Contents
• Media buzz and commentary
• Kind of hard to take jihadi PSYOP seriously...
• Keystroke logging software installed via your favorite YouTube jihadi video?
• The similarity between jihadis and certain types of serial killers is hard to miss...
• Osama on the couch
• al-Hesbah adds a few new domain names
Photo courtesy of the US Department of Defence
Media buzz and commentary
Many different people having been telling many different stories about events alleged to have occurred recently on jihadist websites, or regarding supposed networks of jihadist websites, or regarding the chain of custody enjoyed by certain jihadist videos. Some of these stories may be, either whole or in part, works of fiction. Also masquerading as news from time to time are items that are, in fact, promotional literature for companies with a product to sell - as always, caveat emptor.
Buzz: Intelligence leak
Comment: Sounds like a personal problem.
Buzz: Dark Web
Comment: "There is no dark side of the Moon really... as a matter of fact it's all dark."
Buzz: Obelisk
Comment: "ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: via Latin from Greek obeliskos, diminutive of obelos 'pointed pillar.'"
And what does a stone pillar say?
Absolutely nothing.
There are a lot of people out there right now who would do well to say the same thing:
Absolutely nothing.
Kind of hard to take jihadi PSYOP seriously...
...and they use an 8" action figure in place of a real hostage.
Nice try kid. Now get off the Internet before mom and dad find out what you've been up to.
Keystroke logging software installed via your favorite YouTube jihadi video?
Oh, Allah, say it ain't so!!
Online Videos May Be Conduits for VirusesOct 2, 7:46 AM By GREG BLUESTEIN
ATLANTA (AP) - Online videos aren't just for bloopers and rants - some might also be conduits for malicious code that can infect your computer.As anti-spam technology improves, hackers are finding new vehicles to deliver their malicious code. And some could be embedded in online video players, according to a report on Internet threats released Tuesday by the Georgia Tech Information Security Center as it holds its annual summit.
The summit is gathering more than 300 scholars and security experts to discuss emerging threats for 2008 - and their countermeasures.
Among their biggest foes are the ever-changing vehicles that hackers use to deliver "malware," which can silently install viruses, probe for confidential info or even hijack a computer.
"Just as we see an evolution in messaging, we also see an evolution in threats," said Chris Rouland, the chief technology officer for IBM Corp.'s Internet Security Systems unit and a member of the group that helped draft the report. "As companies have gotten better blocking e-mails, we see people move to more creative techniques."
With computer users getting wiser to e-mail scams, malicious hackers are looking for sneakier ways to spread the codes. Over the past few years, hackers have moved from sending their spam in text-based messages to more devious means, embedding them in images or disguised as Portable Document Format, or PDF, files.
"The next logical step seems to be the media players," Rouland said.
There have only been a few cases of video-related hacking so far.
One worm discovered in November 2006 launches a corrupt Web site without prompting after a user opens a media file in a player. Another program silently installs spyware when a video file is opened. Attackers have also tried to spread fake video links via postings on YouTube.
That reflects the lowered guard many computer users would have on such popular forums.
"People are accustomed to not clicking on messages from banks, but they all want to see videos from YouTube," Rouland said.
Another soft spot involves social networking sites, blogs and wikis. These community-focused sites, which are driving the next generation of Web applications, are also becoming one of the juiciest targets for malicious hackers.
Computers surfing the sites silently communicate with a Web application in the background, but hackers sometimes secretly embed malicious code when they edit the open sites, and a Web browser will unknowingly execute the code. These chinks in the armor could let hackers steal private data, hijack Web transactions or spy on users.
Tuesday's forum gathers experts from around the globe to "try to get ahead of emerging threats rather than having to chase them," said Mustaque Ahamad, director of the Georgia Tech center.
They are expected to discuss new countermeasures, including tighter validation standards and programs that analyze malicious code. Ahamad also hopes the summit will be a launching pad of sorts for an informal network of security-minded programmers.
Welcome to Web 2.0 - Let the games begin!
The similarity between jihadis and certain types of serial killers is hard to miss...
The primary difference is that jihadi violence is more of a social phenomenon. The torture, murder, dismemberment of victims becomes something like a "team-building exercise."
Mobile phones seized in restive southern Thailand depict gruesome videos
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - PATTANI, Thailand - Police in insurgency-wracked southern Thailand said Tuesday that mobile phones seized from an attack site contain video clips showing suspected insurgents beheading their victims and in one case, cutting off a soldier's sex organ.Investigators found two mobile phones in a bag left behind in an area of Yala province where suspected insurgents killed a police officer over the weekend, said police Col. Sompien Eksomya from Yala's Bannang Star district, where the attack occurred.
"We sent the SIM cards to be checked out and found gruesome video clips," he said by telephone.
One video clip taken Jan. 2, 2006 showed a suspected insurgent beheading a soldier, then severing his penis and laughing with the person taking the video, Sompien said.
The second clip was made on May 14 of this year, showing the beheading of a Buddhist man after he and his wife were shot. A third video clip filmed June 15 shows the bullet-ridden bodies of seven soldiers.
Sompien said that police were searching for the men seen in the videos.
More than 2,400 people have been killed in the Muslim-majority southernmost provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat since a long-simmering Islamic separatist insurgency flared up in January 2004. At least 29 Buddhists have been beheaded in the past three years.
Kinda makes you wonder what goes on back at the safe house or base camp after the lights go out at night...
Osama on the couch
By Phyllis Chesler, at pajamasmedia.com
OSAMA ON FREUD'S COUCH SOLVES THE MOTHER OF ALL MYSTERIESUMMA=THE MUSLIM NATION=UMMI=MOMMY
Last week, in a Letter, 138 Muslim clerics sought to find “common ground” but only with Christians. In my view, they did so because Christians are the only religious group that outnumbers the Muslims demographically, by about six to seven hundred million.
In a sense, from a psycho-analytic point of view, this is an example of “literal” or “concrete” thinking. The World Trade Center and The Pentagon are symbols of American might. Hence, destroying these structures is “literally” the same as destroying American infidel power.
But, when one thinks psycho-analytically, nothing is exactly as it seems. Often, such thinking also provokes people’s unconscious anxieties about…you guessed it, about their own mothers and their own relations to women.
According to Dr. Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin, a psycho-analyst, Arabist, and counter-terrorism expert with whom I have written a series of articles about Islamic suicide killers, and whom I have also quoted in 2004 HERE, 2005 HERE and HERE, and 2006 HERE:
“The Letter is an overture. They want to pull us close but they also need to push us away. This is similar to the classic unconscious behavior of a batterer. They want to stir up all our hopes for peace but they do not know how to relate or engage in genuine intimacy. They can f*** a lot of women but they have no ability to relate to women. It is tragic. Psychologically, they are completely tone deaf.”
al-Hesbah adds a few new domain names
Posted on 20 October 2007 @ 09:05