thewayne | Entries tagged with terrorism

First off, this was a nation-state supply chain attack. It was pretty obviously carried off by Israel, and demonstrated that they have a person inside Hezbollah’s organization. They either saw the order for replacing all the pagers being put together, or possibly did a persuasion campaign and caused the order for the pagers to come together. Then at some point in the manufacturing/delivery chain the order was intercepted and all the devices were modified.

The company that sold them is just a branding company in Taipei. They were made in Hungary, the home of Viktor Orban, friend to and also deep in the pockets of Uncle Vlad in Moscow. The company that made them may well be a shell company as the “corporate HQ” address is a residential house with pieces of paper in the window and the person who answered the house said it’s just a mail drop for a number of companies, much like a certain address in Delaware. The president or CEO of the company, when reached, said ‘We didn’t make them’.

The pagers were modified with a small amount of a plastique explosive compound and a detonator, rigged to trigger on the receipt of a coded signal. And yesterday afternoon, the signal was sent, killing a dozen people and maiming quite a number more. It isn’t clear if it was a group page or a broadcast signal from another transmitter. At least three children among the dead. Several Hezbollah members who had been issued the pagers noticed they were getting hot, took them off and threw them away.

The pagers themselves were ruggedized with a rechargeable battery designed to last a few weeks between charges. There are advantages to pagers, believe it or not. They’re still heavily used in hospitals because the transmitters will get a signal through the heavy radiation-shielded walls reliably. They’re also normally receive-only devices, so you can’t trace a person’s movement with them, convenient for people who don’t want to be traced. So they’re still in use around the world, but not nearly in the numbers that they were in the pre-smart phone era. In an area like the Middle East that may have shaky telecoms, a pager might be a reliable communications device.

That was Tuesday. Today is Wednesday, and another surge of mass device bombings has taken place.

It's been reported that thousands of walkie talkies used by Hezbollah in Lebanon have blown up, resulting in more deaths, lots more injuries, and massive property damage. And the deaths were not confined to Lebanon, there were also reports of deaths and injuries in Syria. It was also reported that some solar panels exploded.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bc-ml-lebanon-israel-exploding-pagers-hungary-firm_n_66eab9b2e4b00648275b59ef

https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1427496/recap-14-killed-almost-3000-injured-in-latest-toll-from-pager-blasts.html

One exploded as a journo at a TV station plugged it in to his computer, causing mild injuries to his hand and face. Another sent to a radio station did not explode - the drive was plugged into an extension cord and didn't get enough voltage to detonate.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/03/journalist-plugs-in-unknown-usb-drive-mailed-to-him-it-exploded-in-his-face/

https://it.slashdot.org/story/23/03/22/2048210/explosives-replace-malware-as-the-scariest-thing-a-usb-stick-may-hide

Five years ago this January gunmen stormed the office of the satirical cartoon newspaper and slaughtered the people there for daring to publish cartoons of Mohamed. Three of them fled the country and are believed to be in Syria, they are being tried in abstentia. One went on to murder a police officer at a traffic check the next day, then on to murder four at a Jewish market on the day following. The man responsible for the last two attacks was killed in the police storming of the market. Eleven people are on trial for the attack for directly committing it or supporting those that did.

Two of the three who escaped to Syria are believed to have been killed fighting alongside with ISIS. Arrest warrants are outstanding on all three.

The trial is expected to last two and a half months, 150 expert witnesses are to be called.

The phrase Je Suis Charlie, or I Am Charlie, was popularized from this event.

That July my wife and I were celebrating our tenth anniversary by taking a river cruise from Prague to Berlin. We flew in and out of Berlin to spend more time there, whereas the norm was to fly in to the origin city and out of the destination city, so we took a train from Berlin to Prague, a very nice 2 or 3 hour ride. It stopped on the border to change crew and take on more passengers.

On the side of a warehouse-type building was a large graffiti of Je Suis Charlie. It was quite moving.

It will be nice to see justice meted out to these terrorists, and some closure to the survivors of the victims.

Here's an article on the start of the trial, slated to run to mid-November:
https://www.france24.com/en/20200902-charlie-hebdo-terror-attack-accomplices-trial-starts-in-paris

And a cartoon, from the web strip Jesus and Mo:

Crossposts: https://thewayne.livejournal.com/1202430.html

I read a feed from his blog here on LJ, to reply to it you have to go to his site.

If you believe that every Muslim supports ISIS and groups like it, then you should also believe that all Christians support the Ku Klux Klan and the Westboro Baptist Church and Scott Lively. You should believe that all white people support actions like the Charleston Shooting. You should believe every man celebrates the anniversary of the École Polytechnique Massacre. And so on, across any group or affiliation you might be able to name.
--John Salzi

You could add the Oklahoma City bombing to that list: it was also carried out by a White Male Christian.

