Terrorists' use of Internet spreads
By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO — Cyberfraud, ranging from credit card theft to money laundering, is the latest wrinkle in terrorists' use of the Internet.
It's "the new cash cow" for terrorists to finance operations, says John Pironti, a security consultant at tech consultant Unisys. Online scams are harder to trace because they are relayed through a sophisticated network of individuals and Web sites worldwide, he says. And many schemes originate from abroad, where cyberlaws don't exist or law enforcement is lax.
In dozens of incidents the past few months, groups linked to terrorism have stolen credit card numbers over the Internet, laundered money and hijacked Web sites, security experts say.
The recent surge in activity has given counterterrorism specialists, already concerned with threats to physical structures, another worry. Like their colleagues in the FBI, Secret Service, the Treasury Department and elsewhere, they must bone up on Internet technology to match wits with the criminals.
For several years, groups including al-Qaeda have used cyberspace for communications, recruiting and propaganda. Now they've branched into other areas. Credit card numbers are often swiped through hacking attacks and phishing, fraudulent e-mails that trick consumers into surrendering personal information.
There are indications terrorists may next steal trade secrets from U.S. companies as their computer skills improve and they begin to work with organized crime in Eastern Europe. The stolen documents could then be sold to rogue foreign businesses or held for ransom, security experts say.
Terrorism.org
A few months ago, Imam Samudra, convicted of masterminding the bombing that killed 202 in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002, wrote a jailhouse manifesto on the funding of terrorism through cyberfraud.
A chapter in his obscure autobiography — titled "Hacking, Why Not?" — directs fellow Muslim radicals to Indonesian-language Web sites and chat rooms for instructions on online credit card fraud and money laundering. "Any man-made product contains weakness because man himself is a weak creature," Samudra writes. "So it is with the Americans, who boast they are a strong nation."
Evidence collected from Samudra's laptop showed he tried to finance the bombing through cyberfraud, law-enforcement officials say.
In October, a suspected Palestinian supporter of Middle Eastern terrorist groups posted several credit card numbers online and instructions for stealing databases of other active credit card numbers from the Web sites of U.S. businesses.
Internet use by terrorists mirrors that of criminals. While some security experts fear a cyberstrike could disrupt power supplies to millions of homes, disrupt air traffic control systems and shut down water supplies, most agree terror groups are more likely to exploit the Internet for financial gain and to spread propaganda. The number of terrorist-related Web sites has rocketed to 4,350 from a dozen in 1997.
Terrorist organizations have graduated to the Internet to steal because it reaches more potential victims and is harder to trace, says Evan Kohlmann, an international terrorism consultant who runs the Web site Globalterroralert.com.
Previously, militants used more conventional ways for funding, Kohlmann says. The Roubaix gang in France robbed armored cars to help fund terrorist activities in the mid-1990s. And the group behind the abortive millennium attack on the Los Angeles airport robbed supermarkets in Canada and engaged in traditional credit card fraud, he says.
"It is a paradox: Those movements who criticize Western technology and modernity are using the West's most advanced communication technology, the Internet, to spread their message," Gabriel Weimann, a professor in Israel who follows cyberterrorism, said in an e-mail.
But the U.S. government should not dismiss the possibility of a large-scale electronic attack by terrorists against the nation's computer systems, says Richard Clarke, the former White House head of counterterrorism. He made the comments at the RSA security conference in San Francisco last week.
Digital cat and mouse
Federal investigators are locked in an escalating game of digital cat-and-mouse with cyberterrorists. "The FBI understands that some terrorist organizations, like criminals, could exploit the Internet to further their goals," FBI spokeswoman Megan Baroska says. FBI policy prohibits it from discussing ongoing investigations, she says.
The departments of Justice, State, Treasury and Homeland Security and intelligence agencies have identified a broad range of potential Internet vulnerabilities and are constantly developing policies. They compare the fight against terrorist financing to the war against money-laundering drug traffickers.
"As Internet technologies become more advanced, so do those who use them for illicit and illegal activities," says Dexter Ingram, director of information-security policy for the Business Software Alliance and a former analyst for the House Committee on Homeland Security's cybersecurity subcommittee. "Security must remain a continuous process. It's a never-ending cycle."
Still, the feds' ranks are in flux. Robert Liscouski, assistant director of the Department of Homeland Security, resigned in January after the Bush administration nominated a federal judge to head the department.
In October, Amit Yoran, director of the department's cybersecurity division, resigned amid criticism from the tech community that he lacked clout.
Clarke has called for the appointment of a cybersecurity czar in the White House to coordinate actions between the FBI, CIA and other government agencies.
"After 9/11, the emphasis has clearly been on physical infrastructure rather than cybersecurity," says Paul Kurtz, executive director of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, a non-profit trade group of software and hardware companies. "That's understandable. But cyberspace is where the bad guys are going."
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Was The Templer/ Masonic Connection
The Trojan Horse For Islam?
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Odysseus
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Stonehenge
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thermometry
The science of measuring the temperature of a system or the ability of a system to transfer heat to another system. Temperature measurement is important to a wide range of activities, including manufacturing, scientific research, and medical practice. The accurate measurement of temperature developed relatively recently in human history
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Manifest Destiny
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Heresy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a "theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the Roman Catholic or Orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. By extension, heresy is an opinion or doctrine in philosophy, politics, science, art, etc., at variance with those generally accepted as authoritative." The study of heresy is heresiology.
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Catharism was a name given to a gnostic religious sect that appeared in the Languedoc region of France in the 11th Century and flourished in the 12th and 13th Centuries. Catharism had its roots in manichaean and dualist beliefs. It held that the physical world was evil and created by Satan, who was taken to be identical with the God of the Old Testament; and that men underwent a series of reincarnations before reaching the pure realm of spirit, the presence of the God of Love described in the New Testament and his messenger Jesus. The Roman Catholic Church regarded the sect as heretical; faced with the rapid spread of the movement across the Languedoc and the failure of peaceful attempts at conversion, the Church launched the Albigensian Crusade and suppressed the Cathars with the help of nobility from northern France.
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The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici), popularly known as the Knights Templar or the Order of the Temple, were the first and among the most famous of the Christian military orders.[2] The organisation, which existed for approximately two centuries in the Middle Ages, was created in the aftermath of the First Crusade of 1096 to ensure the safety of the large numbers of European pilgrims who flowed toward Jerusalem after its conquest.
Officially endorsed by the church in 1129, the Order became a favoured charity across Europe, and grew rapidly in membership and power. Templar knights, easily recognisable in their white mantle with a distinct red cross, made some of the best equipped, trained, and disciplined fighting units of the Crusades.[3] Non-warrior members of the Order managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, innovating many financial techniques that were an early form of banking,[4] and building numerous fortifications throughout Europe and the Holy Land.
The success of the Templars was tied closely to the success of the Crusades. When the Holy Land was lost and the Templars suffered crushing defeats, support for the Order's existence faltered. Rumours about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony caused mistrust, and King Philip IV of France, deeply in debt to the Order, began pressuring Pope Clement V to take action. Things came to a head on Friday, October 13, 1307, when King Philip caused many of the Order's members in France to be arrested, tortured into "confessions", and burned at the stake.[5] In 1312, Pope Clement, under further pressure from King Philip, forcibly disbanded the entire Order. The sudden disappearance of a major part of the European infrastructure gave rise to speculation and legends, which have kept the name "Templar" alive in modern fiction.
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Freemasonry is a long-running fraternal organization, comprising millions of members worldwide,[1] which uses the metaphors of operative stonemasons' tools and implements, against the allegorical backdrop of the building of King Solomon's Temple, to convey what is most generally defined as "a system of morality veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols."[2] It is often referred to as one of the oldest "secret societies" in the world,[1] though some Freemasons say that it is more correct to say that it is an esoteric society, in that certain aspects, such as the modes of recognition among members, and certain rituals are private,[3][4] while other Freemasons say that it has become less a secret society and more of a "society with secrets."[5]
Fremasonry exists in different forms worldwide, but its membership has shared moral and metaphysical ideals and in most of its branches requires a constitutional declaration of belief in a Supreme Being.[6] The organization has administrative divisions known as Grand Lodges (or sometimes Orients) that govern a particular jurisdiction made up of subordinate (or constituent) Lodges. Grand Lodges recognize each other through a process of landmarks and regularity. There are also appendant bodies, which are organizations related to the main branch of Freemasonry, but with their own independent administration.
There have been many disclosures and exposés dating as far back as the eighteenth century, but many lack the proper context,[7] may be outdated for various reasons,[8] or could be outright hoaxes on the part of the author, as in the case of the Taxil hoax.[9]
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