WAR: Dozens of Al Qaeda websites shutdown overnight

Originally posted by Astronomer68
This move is such a common sense approach to denying communications to the enemy I'm a bit surprised it was not done before. [edit on 31-7-2005 by Astronomer68]

You have voted Astronomer68 for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.

I find it rather odd that Israeli intellegence came out with this...

I wouldnt be too surprised if there were some kind of retaliation attack for this. I don't know how well the al-qaeda "cyber division" is, but I'm sure they've been scouting out the flaws and vulnerabilities of internet use in the west for quite some time.

As an above poster stated, this is a double edged blade, it cuts their communications and also may spark a retaliation.. fueling the fire.

The internet is a scary place.. and full of security flaws

could it be that AQ are cutting ties and that they are shutting these sites in preparation of a major offense? There is no hard evidence that anyone 'did' this, sorry if I don't trust Israel, and why not? the easiest way to find someone is thorugh cyberspace. If someone uses a 386 in a internet cafe in Morroco and sends an IM with 'keywords' it is known. Just hought I would put that thought out there....

I notice a few people saying that Islamist hackers might retaliate. I find this unlikely, as all the best hackers are in the West. We have more computers, we design most of the hardware and the US houses the backbone of the interent. From the sophistication of the attack,( indeed, just reading how it was done makes me smile ) I would say that is most definately done by a western intelligence agency. Why not OSB and his chums? Well because as someone said, they need every peice of communication with the outside world they can get at the moment. These sites are where all the beheading/training manuals etc etc forums etc are. People meet and greet here. So shutting them down and forever shutting them down wherever they appear can only be a good thing.

As for the freedom of speech issues, don't worry. There are certain things on the web which aren't acceptable: Pedophile's for one and Islamic militants for the other. The Internet is a wonderfull wonderfull gift. People that abuse it, deserve to have their sites destroyed. And besides, the modern economy is so dependant on the web now that the government would never dream of a huge crackdown because the world economy would collapse.

Enslaved83 over and out

[edit on 1-8-2005 by enslaved83]

(I'm half asleep, but I had to mention something about this)

This is scarry for a number of reasons.

1) You are right, Astronomer68 ... why wasn't this done a while ago? Just to let you all know, Canada took a step in this direction over a week ago... just days after the attack...wouldn't be surprised of the Canadian government saw right through the whole thing, and said... "Enough is enough of this sort of crap..."

www.libertyforum.org...∂=all

As far as I can remember its always been illegal to threaten death and destruction through any communications medium ... personally I never really believed that any of those sites were run by anyone even remotely connected with terrorism. For all we know its some bored kids in the UAE, or they could be intelligence fronts, they could be "honey pots" of some sort ... they could have been used to "monitor" threats from unpredictable factions that are dumb enough to announce their moves to the world before acting... I could go on (you know that) ...but what I've always thought is that as propaganda or organizing tools for the "terrorists" these sites would be fairly useless. If you were "the terrorists" and you knew you were technologically at as disadvantage, would you use communications tools (for anything important) that could be easily compromised by your enemy? Of course not. So what REAL purpose have these sites ever really served anyway? Everything I want to say but I'm still too tired and have to go back to bed is right here with comments...

kurtnimmo.com...

2) Interestingly enough, this comes on the heals of the discovery that the AQ web site which took responsibility for 7/7 was located INSIDE the United States...

globalpolitician.com...

www.whatreallyhappened.com... (read the bottom part specially)

Then check this propaganda out... www.rightwingnews.com... .. interesting spin? No?

So I'm not surprised, now that everyone started asking questions about these sites, that something is finally being done about it.

I AM surprised... that who ever did it shut down the sites, isn't taking responsibility for it.. and you know how hackers are, specially with everyone saying "Good job." ... odd that no one has boasted about actually shutting sites, instead what we have the Israelis claming someone else must have done it... interesting how they always seem to know all about these attacks (terror or otherwise) and who did it before anyone else does.


3) And this is the MOST important scarry thing.... www.whatreallyhappened.com... ... specially with all that seems to be lurking on the horizon.

See this same thing happened JUST BEFORE.. 9-11. Why? Well read.. because I can't type for another minute here. I stayed up just to mention point #3... so.. sorry if this post is a little confusing... I can barely keep my eyes open at this point.. ready to pass out.. but I JUST HAD to mention #3 since... since I feel like there is a bigger reason for this announcement.


-VMX


PS: Prepare... because "something" is coming.