ISIS want to kill co-existence. Anti-Muslim bigots are their greatest gift.
--Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, via Twitter @NafeezAhmed

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/11/14/paris/

He is a Parisian based in London, but as it happened he was on holiday when the attacks happened. He picked up a pencil and started sketching when he heard the news, and an icon was born.

http://www.wired.com/2015/11/jean-jullien-peace-for-paris/

In other news, France bombed the hell out of an Isis stronghold with ten planes dropping twenty bombs. And Anonymous has vowed that they're going to cyber-rip ISIS apart.

When we were going to Prague from Berlin last June, as we crossed the border on our train I happened to look out the window and saw a large building, a warehouse or industrial something or other, with Je Suis Charlie on it. It was quite moving, though I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps because it was strategically graphittied so that mostly only people on the train would see it.

Yesterday afternoon I was reading Ars Technica, a story about the Paris Orleans airport being shut down because a computer running Windows 3.1 crashed. Very amusing, until someone in the comments mentioned that Paris had been attacked. Sort of drained all the comedy of a 25 year old operating system running a critical part of an airport.

I have a friend whose cousin survived the first World Trade Center bombing, he was an armored car driver or guard and was in the basement when the bombs went off. As it happened, he was at Ground Zero when the planes hit. He did not survive. Another person that I know had a ticket to go to the top of the WTC on 9/11, fortunately she partied too hard the night before and missed the scheduled tour. And she lived. Likewise, the Asian martial arts film star and comedy legend Jackie Chan was filming a movie on the WTC and they had some technical issues that prevented them from filming that day. That movie was abandoned.

There can be no doubt that the 9/11 attacks on the United States were horrible, especially for the people in New York City and that were on the planes. But this is somehow more gruesome, even with the much lower body count. Because France will be happy to provide ISIS with a real war, complete with some of the best-trained military forces in the form of the Foreign Legion knocking on their proverbial door. ISIS has been wanting to drag the USA in to a ground war to validate their narrative for forming their caliphate that The Crusaders are there to kill them, to justify their killing others. And the USA has to a limited degree avoided giving ISIS that, which I think is the best thing to do. This is an Arab/Muslim problem, and the Arab/Muslim countries in the area should have taken care of it, they cumulatively outnumber ISIS by probably 100 to 1. Saudi Arabia by itself has an army that outnumbers ISIS by a good 20 to 1.

Well, it looks like France will be paying them a visit in the very near future.

(What's really sad is that as I entered TER to get the terrorism tag, the names Terry Gilliam and Terry Pratchett also came up. It's sad that two masters of comedy and entertainment should be so proximate to such a horrible thing.)

Thus spoke General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and the CIA. Metadata is information about information, in this case, collecting metadata about phone calls. It knows A called B on a certain date and time and for a certain amount of time. It then can go out 2-3 hops, A<->B is one, B then calls C is 2, C calls D E and F for three. So A never talks to F, but they are indelibly associated, so if one is labeled a terrorist, there's an extremely high chance the other is. But maybe it's just a neighborhood pizza joint that delivers.

And with every drone strike we radicalize more people to become terrorists, and we've given them an exceptionally bright and clear target: the USA. I guess winning hearts and minds is too wussy these days.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/may/10/we-kill-people-based-metadata/

"Some of the speculation that has come out is that yes, it was a foreign national and, speculating here, that it was potentially a person on a student visa. If that's the case, then we need to take a look at the big picture."
—Rep. Steve King, opponent of immigration reform, on the Boston bombings

YES! We need to oppose legislation because of speculation! Iraq helped Bin Ladin and has WMDs!

Need I mention that King is a Republican?

FACT: we don't know who did the Boston bombings on Monday. My personal speculation is that it was a domestic group because most foreign terrorist groups like to claim credit ASAP to increase their profile. Domestic terrorists tend to keep a bit quieter.

In other news, Teabagger shiny boy Texas Senator Ted Cruz wants to increase funding and expand the Justice Dept and Federal prosecutors to increase prosecution of people who lie on firearms background check purchasers. I thought Teabaggers wanted smaller government, and where is he going to get the money from? I guess that's a House problem since they're the ones who propose the budget. Meanwhile, law enforcement states repeatedly that it is difficult to prosecute people who lie on background check forms because they have to prove deliberate falsification and not ignorance. If the background check prevents the person from obtaining the firearm, that's enough in my book.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/04/16/177479675/background-check-battle-more-prosecution-or-more-checks

"The Obama administration has approved guidelines that allow counterterrorism officials to lengthen the period of time they retain information about U.S. residents, even if they have no known connection to terrorism. The changes allow the National Counterterrorism Center, the intelligence community's clearinghouse for terrorism data, to keep information for up to five years. Previously, the center was required to promptly destroy — generally within 180 days — any information about U.S. citizens or residents unless a connection to terrorism was evident."

