Think Progress

Al Qaeda embraces Myspace.com.

By Judd on Mar 10th, 2006 at 10:24 am

Al Qaeda embraces Myspace.com.»

ABC News reports that beginning in “early 2002, al Qaeda quickly switched to hiding its online operations within more legitimate bulletin boards and Internet sites offering free upload services or connecting through such popular social network sites as Orkut and MySpace.”

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43 Responses to “Al Qaeda embraces Myspace.com.”


  1. Clif Says:

    Are you guys trying to tell me that the trolls here are actually Al Qaeda operatives that post in code and it just looks like they don’t have anything constructive to say and so they sound so stupid because we do not have their secret codebook?


  2. Colorado Jyms Says:

    Thank god Bush is spying on us so this kind of thing doesn’t happen.


  3. madrino Says:

    Isn’t ABC news an oxymoron?


  4. Don Says:

    I think that this story was planted by the Pentagon to justify domestic spying and, soon, more control of the internet.


  5. BigBoy Says:

    Isn’t Myspace owned by Murdoch and FoxNews??

    They should be responsible for their content…


  6. lib4 Says:

    And who just bought myspace.com

    why that would be that TERROR LOVIN RUPERT MURDOCH

    I cant wait for Malkin, Rush and Ann to start calling him Osama Bin Murdoch…that gonna be anyday now….anyday

    Hey maybe Abu Gonzales will get congress to ban the internet now….


  7. kindness Says:

    Oh My God….Now the FBI, CIA & NSA are all going to be spending all their time over at myspace.com?

    The pre/teens/twentysomethings are all gonna have big govt files now. I wonder how they will evaluate the threat level?


  8. Punchy Says:

    CIA/NSA Myspace.com profiles just exploded…

    NSA wiretapping/snooping of Myspace in three, two, one….


  9. Clif Says:

    Kindness can you see a NSA spy trying to figure out what the teenagers are saying, the computers would smoke while looking for the “code” they use……as any parent can tell you….LOL


  10. Quisp Says:

    Jeez, the terrorists are taking all the good ideas from the pedophiles! Where can a Decent Ordinary Pedophile turn to?


  11. RunningDogLackey Says:

    I think we’ll soon discover that al-Qaeda has also infiltrated libraries, coffee shops, poetry readings, labor unions and places where more than three people are gathered without a permit. Oh, and private homes, of course.


  12. RunningDogLackey Says:

    #11 Just imagine how embarrassing it would be to find out that all those “under-age girls” on MySpace are actually hairm men named Achmed.

    It was bad enough when they were just undercover cops.


  13. RunningDogLackey Says:

    “hairy”


  14. xsociate23 Says:

    So now we can add being a member of MySpace as another criteria for being a potential terrorist?


  15. The Witch Says:

    May I just say, I knew that place was evil?

    Real patriots use livejournal. :)


  16. Russia with love Says:

    Президент Кустик будет идиотом, котор он носит knickers девушок и должен никогда не вторгаться Ирак

    President Vladimir Putin


  17. Labdad Says:

    Are Murdoch and Bin Laden close?


  18. Eric Says:

    First rupert murdock, then al Q finds myspace.

    Dammit I really thought those guys were serious about swapping a gig with us.


  19. Jules Says:

    And here I was afraid some big burly man was going to try to talk to my child. Now I have to worry about her being recruited into the Taliban and all her conversations about what she is wearing to the soccer game will be monitored by Bushco!

    Will it ever end?


  20. Gerald Gibson Says:

    These shallow minded people in the government need to rethink their aggressor strategy. If I was a terrorist I would do all kinds of things to hide my conversations… Lets see.. write my own encryption using any of the freely available software development tools… Buy an account on World of Warcraft and talk off in some dungeon somewhere with “code speak” … Post messages in any of the millions of blogs, chat bots, post “watermarked” pictures on free picture hosting sites, get on disney toon towns and chat, on and on and on. Can they keep up with every possible communication? I think not. The Internet has only begun and the possibilities are only increasing.

    We need to change the desire to do these things. Not attack people and act like we are marching on open battle fields. That frontal attack crap just isnt going to work anymore. The goal should be as Eisenhower put it …

    Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war — as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years — I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

    -Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961


  21. Alvord Says:

    Bush is a *&&$!%@ .


  22. Zookeeper Says:

    Finally, I’ve found the key to getting my son to crash his myspace site. Rupert Murdoch owns it!

