaida group, are using computerized files, e-mail, and encryption to support their operations,'' CIA (news - web sites) Director
George Tenet wrote last March to a closed-door session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to the USA TODAY report.
Officials say bin Laden began using encryption five years ago, but recently increased its use after U.S. officials revealed they were tapping his satellite telephone calls in Afghanistan and tracking his activities.
``We will use whatever tools we can -- e-mails, the Internet -- to facilitate jihad against the (Israeli) occupiers and their supporters,'' the paper quoted Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the militant Muslim group Hamas, as saying in a recent interview in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites). ``We have the best minds working with us.''
********
These terroist morons remind me of the gun-confiscation crowd (aka the gun-control crowd). They only thing that will beat them, at least in the short term, is extreme resolve and force. They're not going to be swayed by reason, only by (I'm sorry to say) total devastation. Unfortunately, our freedoms (not to mention lives and dollars) may be sacrificed for this foreign problem.
DAL
P.S. Only an idiot would put actual info. of this type on the Internet; just about any code can eventually be broken. I suspect this is a ruse by bin Laden to funnel false info. to his enemies and divert their attention/resources elsewhere. So we may lose a little more freedom for nothing.