I'm sure that before the five years are up that it will be extended, and ultimately the data (regardless of accuracy) will be retained indefinitely.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/23/1521215/us-govt-to-keep-data-on-non-terrorist-citizens-for-5-years

Meanwhile, the NSA is building an insanely huge data center in Utah. $2 billion, heavily fortified, 60,000 tons of air-conditioning required, power consumption will require a 65 megawatt substation. A man who worked for the NSA for 40 years before he retired due to their going far beyond their mandate and constitutional limits: ...(held his thumb and forefinger close together). “We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state."

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1

And the Japanese have developed a camera that can perform facial recognition at the rate of 36 MILLION faces a second, which means any crowd scenes scanned by the panopticon will never be deleted since they can decide to backtrack someone's life.

"A new camera technology from Hitachi Hokusai Electric can scan days of camera footage instantly, and find any face which has EVER walked past it. Its makers boast that it can scan 36 million faces per second. The technology raises the spectre of governments – or other organisations – being able to 'find' anyone instantly simply using a passport photo or a Facebook profile. The 'trick' is that the camera 'processes' faces as it records, so that all faces which pass in front of it are recorded and stored instantly. Faces are stored as a searchable 'biometric' record, placing the unique mathematical 'faceprint' of anyone who has ever walked past the camera in a database."

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/03/24/1937238/japanese-cctv-camera-can-scan-36-million-facessecond

Saint Orwell thought too small apparently.

From this DOJ flyer. Things that I could be considered suspicious are bold.

 Are overly concerned about privacy, attempts to shield the screen from view of others
 Always pay cash or use credit card(s) in different name(s)
 Apparently use tradecraft: lookout, blocker or someone to distract employees
 Act nervous or suspicious behavior inconsistent with activities
 Are observed switching SIM cards in cell phone or use of multiple cell phones
 Travel illogical distance to use Internet Café
Activities on Computer indicate:
 Evidence of a residential based internet provider (signs on to Comcast, AOL, etc.)
 Use of anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address
 Suspicious or coded writings, use of code word sheets, cryptic ledgers, etc.
 Encryption or use of software to hide encrypted data in digital photos, etc.
 Suspicious communications using VOIP or communicating through a PC game
Use Computers to:
 Download content of extreme/radical nature with violent themes
 Gather information about vulnerable infrastructure or obtain photos, maps or
diagrams of transportation, sporting venues, or populated locations
 Purchase chemicals, acids, hydrogen peroxide, acetone, fertilizer, etc.
 Download or transfer files with “how-to” content such as:
- Content of extreme/radical nature with violent themes
- Anarchist Cookbook, explosives or weapons information
- Military tactics, equipment manuals, chemical or biological information - Terrorist/revolutionary literature
- Preoccupation with press coverage of terrorist attacks
- Defensive tactics, police or government information
- Information about timers, electronics, or remote transmitters / receivers

I especially love the last line of the flyer:

It is important to remember that just because someone’s speech, actions, beliefs, appearance, or way of life is different; it does not mean that he or she is suspicious.

I am a licensed amateur radio operator, which gives me an interest in electronics and radios. I am a photographer and a cook, which gives me an interest in timers and chemicals. I worked for the police department for nine years and for government in general for about 20 now, so I have an interest there. I don't let people see my computer screen if I'm signing on to work. I play World of Warcraft and have been known to use in-game VOIP to talk to team-mates. I used to buy magazines on military tactics, plus I'm a gamer. I thought the 'preoccupation with press coverage of terrorist attacks' was lovely, pretty much every American on 9/11 and a week subsequent would therefor be suspicious. And signing on to an internet provider? Now EVERYONE on the internet is suspicious?

But remember -- just because someone is different doesn't mean that he or she is suspicious. If you stick out, you will be hammered down. So watch the Superbowl, drink beer, drive an American 4x4, and never use a computer or any other electronic equipment. There was a sig on Slashdot that said '1984 is not an instruction manual', well, it certainly became one, regardless of what George was writing about.

"A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity. The document, part of a program called 'Communities Against Terrorism,' lists the use of 'anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address' as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity. The use of encryption is also listed as a suspicious activity along with steganography, the practice of using 'software to hide encrypted data in digital photos' or other media. In fact, the flyer recommends that anyone 'overly concerned about privacy' or attempting to 'shield the screen from view of others' should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities. ... The use of PGP, VPNs, Tor or any of the many other technologies for anonymity and privacy online are directly targeted by the flyer, which is distributed to businesses in an effort to promote the reporting of these activities."

I use VPN every day to remote in to work as does my wife. Makes me tempted to use steganography to embed my name and email address on every photo that I post online.