    #8 - I wonder how they will evaluate the threat level?
    kindness, Homeland “Security” didn’t raise the threat level when OBL made a direct threat to the US not too long ago, so there ya go.


  23. Smedley Says:

    I agree lets get rid on all Nuclear Bombs, or maybe 10 per side, enough to hold of an alien invader at least (*?), have world police force made up of everynation to check each others countries for weapons, and spend all the money on Liberal values

    I nstead we spend enough in one year on Nuclear weapons to educate,feed and house the entire world for 5 years

    we are a dumb planet


  24. Gerald Gibson Says:

    24)

    Yet there are plenty of human beings around that can understand the idea of not destroying ourselves. If only there was a button somewhere that said “Jesus Mode” that we could press that would force everyone to suddenly feel that putting others first is the only way to live ones life. All the worlds problems could disappear with a simple change of thought. No special science. No neat little gizmos need to be invented. No amount of money would be needed. Just a “I change my mind” globally and everything would be different… Yet humanity continues on in complete self destruction for no apparent reason. So much of our past has been destroyed by this ignorance. The library of Alexandria is a perfect example. Between the romans and the christians most of humanities knowledge gathered throughout ancient times was simply burnt. If reason was embraced universally there is absolutely NO problem we could not overcome. Science has proven this. Humanity through reason can engineer any existance we want. If another ice age comes would COULD push back the ice and build huge green houses to grow food… instead (if history repeats itself) we will kill each other and destroy much of what humanity has built in the past 200 years and revert back the religious nuts murderering their way to enslavement of the people.


  25. pete Says:

    gerald gibson. your #21 is right on point. there are uncountable tools on the internet that would allow communication in ways that it would take generations of watchers to monitor.


  26. Gerald Gibson Says:

    26)

    Indeed. I have built my own encrypted systems. I can totally protect my conversations from being monitored. I can encrypt a message over and over and over with several different encryption methods all stacked… I can go so far as reencrypting my message with over 100 different encryption methods. Even if you cracked one layer you would still have dozens more encryptions to get passed… I am not even a security expert. Any script kiddie out there could figure out how to do it. And how many NSA systems are setup to decrypt a message that is encrypted over 100 different ways all at once? Even if they built one that doesnt stop someone from throwing even more layers of different kinds in… It is like outlawing guns… only the lawful people will not have guns… the criminals will continue to find a way…so only stupid criminals or innocent people are being spied on.


  27. Clif Says:

    Gerald they won’t be able to decript a teenager any more than any parent ever has been able to…..the computers will smoke trying………


  28. pete Says:

    you might want to drop it out of overdrive, there, gerald. 100x encryption is probably not much safer than 99x or 33x. plenty of more prosaic options are available: like single-use ciphers and blind drops. the point is that terrorist infiltration of myspace is no more a cause for alarm than terrorist infiltration of anything else. it’s bound to happen in thousands of unstoppable, unmonitorable ways. you said it yourself: we should change their desire to do harm. i think we should do it by showing them how much better life can be when free-thinking people agree to tolerate each other’s differences.


  29. kindness Says:

    I love that this one has generated humor! Too often we are so serious.

    I can see the threat level go up when the “investigators” start looking at the pictures and reading the suggestive bio’s of some of the lil hotties over there. Oh my God!! Code Blue Balls! Code Blue Balls! Take a look at this one & crank the Security Code to RED HOT BABY!!!


  30. kindness Says:

    On the other hand I could just imagine the bio’s of some of the Al Queada sleepers:

    I am 23 years old. I luv Black Eye Peas, hangin’ with my homies and KILLING ALL THE INFIDELLLS!!! Where my 72 virgins at sucka?


  31. Zookeeper Says:

    kindness, you crack me up.


  32. SKdeA Says:

    I suggest that we all start a myspace (and freindster, and any others we can think of) page, and every day, just go in and post gibberish wth the word jihad prominently featured! I will be willing to bet that the spy resources are not up to keeping up with a few dedicated posters wasting their time.
    What the hell, we probably are all undersurvelliance anyway for being here in TP, we may as well put our tax dollars to waste!


  33. Justin Says:

    Hasn’t anyone else noticed the large amount of negative myspace stories in the news lately, first about pedophiles and now al-qaeda? The idea is to get people to accept gov’t control over the internet.

    The fact that the “9/11 truth” group on myspace has over 10,000 members is probably quite frightening to them.

    And the “president bush is an asshole” group has over 130,000 members!

    Pretty soon it will be totally regulated.


  34. For Truth Says:

    The internet is the last place of free speech and uncensored news. I would expect our government to be eyeing ways to stop this, and creating the perception that Al Qwacka has infiltrated the web, is a good way to censor and controll it.


  35. Rational Realist Says:

    Hasn’t anyone else noticed the large amount of negative myspace stories in the news lately, first about pedophiles and now al-qaeda? The idea is to get people to accept gov’t control over the internet.

    Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!Ding!!!!
    A couple of years ago in Phoenix, they outlawed anonymous use of library computers by scaring everyone into thinking that pedophiles were using public library computers to look at porn and lure children.
    Pure dreck and not one conviction of anyone to back it up. Not only that, but librarians quoted in the print media were saying that the problem was overblown..
    Good thing those librarians never got on TV.
    It’s all about control of the internets, people.


  36. Ryan Neat Says:

    I wonder if it’s no accident that Murdoch/AKA Mr. Fox/Faux News owns MySpace and it’s a favorite of Al Queda. I always thought it was a little convenient the timing of the Bin Laden tape before the last election. Well considering that Al Queda began as a Republican/CIA organization, we shouldn’t be surprised.


  37. Global News Blog » Terrorism and Insurgency - Al Qaeda embraces Myspace.com. Says:

    […] Al Qaeda embraces Myspace.com.Think Progress, DC - Mar 10, 2006ABC News reports that beginning in early 2002, al Qaeda quickly switched to hiding its online operations within more legitimate bulletin boards and Internet … […]


  38. » Blog Archive » Privacy is Dead…Long Live Privacy Says:

    […] About 2 days back think progress posted a link to an article involving revelations that Al Queda members have been using myspace, yahoo mail, and various other online sites to post information.  They create an email or a message and save it as a draft without sending it, meaning the file never leaves the original server, and cannot legally be intercepted or read by anyone, not even the site that owns the servers.  Now, this isn’t exactly a rocket science discovery, everyone knows the internet provides a wonderful place to hide for just about any sort of deviant/weirdo/bastard/monster etc.  but the details make this not just a cute method of moving data around, it is somethign that is logistically impossible to get around.  Even if it were legal to violate the privacy agreement you sign when you join one of these sites, the user base is so large they could never reasonably make their way through all the legitimate users.  Then, even if they did get through that, they’d have to discern what the code-speech used by the Al Queda cell actually means.  This means they can communicate without really worrying about being picked up (and gosh they first found out about this sort of thing awhile ago…i guess that the wiretaps werent getting the real juicy stuff if this was going on.  Really, this concerns me on two levels, 1. Al Queda is getting information into our borders completely unassailed.  2. This means the government might try and crack down on privacy on ther internet.  The whole story is linked here: http://thinkprogress.org/ 2006/ 03/ 10/ al-qaeda-embraces-myspacecom/ […]


  39. Lu Cifer, http://www.LU13.TK Says:

    How the hell do ANYONE know Al Qaeda is online ANYWHERE!
    Why is NO ONE tracking them and BUSTING THEM!

    And the rightwing dildos go on and on about how to even THINK of saying ANYTHING bad about DUHbya and co. is “aiding the terra-ists”, when they run ALL THREE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT, is just completely ASININE. You slime are COMPLETELY IN CHARGE and you haven’t done CRAP. Bin Laden: STILL ON THE LOOSE. This is NOT my America!


  40. demosthenes us Says:

    Al Qaeda embraces Myspace.com….

    Al Qaeda embraces Myspace.com.: ABC News reports that beginning in “early 2002, al Qaeda quickly switched to hiding its online operations within more legitimate bulletin boards and Internet sites offering free upload services or connecting throug…


  41. davidvoegtle.net » Blog Archive » Al Qaeda embraces Myspace.com. Says:

    […] Qaeda embraces Myspace.com. Al Qaeda embraces Myspace.com.: ABC News reports that beginning in “early 2002, al Qaeda quickly switched to hiding its onlineoperations within more legitimate bulletin boards and Internet sites offering free upload services or connecting through such popular social network sites as Orkut and MySpace.” […]


  42. Samizdat Says:

    Turn up your speakers (computer’s), your woofers and your tweeters, and hear what’s playing.



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