A comment on Slashdot related the story of a Reagan/Bush drug war flyer that people acting weird were probably on drugs and someone not acting weird was probably on drugs but covering it up very well.

Welcome to 100% of the country being a suspected terrorist. I guess privacy is now RIP.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/02/02/1719221/do-you-like-online-privacy-you-may-be-a-terrorist

Senators Demand the Military Lock Up American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window

While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself. (emphasis mine)

Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and if any president can send the military anywhere in the world to imprison civilians without charge or trial.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?

The answer on why now is nothing more than election season politics. The White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act are harmful and counterproductive. The White House has even threatened a veto. But Senate politics has propelled this bad legislation to the Senate floor. (emphasis mine)

But there is a way to stop this dangerous legislation. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. The Udall Amendment will make sure that the bill matches up with American values.

In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.”

The solution is the Udall Amendment; a way for the Senate to say no to indefinite detention without charge or trial anywhere in the world where any president decides to use the military. Instead of simply going along with a bill that was drafted in secret and is being jammed through the Senate, the Udall Amendment deletes the provisions and sets up an orderly review of detention power. It tries to take the politics out and put American values back in.

In response to proponents of the indefinite detention legislation who contend that the bill “applies to American citizens and designates the world as the battlefield,” and that the “heart of the issue is whether or not the United States is part of the battlefield,” Sen. Udall disagrees, and says that we can win this fight without worldwide war and worldwide indefinite detention.

The senators pushing the indefinite detention proposal have made their goals very clear that they want an okay for a worldwide military battlefield, that even extends to your hometown. That is an extreme position that will forever change our country.

Now is the time to stop this bad idea. Please urge your senators to vote YES on the Udall Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

Learn more about detention: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

McCain really needs to retire. One would hope that Obama would veto this, but I don't bet on anything anymore.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/senators-demand-military-lock-american-citizens-battlefield-they-define-being

Didn't take as long as I'd expected.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/no-pictures-it-did-happen-al-qaida-confirms-osama-death/

In related news, possibly from intelligence gleaned from the trove gathered from OBL's compound, drone strikes resumed in Pakistan and Yemen. Yemen hasn't been hit in 9 years.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/05/first-drone-strikes-since-bin-laden-raid-hit-pakistan-yemen/

Yup. Bitch about airport security in line, and you might be pulled aside for "additional screening."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/04/15/tsa.screeners.complain/

And if you're interested in a little light reading, how about a copy of the Al Qaeda training manual, courtesy of PBS' Frontline. The reason why it's included is it says that agents should remain calm and don't raise a ruckus, therefor an AQ agent is more likely to easily get through screening.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/network/alqaeda/manual.html

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/04/15/2051220/TSA-Investigates-People-Who-Complain-About-TSA

Perhaps not too far off base. In each case, an FBI informant is part of the group, difficult to say how much the informant is steering a group of relatively harmless bunglers into an FBI bust and media event. Classic case: the London liquid bombers. I've heard that most of the charges related to terrorism have been dropped and they're being held mainly on immigration violations.

The first link may pen your printer interface. Otherwise it's two pages with a weird little statistical gathering in the middle.

http://www.nj.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/columns-0/1181194104176640.xml

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/06/securitymatters_0614Not too

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Page Summary

Let’s talk about the pager attack against Hezbollah
Ecuador: someone is mailing USB sticks with explosives in them to journalists
The Charlie Hebdo massacre trial began today in France
Excellent John Scalzi post on the Paris attacks
An interview with the artist behind the Peace For Paris symbol, Jean Jillien
Je Suis Paris
"We kill people based on metadata"
Gotta love politicians when they speak!
Welcome, fellow suspected terrorist!
How am I suspicious? Let me count the ways.
Yay! I'm now officially a terrorist!
U.S. senate creates a bill, in secret, that would allow our front yards to be declared a battlefield
Al Qaida admits OBL is dead
One of the things TSA spotters are looking for? People complaining about the TSA in line.
Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot

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Entries tagged with terrorism

Let’s talk about the pager attack against Hezbollah

Ecuador: someone is mailing USB sticks with explosives in them to journalists

The Charlie Hebdo massacre trial began today in France

Excellent John Scalzi post on the Paris attacks

An interview with the artist behind the Peace For Paris symbol, Jean Jillien

Je Suis Paris

"We kill people based on metadata"

Gotta love politicians when they speak!

Welcome, fellow suspected terrorist!

How am I suspicious? Let me count the ways.

Yay! I'm now officially a terrorist!

U.S. senate creates a bill, in secret, that would allow our front yards to be declared a battlefield

Al Qaida admits OBL is dead

One of the things TSA spotters are looking for? People complaining about the TSA in line.

Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot