Articles on Jon

[Motley]

We all knew Jon did what he did out of patriotic concerns. Unlike others, he did not need to steal others peoples ideas to carry it out. He did what he did because he cared, not because he could get away with it.

We all know that there are people that have done everything they can to ride on the back of Jons work, including everything up to, & including, trying to steal his very identity and his creation of Its Happening.com

Those are the snake oil salesmen......... here is the real deal:

Armchair warriors
Want to feel as though you’re playing a role in the war on terror? Log on to ItsHappening.com and fire away.
BY CHRIS WRIGHT



}http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/top/features/images/02463361.gif



"AAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'm addicted to chat! Oh… no!!"

Though this cry of anguish did not come from me, it easily could have. For the past few months, I’ve spent a good part of every day tippety-tapping a manic Morse code on my computer keyboard: refresh ... post ... refresh ... post ... refresh, refresh, refresh. My work’s becoming an annoying distraction. My girlfriend insists she can detect a glazed, Charles Manson–ish look in my eyes. The other day, while visiting a friend’s house, I snuck away for a few minutes to engage in a quick online confab. Rude? Maybe. The thing is, I cannot help myself. Like Jim, the author of the above post, I am hooked on chat.

Actually, Jim and I are not so much hooked on chat as we are on a particular chat site: ItsHappening.com. More specifically, we’re hooked on the site’s subject matter. ItsHappening bills itself as a "discussion board relating to current world affairs surrounding Islamic Jihad and the US-led war on terrorism." And this — terrorism — is what draws us in. Elemental, Axl, Roman Agenda, Professor, Winter, Stupid Guy, Bag Sniper, Lucifer, Debunker, Old Dutch, Jas2000, CentaurMyst, AJ Crowley, Allan Jennings, Hoodwinker, G-Nome, B.A.D., Jim, me, and the rest of the site’s pseudonymous die-hards have one thing in common: we are Al Qaeda addicts, jihad junkies. It’s a sickness.

Yet the question remains: why should we all be drawn so compulsively, so inexorably, to this particular site?

Nobody, even me, fully understands my obsession with this," writes the site’s owner and operator, Jon Messner, in, appropriately, an e-mail interview. "As obsessed as I am, there are many others who quite literally live on the board." He’s not exaggerating. One recent evening, I left ItsHappening in the middle of a debate about Israel’s right to exist. When I turned my computer on the next morning, the same people were there, having the same debate — they’d been at it all night. "ARGH," as Jim so succinctly puts it. "AAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"I am addicted to this site," Jim writes. "I feel like I personally know these people!" But Jim, like the rest of the ItsHappening crowd, does not go there to make friends. Despite the fact that you’ll find some light banter, and even flirting, on the site, it is not what you’d necessarily call a friendly environment. "As a matter of fact," writes a recent poster in response to a perceived slight, "I’ll give you a loaded gun which you can point at my head and before your pudgy little finger can depress that 4lb trigger I’ll have your sorry ass on the ground upside down with both your gun and your arm shoved so far up your ass that you’ll blow your own fucking brains out."

Because ItsHappening is largely unmoderated, the site is raw, emotional, and often highly entertaining. It is also hugely popular. "[On] the slowest days the site gets between 5000 and 7000 visitors," Messner writes. "But when certain issues are prominent — for example, when Dirty Bombs were in the news — the spikes in traffic have gone as high as 70,000 visitors a day." Though many of these visitors take a quick look and then clear off, there are many who don’t. On a good day, or a bad day, scores of us stick around to babble, lament, pontificate, browbeat, threaten.

ItsHappening is not so much a marketplace of ideas as it is a sprawling flea market. On any given day, the site will contain dozens of wildly disparate discussions — or threads — ranging from explorations of America’s reliance on Iraqi oil to debates over the existence of God. And then, of course, there are the rabid back-and-forth exchanges that everybody loves so much: "I am bring forth an army that loves death as much as you love life"; "You are fools to believe that all Americans love life more than death. That will be your undoing." This may be ugly stuff, but there’s no doubting that it comes from the heart. In the ongoing public debate over America’s war on terror, ItsHappening is where the rubber meets the road.

"The site is something different," writes B.A.D., a long-time regular. "It is not just another conglomeration of articles through a media source, but rather real thoughts, from real people." More important, perhaps, those "real people" include me. In a conflict that often leaves ordinary citizens feeling powerless, there’s something oddly reassuring about having a forum where you can chip in with your own two cents — even if your audience is made up, in the words of one poster, of "250 armchair experts."

At the very least, when you post on ItsHappening, you can expect a diverse audience: bored housewives, old soldiers, policy wonks, professional wags, office laggards, sociopaths, and people claiming to be Islamic militants. Moreover, should you so desire, you can discuss Donald Rumsfeld’s obfuscation or Osama bin Laden’s kidneys with people from all over the world: Messner has tracked users back to Italy, Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Botswana, Kirghizstan, Rwanda, Swaziland, Algeria, Ireland, Antarctica, Iran, Ghana, Lebanon, Guadeloupe, and a hundred other countries. It’s not too rare to find an Al Qaeda sympathizer in Stockholm swapping insults with a true-blue patriot in Montana, with dramatic results.

"All supporters of jihad and terrorism will have your children feasted upon. I’m blood thirsty and am ready to sink my knife into some towelhead motherfucker."

"And we are ready to sink our AKs into your ugly little coward faces. May the curse of God be upon you!"

Even though such outbursts are scorned by many of the site’s faithful — the above exchange was followed by a post asking, "Do you two want something to drink with that?" — this stuff can get pretty bloodcurdling at times. As Messner puts it: "This is a unique forum in that you actually have the opportunity to dialogue one-on-one with someone whose passion in life is to see you dead, your society and culture destroyed. Every now and then, there is an exchange that gets scary, and one of the participants disappears. These people are playing for keeps here on both sides."

Hold on a minute: death? Destruction? Playing for keeps? Why don’t we throw in a few aliens and some talking rabbits while we’re at it? Who knows, maybe the Abominable Snowman frequents the site from time to time. Actually, in fairness to Messner, he doesn’t seem to be your average Internet conspiracy nut. In a profile aired earlier this year, CNN described the ItsHappening creator as a "Web warrior," and that’s what he is. In the electronic front of the war on terror, Jon Messner is firmly entrenched on the frontlines.

More (http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/top/features/documents/02460740.htm)

[Motley]

Pornographer says he hacked al Qaeda

'I wanted to do something ... I know the Internet'

August 9, 2002 Posted: 7:54 AM EDT (1154 GMT)


http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2002/US/08/08/porn.patriot/story.hacker.jpg Jon Messner put the Web skills he learned in the adult entertainment business to work against an alleged al Qaeda Web site.

From Mike Boettcher
CNN


OCEAN CITY, Maryland (CNN) -- A self-proclaimed Web warrior says he enlisted in the United States' war on terror by mounting an incursion into an Internet site said to be run by al Qaeda.

From his beachfront home, Jon Messner uses his keyboard as a weapon against the enemy's site -- first reported by CNN four months ago -- that posts statements from high-ranking al Qaeda members.

When Al Neda site visitors, who he says he believes are al Qaeda members, discovered the covert operation, they cried "Infidel!"

Messner 's real job? He runs an Internet porn site.



"I created the amateur housewife-next-door genre," he explained. "I bought a digital camera and convinced my wife to get naked for the Internet."

He decided to turn his expertise against al Qaeda. The organization is led by terrorist Osama bin Laden, thought to be the instigator of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"I wanted to do something and I thought, 'What do I know? I know the Internet,'" Messner said. "I made it my business at that time to do anything and everything I could to disrupt the communications of the terrorists on the Internet."

Messner, using the aggressive tactics he's employed to run his adult site, said he "hijacked" Al Neda for five days and recorded a "virtual who's-who of every hostile message board and site on the Internet."

Traffic to the site increased under his control, most of it coming from Saudi Arabia, he said. The majority of the September 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Messner said he contacted the FBI and told them he was secretly monitoring Internet activity on an al Qaeda site -- offering an opportunity he believes the FBI neglected to capitalize on.

"We could have put whatever we wanted on their Web site and they would think it was coming from one of their own, not from their enemy," he said.

Although an FBI agent did visit him, Messner said, his Web site takeover had been discovered.

"Suddenly a message was posted," Messner said. "It said, 'The infidels have taken over the site. They are tracking you. The man doing this is an infidel, a pornographer.'"

The adversaries retaliated with digital attempts to crash his Web-based business, he said. But Messner didn't mind. September 11 changed him.

His Porsche and its "WIVES" vanity plates memorializing his success in adult entertainment are, he believes, a testament that he and his family are living the American dream. And, in his own way, Messner said, he is fighting an American war.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/08/08/porn.patriot/

[Motley]

FBI Passes On Hijacked Al-Qaida Web Site
D. Ian Hopper
07/31/2002

WASHINGTON -- When Web operator Jon Messner gained control of one of al-Qaida's prime Internet communication sites, he offered it to the FBI to use it for disinformation and collecting data about sympathizers What followed, he says, was a week of frustration.

FBI agents struggled to find someone with enough technical know-how to set up the sting. By the time they did, the opportunity was lost as militant Islamic Web users figured out the site was a decoy, said Messner of Ocean City, Md.

"It was like dealing with the motor vehicle administration," said Messner, who runs Web sites, many of which sell pornographic materials. "We could have done something that could have seriously impacted things. It took me so many days just to get somebody who understood the Internet."

Barry Maddox, a spokesman for the FBI's Baltimore office, said he "cannot confirm or deny" that his office worked with Messner earlier this month.

"If we received information of any sort from anything related to 9/11 or any continuing terrorist type activity, we would take it under consideration and pass it on," Maddox said. "We're not going to turn down anything."

Though many of his Web sites involve pornography, Messner said he became interested in Alneda.com, a militant Islamic Web site that promotes the al-Qaida terror organization and carries messages from its top members.

Alneda originally was registered in Malaysia but has been chased out of several countries after pressure by authorities. It also has shown up on computers in Michigan and Texas.

Messner used a software program that probes Web site addresses whose registrations are about to lapse, meaning the address will go into a pool available for sale. When it did, Messner snapped it up and filled the site with Web pages from the original Arabic site.

He hoped U.S. officials could use the site for disinformation campaigns or to collect data on visitors who used its message boards or other resources.

Even though some features didn't work yet, his decoy site fooled some Web users.

Almost immediately after putting the site online July 16, he saw visitors from Arab nations and references to it on other militant Islamic Web sites.

"I (was) tracing back to hostile message boards that say when translated, 'Praise Allah, the Alneda site is back up,'" Messner said.

Since he couldn't write any new articles in Arabic, he needed the FBI's help to keep the site alive. He said FBI officials in Baltimore and Salisbury, Md., encouraged his work but took too long to decide how to help him.

Within a week, other Arabic Web sites outed Messner's site as a phony and warned visitors away. He shut it down.

Since Messner gave up the Internet address, the Alneda Web site is back up again, this time hosted in Dayton, Ohio, and carrying a new interview with an al-Qaida field commander describing battles against American forces.

Messner said he handed over the data he gathered to the FBI.

Intelligence experts said the gamble on a fake Alneda site might not have been worthwhile.

Rather than a traditional sting operation--a routine task for the FBI--Messner's decoy site would be available to everyone on the Internet, said John Pike of Globalsecurity.org. That means the FBI might have inadvertently helped terrorists communicate.

"There is a difference between tossing a kilo of coke into a guy's lap and then cuffing him, versus going out and selling it to little children," Pike said. "I'm sure there would have been somebody at FBI who would have said this information is going to be publicly accessible. We don't even necessarily know all that is going to be communicated here."

Pike said that concern, coupled with the pressure caused by the Internet's breakneck speed, makes the lost opportunity understandable.

"It's too new, and they were probably scared," Pike said. "And they might have well-founded fears." Former CIA counterterrorism expert Vincent Cannistraro said relying on the public to do intelligence work is dangerous. "It may be looked on as a large resource for law enforcement. On the other hand, it does lend itself to massive cases of abuse," Cannistraro said. "When it comes to monitoring the Internet and exploiting it, you have to leave it to the professionals."

Copyright 2002 Associated Press

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002-07-30-al-qaeda-online_x.htm

[Motley]

From The Library of Congres


September 11 Web Archive Record


Title:It's Happening. Info relating to Al-Qaeda, Bin-Laden, Afghanistan. and terrorismAlternative

Title:IT'S HAPPENING, 2001Name:Messner, Jon

Abstract:It's Happening.

Info relating to Al-Qaeda, Bin-Laden, Afghanistan. and terrorism, a Web Site produced by Jon Messner, is part of the Library of Congress September 11 Web Archive and preserves the web expressions of individuals, groups, the press and institutions in the United States and from around the world in the aftermath of the attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001.

Date Captured:October 23, 2001 - December 17, 2001

Archived Site (http://wasearch.loc.gov/sep11/2001*sa_/itshappening.com/)Subjects:Bioterrorism

Afghanistan--History--2001-

September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001

Language:EnglishGenre:Web SiteAccess Condition:NoneActive

Site:itshappening.com/Collection Title:September 11 Web Archive (http://www.loc.gov/minerva/collect/sept11/)


http://lcweb4.loc.gov/911/catalog/2377.html

[Motley]

His work after 9/11 resulted in a personal invitation to make a presentation in front of the National Defense University. Below are his thoughts on that day:


On April 8, 2003 I was asked to give a talk to a group at National Defense University. I was invited to speak on the battle against terrorism on the internet. I was asked to speak by War College, professor and National Review reporter, Jim Robbins.
My wife Cherie took a few photos although they do not show much as we were not permitted to photograph the esteemed attendees which ranged from officers representing all armed forces and a congressional committee.

To be the only speaker before such a distinguished audience was a great honor. One in which I would be forever proud.

http://www.beachfever.com/adobe01/images/42.jpg

[Motley]

FBI in bungled al Qaeda web site sting
The FBI, ever mindful of the threat of cyber-attacks from terrorist network al Qaeda, had the opportunity to take over Alneda.com, a U.S.-based web site for militant Islamists. A Maryland web site operator named Jon Messner bought the domain when it became available and made it look the way it had before the original domain name holder let it expire. The bogus site also featured Arabic content. Its users were at first pleased that Alneda.com was still alive, but since Messner doesn’t know Arabic he wasn’t able to update it to keep up the ruse. This led to the site being discredited among the wired militant Islamist community, according to the Associated Press. Messner asked the FBI to help him update it so they could use it to entrap al Qaeda operatives, but by the time the FBI figured out how to run the site it had been discredited. The FBI is neither confirming nor denying any involvement with the site.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2002/jul02/jul29/4_thurs/news8thursday.html

[Motley]

Call for vengeance resounds on the Internet

Baltimore Sun

Last Updated: April 5, 2003

With the world focused on the war in Iraq, it is easy to forget about al-Qaida. But al-Qaida has not forgotten about the war.

Even before the first U.S. missiles hit Baghdad, the terrorist network and its sympathizers were posting calls for vengeance on Web sites that have taken the anti-American jihad into cyberspace.

"The main way al-Qaida recruits new members now is the Web," says Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, a non-profit group in Washington that tracks terrorism-related Web sites. "They're taking huge advantage of the situation. The war in Iraq is the best they could wish for in terms of recruitment."

In recent days the elaborate Web sites have added angry rhetoric about the war and bloody photos of Iraqi bombing victims to their usual fare: audio of Osama bin Laden's pronouncements, slick propaganda videos and even chemical-weapons cookbooks.

Radical Islamist views are a staple of dozens of Web sites, but experts say only a few appear to have direct ties to al-Qaida. Those Arabic-language sites carry inside scoops: reports of skirmishes in Afghanistan, fatwas (religious decrees) by radical clerics and reports on prisoners held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"After they lost their freedom of action in Afghanistan, this is their best way to get their message out," says Reuven Paz, director of the Israel-based Project for the Research of Islamist Movements. "In my view, al-Qaida has become a virtual organization."

Surviving on the Web

As U.S. authorities arrest key al-Qaida leaders - many caught with laptops jammed with plans and e-mails - the Web permits the network and its ideology to survive, Paz says.

"They try to spread the message so that others will carry on the jihad without any headquarters or orders from bin Laden," he says.

In recent months, key al-Qaida Web sites have played cat-and-mouse with the FBI and Web-hosting companies. They appear on the Internet in one spot, are discovered and removed, then pop up somewhere else.

The unknown Webmasters of al-Neda, or The Call, have given up on finding a Web company to host their calls for jihad, an Arabic term meaning "struggle" that is frequently used in the sense of "holy war."

Instead, al-Neda's originators have hacked into computers that host unrelated sites and illegally inserted their files.

The covert Web addresses are then posted on other Islamic sites or can be found using Arabic-language search engines.

Al-Neda, which has been on the Web for about two years, displays on its home page what SITE's Katz describes as "al-Qaida's logo," a rifle-toting horseman and the Arabic slogan, "No honor except for jihad."

Domain name taken

In July, Jon Messner, a Web site operator in Ocean City, Md., grabbed the right to use the www.alneda.com domain name when the jihad site's owners, then operating from a server in Malaysia, briefly let their registration lapse. Now visitors to that address are greeted by an American eagle and the slogan "Hacked, Tracked and now owned by the U.S.A."

But al-Neda stayed alive. First, its operators hacked into a mountain-biking site and hid their files there. When they were discovered, they switched to the site of a Dutch soccer team. This year, they infiltrated the site of a graduate student at Portland State University in Oregon.

All three hacked sites are on the servers of Liquid Web, of Lansing, Mich.

Jack Flintz, the company's security administrator, says he discovered al-Neda lurking amid the personal pages of graduate student Conrado Salas Cano on Feb. 25.

Flintz says he reported the intrusion to the FBI's Detroit office, where Special Agent Dean Kinsman asked him to leave al-Neda running so agents could monitor its content and visitors. Liquid Web removed the pages last month.

Flintz says Liquid Web hosts roughly 10,000 sites. Of the al-Neda content, "We don't allow it," he says. "But if we don't know about it, we can't do anything about it."

An FBI spokesman says the bureau does not disable Internet sites backing terrorism but does inform the hosting company of the material.

"We've done this for years with child pornography," says Special Agent John Iannarelli at FBI headquarters in Washington. "Generally we get excellent cooperation."

Iannarelli says the First Amendment protects Web sites that criticize U.S. policy, and the FBI is "not interested in quashing free speech."

"However, if you cross the line, calling for attacks on the U.S. or offering information on terrorist methods, that could be illegal," he says.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/gen/apr03/131355.asp?format=print

[Motley]

Nancy Powell
Associate Editor

(April 8, 2005) The man who sent flowers anonymously to every resident in the Berlin Nursing Home for Christmas died this week. That gesture was just one of several that Jon David Messner made without the recipients knowing the name of the giver.

He did not want his gifts or money turned down because of possible prejudice against him. He was best known as a pornographer, but he also used his computer savvy to work on national security issues and to hijack a militant Islamic website promoting the terror organization, al-Qaida.

His ability to use the Internet to investigate and to capture the site led to an invitation to speak at the country’s war college, the National Defense University. It was a highlight of his life.

Although he started spending most of his time monitoring several websites he set up to search for terrorist activity, he maintained the site that made him and his wife known around the world. Started from a corner in their Ocean Pines house, the website featured amateurs posing nude.

The site gained notoriety and the Messners were featured in national magazines and on many television shows, including Dateline NBS, plus shows in Europe. A film about them and their site was promoted at the Cannes Film Festival.

Messner branched out into more mainstream endeavors and owned an Internet Service Provider for a few years.


His success earned him millions and he was generous with his money. In 2001, he gave a limousine to charity and although that gift was written about, he said he usually liked to make donations anonymously. He just liked to do nice things for people, he said. He particularly enjoying sending flowers to people in the nursing home so they would know someone cared about them, he said.

He bought an Ocean City condominium and then his dream home in Lighthouse Sound in 2001. An accomplished artist and photographer, he put decorative finishes on many of the walls and then filled the home with his photographs. He loved the home, but it was that home, he would say, that led to his illness.

In a lawsuit filed against Monogram Building and Design and other firms last summer, Messner contended water got into the house and caused a mold infestation problem. He had photographs showing himself sitting in the living room holding an umbrella because of water entering the house.

Messner became ill, was hospitalized a number of times and had varying diagnoses. Eventually, he was told that the mold had made him sick.

In December 2003, the Messners left their dream home, which had become a nightmare and moved to an Ocean City apartment. He was too ill to run his pornographic website and the income was reduced to what he said was a moderate level.

He had respiratory and memory problems and did not expect to recover.

One benefit, he said, of the changes in his life since becoming ill was that his family had become closer. He cherished being with them, he said.

Messner seldom left his apartment, not wanting to be seen and not wanting to be pitied.

He ended his life on Monday. He was 46 years old. He is survived by his wife, Cherie, a son and a daughter. Funeral services were to be private.

http://www.oceancity.md/octoday/headline.cfm?PubID=2798 (http://www.oceancity.md/octoday/headline.cfm?PubID=2798)

[Proud American]

Alleged Al Qaeda Operative Back on Internet

By Jeremy Reynalds

Wed Jan 21 2004: (Talon News) Self proclaimed al Qaeda operative Daleel Almojahid has resurfaced yet again on the Internet, and a spirited conversation has been occurring between Almojahid and others during the last few days on a well known bulletin board devoted mainly to a discussion of the war on terror.

The board, located at www.itshappening.com and founded by Maryland based pornographer Jon David Messner shortly after 9/11, recently featured an Associated Press story concerning a Delta Airlines jet traveling from Germany to the United States that made an emergency landing in Ireland Monday due to security concerns.

According to the story, while Irish police would only say the landing was "security-related," another news agency reported an airport spokeswoman as saying the plane made an emergency landing after a bomb scare.

Immediately following the AP story, Almojahid commented, "Al Qaeda has watched and learnd how the U.S. deals with its security concerns and we can tell you that the U.S. is in a security mess. Operational plan one has succeded well more than we have expected thanks to god."

That prompted a response from an individual only identified as "Wannabe," who commented, "You losers have accomplished nothing, zero, since you started making big noises. Hey Daleel, all the Muslims who left NY when you told them too, what way back in November, they are running out of money, can The Big Man Usama send them some cash to tide them over and give them some idea when you guys are actually going to do something?"

The comment from "Wannabe" was followed by an esoteric response from Almojahid who said, "Don't wish for something that is still not there. When it's there you start wishing the other way around. Everything has its time and time means a lot in our operations. Don't expect the expected, expect the unexpected. You will know what these words mean when you least expect!"

"Wannabe" then commented, "The Muslims who heeded your warning are still waiting to be reimbursed, it is expensive to leave your house and job for several months, why bother issuing warnings just so you have an excuse for killing even more innocent Muslims, we warned you guys, you didn't listen, well when you keep crying wolf, who can blame them?"

Later in the thread responding to another person, Almojahid then commented that whereas those who do not hold his position are fighting for "Bush and his White House gang of mobs," he and his colleagues are fighting for a higher cause.

"We are fighting for God and to make his word the highest and everything else the lowest and we will win this war, I promise you. God told us to kill who kills us! And that's what we are doing, if you think we are killing with no reason then think again, where was shikh bin laden 20 years ago?" Almojahid wrote.

"Why now in the past few years! Ask yourself what the west has done to get Muslims really on the road of jihad! America has done so much evil to the Muslim world that Muslims cant take no more. We have been killed and killed over and over and over around the world ... without a single Arab ruler speaking out and defending us! So we have decided to take things into our hands and obey god when he says, 'Fight who fights you and kill who kills you.' And for us you are killers and we will revenge."

Almojahid added that he and his colleagues are "protecting" their nation from American invasion.

He wrote, "You have decided to mess with us so get ready to feel the back fire of your messing with us. Don't expect us to send you roses or feel you when you cry, coz [sic] when Baghdad and Afghanistan were bombed you were on TV smiling on the killing of our brothers and sisters. And we will smile too, and let's see who will hold on to the last flag. alaah akbaar. This is our flag and we promise you it will be high on top of your heads."

Source (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5562.htm)

[Proud American]

An Interview With Jon David, The Man Who Hacked al-Queda's Homepage

by John Hawkins

I scored a coup by getting an interview with Jon David, who hacked al-Queda's homepage. I wish I could have had a little more time to talk with him but considering that he's been getting interviewed by the likes of CNN, ABC, and the Washington Post today I was lucky to get him at all.

John Hawkins: How long have you been going after terrorist run/al-Queda related web sites?

Jon David: Since September 11th. I felt powerless at first like everyone else, then thought that the one thing I do know is the Internet. So I took it upon myself at that point to do everything within my ability to disrupt the flow of terrorist information and communication on the net. I immediately began registering sound-like domains, similars, etc., like Al-Quada.com, Alneda.org, and eventually I succeeded in hijacking Alneda.com, al-Queda's domain itself.

John Hawkins: Was that your first big success?

Jon David: No, actually I had a great deal of success with the similar domains of Alneda.org and Alneda.net because each time the feds shut down Alneda.com, the hostiles would gravitate towards the .net & .org pages thinking that that was the site. Even before I gained control of Alneda.com, I logged information that I passed on to the authorities. I was able to track the people who accessed the website, which reads like a virtual who's who of hostile nations. But, I have to say capturing Alneda.com was certainly the coup de grace.

John Hawkins: You logged the information and sent it to the FBI is that correct? Are they giving you any indication that they're doing anything with it? I ask because if they have IPs and times they can literally go the ISPs these guys are connecting with and then they can turn it into names and addresses they can compare to terrorist watch lists and intelligence reports...

Jon David: We have all the IP addresses to the tune of 27 thousand visitors a day seeking Alneda.com (the calling) from every hostile country imaginable. But interestingly enough, 90% were from Saudi Arabia.

John Hawkins: Just like 15 of the 19 hijackers...no big surprise there.

Jon David: It literally took me 5 days to reach anyone in the FBI that had an even elementary grasp of the Internet. By that time, the hostiles realized the site I had up was a decoy and then advised everyone away from it. I still gave the FBI all the log information and link information to the hostile boards and whatnot, but it's far from what could have potentially been done if they would have acted more quickly. But they are a bureaucracy and as such they move incredibly slow.

John Hawkins: They should have been falling all over themselves to grab the info you were offering them...

Jon David: I would have thought so too but what became apparent was that I had a different definition of the word 'immediate' than the FBI did.

John Hawkins: If you had IPs and times they should have had a dozen agents working with you within the hour. The potential is there to literally put away HUNDREDS of al-Queda members if they're on top of this and can get any real cooperation from the Saudi government. So how did you manage to hijack al-Queda's domain?

Jon David: I hijacked the domain using a snapback utility. They were apparently trying to move the domain to a registrar in India when my snapback entered my owner information and I then took control of the domain. And I must say, they are not happy.

John Hawkins: So any concern for your safety after digitally flipping off the world's foremost terrorist organization?

Jon David: Naturally I'm a little concerned, but no more concerned that any of the young men and women who have been called to duty in Afghanistan. I believe they face more grave peril daily than I will...hopefully anyway. But I still would not advise anyone to sneak up and tap me on the shoulder when I'm walking down the street for a while. LOL

(**Editor's Note: I know the name 'Jon David' is an alias and other news sources have printed "Jon's" real name. However, I have decided to honor his wishes and leave the alias in place.**)

Source (http://www.rightwingnews.com/interviews/jondavid.php)

[Proud American]

Sorry I know that post #10 isnt about Jon, but it is related to IH, I thought people might want to read this one.

[Motley]

Sorry I know that post #10 isnt about Jon, but it is related to IH, I thought people might want to read this one.

Thanks P.A.

[Jake]

.
The more I read this the more that I think that John didn't get sick from that mold-- I think thay sent someone after him and subjected him to some kind of personal biological attack.

I'm almost convinced-- not because I have proof but just because of what he did to their sites-- they may have come after him.

Jake

[al-Canine]

This article, while not mentioning Jon specifically, does however highlight the important role that he, itshappening.com and other sites have played in the war on terror since 9/11.

It's 4 a.m. in Montana, and a cyberspy is at work

By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter

CONRAD, Mont.--Shannen Rossmiller finds early mornings are best for hunting terrorists.

When it's 4 a.m. in this one-stoplight prairie town, it's 3 p.m. in, say, Karachi, Pakistan, the sweltering hours just before the evening call to prayer. That's when Rossmiller, while her husband and three children sleep, finds the Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards frequented by radical Muslims and jihad warriors are busiest.

It is when Rossmiller pursues her deadly serious hobby: citizen cyberspy.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Internet has become sprinkled with self-proclaimed intelligence agents and freelance threat analysts like Rossmiller-- ordinary civilians who comb Web sites and chat rooms for hints of the enemy's next move. The phenomenon, propelled by the Internet's anonymity and worldwide reach, is unique to the war on terrorism.

A few, like Rossmiller, take their pastime further.

Unencumbered by bureaucracy or by laws requiring warrants or prohibiting entrapment, she and a few others freely infiltrate the enemy's lairs and assess what they find there. In some cases, they even disrupt communications or get people arrested.

But spying can be dangerous business, even more so when the government doesn't officially condone or even know about it. Experts say citizen cyberspies can stumble into risky situations or get in the way of law enforcement. But they also acknowledge people like Rossmiller have good intentions-- and, occasionally, good luck.

So it was that, on one of Rossmiller's trawls through Web sites with names like bravemuslim.com last fall, she came across a posting by a man calling himself Amir Abdul Rashid. It was clear from the message that Rashid was edging toward the violent fringes of Islam.

Over time, it also became apparent to her that he was an American soldier.

Posing as an Algerian with ties to that country's outlawed Armed Islamic Group, she sent Rashid an e-mail with the subject line "A Call to Jihad." Rashid responded by asking if it was possible that a "brother fighting on the wrong side could defect."

Over a period of four months, Rossmiller drew out Rashid through a series of 27 e-mails. She learned, with growing alarm, that he was a National Guardsman about to be deployed to Iraq. And he appeared willing to share information on American troop vulnerabilities with the enemy. Rossmiller provided the information to the Department of Homeland Security, which passed it to the FBI and the Army.

The arrest in that case of Ryan Anderson, 26, a troubled Muslim convert and a specialist in the Washington state National Guard's 81st Armor Brigade, was splashed across the country's newspapers in February. It was a direct result of Rossmiller's work, and she is expected to be the reluctant star witness at his pending court martial. She testified in a preliminary hearing last month.

An avocation develops

The Sept. 11 attacks create a cyberspy in a small Montana city.

Until that hearing, almost nobody in Conrad (population 2,753) knew of Rossmiller's avocation. Townsfolk learned about it only after a wire story appeared in the Great Falls Tribune.

Rossmiller says she never wanted the publicity-- all she wanted was to help stop terrorists. Now, people stop her at the grocery and wave her down at the local coffee shop to thank or congratulate her.

When asked, however, nobody's quite sure how she got involved or exactly what she did.

"I don't think people really know what to think of this," Rossmiller said.

Even before being outed as a cyberspy, Rossmiller was a high-profile member of this farming community: She's the town judge, a paralegal who was appointed to the post four years ago.

Conrad, surrounded by farmlands that roll, virtually uninterrupted, to Glacier National Park some 60 miles northwest, is home to a large community of Hutterites, a pacifist Christian sect similar to the Amish. The surrounding county also hosts 17 intercontinental strategic missile sites operated out of nearby Malmstrom Air Force Base.

Rossmiller, 34, was born and raised in Conrad, her father a farmer and her mother a special-education teacher. A former high-school cheerleader and honors student, she now draws on her legal-research skills in her quest.

Rossmiller says there is no mystery to how and why she developed her avocation. It traces to Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001.

She was bedridden with a fractured pelvis and felt helpless as the terrorist attacks unfolded.

"I had to do something," Rossmiller said over lattes and lunch at the Lobby, a kitschy restaurant two doors down from the city offices on Main Street.

She started pulling random items out of her purse: her checkbook, a wallet, a key fob, all adorned with the American flag. "This is who I am," she said. "When President Bush asked for a dollar for the Afghan children's fund, I sent $100. I can't help it.

"Besides, my husband wouldn't let me join the National Guard."

Her interest in the attacks led her to the Internet, where, in discussion groups and on bulletin boards, she met others driven to know more about those responsible.

It wasn't long before she and a few others formed a loose-knit group. Alliances evolved over time. The goal, however, was clear from the start: disrupt terrorists. The group called itself 7Seas Global Intelligence Security Team, and its research began extending beyond the day's headlines.

"By the time things hit the mainstream media, a deed was pretty much done," explained Brent Astley, an unemployed physicist and software designer near Toronto, and a member of the 7Seas team. "We decided to take it to the next level."

Effort evolves

7Seas has grown into a sophisticated intelligence group, members say.

Initially, the group gathered information and tried to predict when another terrorist attack might occur. Members posted their findings on a Web site called itshappening.com, a bulletin board of like-minded armchair intelligence neophytes. The first attempts were amateurish, and Astley concedes a critic's point that 7Seas was prone to crying wolf.

"They are prone to read an awful lot into very little," said Neil Doyle, a freelance journalist who has written extensively on international terrorism.

"We've evolved," Astley said. "Some of us are quite adept."

The 7Seas operation has become more sophisticated, Rossmiller and Astley say. Its members now post their work and share thoughts in a private, secure area of the Internet. In the meantime, members have put together a huge database of research and news stories about terrorist groups and individuals.

Occasionally, the group takes its findings public. On May 12, 2002, 7Seas posted a news release stating it had correctly warned of bombings that day in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed an Australian man. The group referenced a rough and garbled translation of an Arabic Web site that 7Seas had posted four days earlier on itshappening.com.

Rossmiller says she and others have developed contacts in intelligence agencies in several countries, and have passed on significant information.

It's hard to measure her claim. The Department of Justice did not respond to requests to discuss 7Seas or the private-intelligence phenomenon. Likewise, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service declined to comment.

But FBI spokesman Bob Wright, a special agent in Salt Lake City-- the field office responsible for FBI activities in Montana-- said the agency would not discourage individuals like Rossmiller.

"We've always relied on our good relationship with citizens as our eyes and ears in the community," Wright said. "This is just a new twist on an old theme. It's sort of like a cyber Neighborhood Watch."

'There is no textbook'

Cyberspies' tactics are painstaking and sometimes bold.

The 7Seas Web site-- www.7-seas.net --claims the group can provide "round-the-clock" threat analysis and "real time terrorist information, intelligence and strategic analysis to law enforcement and military agencies both within the United States and internationally."

Rossmiller took a few hours one morning to demonstrate. Over the past two years, she explained, she has invented and developed several characters whose identities she assumes when visiting Jihadi chat rooms and bulletin boards. Nobody in 7Seas speaks Arabic, and Rossmiller might spend weeks translating a posting using software and a dictionary.

The details of the personalities she assumes are just as painstakingly assembled. Their street addresses are real. She knows the address of the nearest mosque and the name of its imam. A message pops up on her computer to remind her when it would be prayer time, so she remembers to stop what she's doing.

She has software that "proxies" her computer address to that area, making it appear to all but the most savvy Internet user that she's physically there. It helps that her husband, Randy, is a computer technician.

Rossmiller spends hours researching the philosophical underpinnings of terrorist groups. If she were a Kashmir radical, she points out, her motivations would differ from those of a Saudi Arabian or Afghan.

Her postings can be brazen. Rossmiller says the goal is to flush out terrorists, and being timid or obtuse doesn't get it done.

"I've found that the only way to get information is to be a little bolder than they are," she said. "This is not conventional. There is no textbook for this."

There are seven members of 7Seas: four in the U.S. and one each in Canada, Australia and Singapore. Rossmiller declined to identify the others, aside from Astley. But she says they are corporate and personal security experts, a former detective who speaks seven languages (although not Arabic), a "global media" specialist, a real-estate agent and an architect.

For a brief period in 2002, 7Seas was incorporated and its members hoped to land a government contract. But a falling-out with a founding member delayed those plans, and Rossmiller let the corporation die before it ever made a dime.

She says, however, that its members hope one day to make a profit as security and intelligence consultants; even though the job has risks.

Conrad police officer Carl Suta said the FBI ordered Rossmiller placed under police protection after a suspicious telephone call to Conrad City Hall on May 18.

Officers believed the call may have come from someone in Canada with whom Rossmiller had been in contact while using the same alias she used to trap Anderson.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, private security and intelligence sites on terrorism have sprouted on the Internet. They range from the useful to the absurd: One site, trackingthethreat.com, contains a remarkable database of known terrorists and groups.

Then there's stevequayle.com, whose founder is a longtime survivalist, talk-radio host and conspiracy theorist. Quayle's "global terror alert" can be found alongside links to his research into our 36-foot-tall ancestors and a conspiracy-fueled treatise on missing Soviet scientists.

Two years ago, a freelance intelligence agent in Britain named Glen Jenvey obtained secret videotapes of an Islamic cleric in London named Abu Hamza al-Masri and a young Seattle acolyte named James Ujaama talking about jihad. Those tapes were later used to prosecute Ujaama, who had helped plan to set up a terrorist training camp in Bly, Ore. Ujaama pleaded guilty and has agreed to testify against Abu Hamza, who is charged with conspiring to help al-Qaida.

Last month, the operator of a homeless shelter in Albuquerque, N.M., Jeremy Reynalds, infiltrated and then exposed several jihad Web sites unwittingly hosted by American Internet providers. Reynalds, an associate of Jenvey, said he has spent more than two years posing as a terrorist to get inside some of the sites.

"This is a really intriguing phenomenon," said retired Air Force Gen. Todd Stewart, the executive director of the National Academic Consortium for Homeland Security, an alliance of colleges and universities conducting research on homeland-security issues.

"What you're seeing is people taking to heart the calls for increased vigilance," he said.

The question is, when does vigilance become vigilantism? Stewart and others say that remains to be seen.

"I think we'll find that this is all part of the debate over how secure is secure enough" in the post-Sept. 11 world, Stewart said. "We have yet to determine the balance between personal security and personal freedom."

Ups and downs

Cyberspies avoid bureaucracy, but they can land in trouble.

Still, there is precedent for citizens to take up spying for the common good, even when it stretches the law, said Steven Emerson, a journalist whose 1992 book "American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us" took on new significance after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"If you uncover some wrongdoing or illegality, then I think this sort of thing is a public service, really," Emerson said.

Consider, he said, the seminal investigative work of white Texas writer John Howard Griffin, who tinted his skin and chronicled the life of a black man in the Deep South in his book "Black Like Me." Griffin's book was published in 1961.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who has written about what he calls "white-hat hackers"; citizens who use the Internet to spy on or disrupt terrorism; said the phenomenon is a natural extension of the war on terrorism.

"It's not unlike Newton's Law; for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," he said. "Terrorism is decentralized. You would expect the reaction to it to be decentralized, as well."

Individuals are able, in some instances, to leapfrog the efforts of the federal agencies whose job it is to protect the homeland.

"They are not strangled by a bureaucracy" or the requirements of a court of law, he said.

The downside, he said, is that private citizens don't have the legal immunities that police do. An officer acting in good faith, even if he makes a mistake, is difficult to sue. Not so for a private citizen, Reynolds said.

And there could be other, more serious, legal consequences.

"Computers make it possible to play spy from your home, and that can be good," he said. "But remember, you are still being a spy, and that carries risks. People might try to kill you. You might violate the law. You might screw things up."

Wright, the FBI agent, said, "It's probably true that at times we will be working at cross-purposes."

Indeed, one of the points Rossmiller and others who play these spy games concede is that they can't always tell who is who on the Internet.

Astley, the 7Seas member in Canada, said he was once warned away from a target by "U.S. law enforcement." He backed off without asking why.

Elizabeth Bancroft, the executive director of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers in Washington, D.C., said the role of citizen spies; she calls them "assets"; has been "a fixture of imaginative minds for decades.

"The Internet has only brought forth more gamesmanship and role-playing ... But hundreds of Walter Mittys and James Bond Juniors exist, and play their hands with vigor, cloaked by the anonymity of the Net.

"One of the many features of a free society is having a bit of fun," she said. "Should they happen to flush out a terrorist or two-- we say bravo."

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com

Copyright (c) 2004 The Seattle Times Company

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001957222_montana16m.html

[Alli]

Members posted their findings on a Web site called itshappening.com, a bulletin board of like-minded armchair intelligence neophytes. :happy_04:

[Motley]

How Al-Qaida Site Was Hijacked

http://c.lygo.com/s.gif
By Patrick Di Justo (http://www.wincoast.com/news/feedback/mail/1,2330,0-565-54455,00.html) | Also (http://www.wincoast.com/news/storylist/0,2339,565,00.html) by this reporter Page 1 of 2 next » (http://www.wincoast.com/news/culture/0,1284,54455-2,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1)




02:00 AM Aug. 10, 2002 PT

A Maryland hacker used simple Web tools like whois and traceroute -- as well as online translation software and an anti-cybersquatting service -- to take over the domain name of al-Qaida's website. And he's ready to do it again.


Jon Messner, the Internet entrepreneur who perpetrated the recent domain hijacking, used SnapName's Snapback (http://www.snapnames.com/products_snapback.html) service to obtain ownership of the domain www.alneda.com (http://www.alneda.com/).

The switch in ownership was made on July 16, after the owners of alneda.com deleted its registration from an ISP in Malaysia. Messner believes this was in preparation to establish Al Neda on another server.

"It was a slippery bastard, but I've got it now," Messner laughs. "I own alneda.com."

Al Neda contained editorials by major al-Qaida leaders, some of them explicit calls for action and justification of terrorist activities. There was a message board, containing relatively innocuous messages believed to be coded signals.

There was also a multimedia section containing pictures, audio files and videos of Osama bin Laden.

Earlier this year, Al Neda was being hosted on a server farm (http://www.mtdc.com.my/) in Kuala Lumpur. Messner believes the United States government pressured the Malaysians to drop www.alneda.com (http://www.alneda.com/) from its site a few months ago.

When al-Qaida deleted the domain from Malaysia, Messner struck. "After they pushed it out of the Malaysian registry... in that split second the domain became exposed, and Snapback... put my info in there," Messner said.

Now Messner was listed as Al Neda's owner.

At that point, Messner put up a copy of the original al-Qaida website on his new domain, with one subtle difference. "I put very simple CGI tracking on the site, so for five days I could trace back to nearly every hostile Islamic message board and website on the Internet."

Messner used the Arabic translation software on Ajeeb.com (http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1) to read the messages left on his new website.

"The context of the messages was all, 'Praise Allah, The Call is back online,'" Messner said.

For five days, visitors believed www.alneda.com (http://www.alneda.com/) was still the real al-Qaida site. Then at 4:30 a.m. on July 20, a message was posted to an Islamic message board by the person who had regularly maintained the actual Al Neda website.

"He told them it was a trap, not to go there, the infidels were tracking their information, they had taken control of the domain and stay away."

After that, Messner realized, "The jig was up."

With his cover blown, there was no sense keeping the decoy up anymore, so Messner replaced the website with a picture of the Great Seal of the United States and the phrase, "Hacked, tracked and now owned by the USA."

That same morning, Messner says, the real al-Qaida website appeared temporarily at www.news4arab.org (http://www.news4arab.org/), which has since gone down.

Messner hypothesizes that the next incarnation of al-Qaida's website will be on www.drasat.com (http://www.drasat.com/).

Story continued on Page 2 » (http://www.wincoast.com/news/culture/0,1284,54455-2,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_next1)

http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54455,00.html?tw=wn_story_related

[Motley]

A Look Inside The Mind Of A Pornographer

July 24, 2002

by Jeremy Reynalds



It’s a bizarre story to say the least. A Maryland-based Internet pornographer whose business according to some accounts grossed over $3 million in 1999, is now the owner of alneda.com, a former terrorist web site. The alneda.com site was believed by U.S. officials to have been used by al-Qaeda to deliver messages possibly connected with further terrorist attacks.

How and why Jon David (I am not using his last name at his request) obtained that site and what he’s doing with it is the stuff of which mystery novels are made. Jon David, who described himself in an e-mail to me as a "a patriot who loves America and all that it stands for," said that like millions of other Americans, he was horrified by the events of 9/11.

However, Jon David told me in an interview that his way of expressing himself was to register Internet domain names such as bio-terrorism.com, anthrax-disease.com and al-qaeda.com and point them all to itshappening.com, a so-called current events message board.

Jon David’s goal for the board was that "people with different views could intelligently dialogue." Jon David said that unfortunately many of the postings on the site have turned into "rants," although there have been some instances where some important information has been noted on the site.

As part of his post 9/11 name buying binge, Jon David had already snapped up the names alneda.org and alneda.net but his initial inability to purchase alneda.com did not stop him trying. His perseverance combined with some effective computer software that tracks even the temporary availability of a site name paid off for him.

"You don’t have to monitor a domain’s utility. It will grab it and put your information on it," Jon David said. And that’s exactly what happened. Consequently, the alneda.com site is now owned by Jon David, who’s working very diligently (and so he says with the full knowledge of the federal government) to help rid America of terrorism on the Internet.

I was intrigued about Jon David, a former administrator in the funeral business. As political conservatives and evangelical Christians we routinely criticize pornography and the harmful effects it continues to have on our nation, but we rarely get the opportunity to see what motivates the folks behind it.

Jon David told me after his career in the funeral business bottomed out and he found himself unemployed, he didn’t know what he should do. While he enjoyed living in Ocean City, "the beach is not a place of vast opportunity," he said.

However, Jon David bought a computer and started researching possibilities. "I learned that what was being sold (on the Internet) was adult content and realized that was where most of the money was being made. With my wife’s blessing we began an adult site. My wife and I were in it in the very beginning posing because at the time we were the only models we could afford."

This was Jon David’s plan. Instead of taking models and placing them in "adult" situations, he took housewives, "real women, and put them in an adult atmosphere." As Jon David "took traditional marketing techniques and applied them to the Internet," the site quickly became very popular. That success has even landed Jon David interviews on shows such as Dateline and MSNBC.

Jon David was quick to defend his work. He said, "The adult business has provided me with a lifestyle that allows me to focus on my family. It’s a quality of life that I wouldn’t give up for anything in the world."

Jon David said that his two children, 19 and 12, are doing well. "Our daughter is in honors at Georgetown University. Our son has been two years straight honors at his school. They don’t use drugs or alcohol. We must be doing something right. They have their heads screwed on right. They don’t have your typical teen hangups on sex. They have a well rounded view of life. We use sex as a vehicle. It could be potatoes or popcorn. It just happens to be sex."

Jon David said both of his children know about sex and don’t make "a big deal" about it. He added that they will become sexually active at the appropriate age.

Jon David said he considers sex to be one of the greatest gifts we have and that people "who shake their finger" at him are many times those who have the most to hide. Jon David said he and his wife are no longer looked at as pornographers first but as successful business entrepreneurs.

Jon David told me that neither he or his wife fit the usual image that people have of pornographers. "A lot of your conservative audience has a stereotypical view of those involved in porn; the whole underworld connotation of those involved in the adult businessman. We live in a conservative area. My wife is a soccer mom. If you met us on our street you would never know that this is what we do for a living," he said.

However, Jon David is taking steps to see that he remains a successful businessman, calling sex on the Internet "a vehicle that has had its heyday. America is becoming jaded from the proliferation of free porn on the Internet. That’s why we have developed mainstream programs (as well,)" he said.

Jon David said he isn’t a religious person. "I base my faith in reality. I’m an empirical person," he told me. Jon David added that his life’s philosophy is to "treat other people well and they’ll treat you well. If you’re honest and forthright, they’ll treat you good."

After having read Jon David’s story, I hope you’ll begin to pray that Jesus will touch his heart. I would love to see his gifts and talents put to work in the kingdom of God. While that ultimately is only a decision Jon David can make, your prayers can play an important part in encouraging him to make the right choice.

http://www.opinionet.com/article.php?id=1077

[Motley]

A case in point: Anyone who tries to find the official al Qaeda website Alneda (the Call) via its most recent IP address 65.216.200.41 (http://65.216.200.41/) is greeted by a screen proclaiming "Hacked, tracked, and NOW owned by the U.S.A." This is one of the several initiatives pursued by Jon David, an adult-content webmaster who has made it his mission to frustrate the online jihadists. The "porno patriot" uses sophisticated software to seize web domains when they move between hosts (which they invariably do when providers find out what is on their servers), and he has licensed or assumed control of Alneda.com, Alneda.net, Al-Qaeda.com, and nukeafghanistan.com, among scores of others. In the case of Alneda, David hijacked the domain name, put up a mirror of the original site as it appeared in June, then logged hits to the decoy site for five days using tracking software. Once the terrorists caught on that this was not their resurrected Alneda, word got out — but not before over 20,000 hits per day were tracked and the information turned over to the authorities. The actual Alneda site (in Arabic) can now be accessed at IP address 66.132.29.71 (http://66.132.29.71/) — hopefully not for long.

Al Qaeda has publicly denounced Jon David's efforts, and stated that they will backfire by proliferating sites and "endearing jihad to the people." Other Islamicists have charged that shutting down the websites is "a nail in the coffin of the much vaunted and cherished American ideal of 'free speech.'" Somehow, I doubt it, especially when the speech in question calls for the murder of four million Americans. And you have to appreciate the irony of a pornographer being their bete- (or net-) noir — these are the guys who would stone a woman to death for showing a little too much ankle under her burka. Given the relentless pressure on its web assets al Qaeda seems to be giving up on maintaining sites and relying instead on posting to discussion groups or using e-mail lists. Maybe a terrorist version of The Corner (http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/corner.asp) is in the future, or a personal blog page, perhaps osamabinladen.com. The domain is registered to some fellow in Karachi, Pakistan (http://samspade.org/t/lookat?a=osamabinladen.com)...hmm, you don't suppose?

— James S. Robbins is a national-security analyst & NRO contributor.

http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins073002.asp

[NYC]

http://www.rol.ru/news/it/internet/02/07/31_004.htm

ФБР не удалось сделать из сайта "Аль-Каеды" приманку для террористов
31 июля 2002 г.
Разработчик порнографических ресурсов Джон Месснер (Jon Messner) получил контроль над одним из информационных сайтов "Аль-Каеды" и предложил ФБР использовать эту возможность для дезинформации и сбора данных о сочувствующих террористам. Однако пока в ФБР искали специалиста по сетям для проведения подобной операции, возможность была упущена и Месснер был вынужден закрыть сайт.

Как заявил Месснер в интервью Associated Press, за то время, пока в ФБР пытались найти специалиста по интернету, можно было серьезно усложнить деятельность террористов.

Представитель офиса ФБР в Балтиморе Барри Маддокс (Barry Maddox) сказал, что он "не может подтвердить или опровергнуть" сотрудничество с Месснером. "Если бы мы откуда-нибудь получили какую-нибудь информацию, связанную с событиями 11 сентября или другой деятельностью террористов, мы бы рассмотрели это и взяли на разработку", - заявил Маддокс.

Хотя многие из сайтов Месснера специализируются на порнографии, его заинтересовал ресурс Alneda.com, предлагавший информацию о действиях исламистских вооруженных формирований, связанных с международной террористической организацией "Аль-Каеда", и публиковавший сообщения ее руководителей.

Месснер отследил, когда у Alneda.com в очередной раз из-за связи с террористами возникли проблемы с властями, перекупил адрес и 16 июля выложил на сайт материалы, которые находились там до его закрытия. Он надеялся, что американские должностные лица смогут использовать этот ресурс для дезинформации или собора данных о его посетителях.

Почти сразу после размещения в сети, на Alneda.com стали заходить пользователи из арабских стран и с других сайтов исламистской направленности. "Я выяснил происхождение сообщений на досках объявлений, которые после перевода звучали как "Хвалите Аллаха, сайт "Алнеда" восстановлен"", - сказал Месснер.

Так как он не мог писать новые статьи на арабском, ему понадобилась помощь ФБР для обновления содержания сайта. Должностные лица ФБР в Балтиморе и Солсбери одобрили его работу, но слишком долго решали, как именно помочь ему. После того, как на других арабских ресурсах пользователей стали предостерегать от посещения фальшивой "Алнеды", Месснеру пришлось закрыть сайт.

Как только Месснер отказался от адреса, сайт Alneda.com возник снова, на сей раз в Дэйтоне (Dayton), штат Огайо, и опубликовал интервью с одним из лидеров "Аль-Каеды".

По мнению экспертов, авантюра с этой фальшивкой не заслуживает внимания. Как считает Джон Пик (John Pike) из Globalsecurity.org, приманка Месснера была доступна всем пользователям интернета, и ФБР могло бы неосторожно помочь террористам связаться между собой.

Бывший эксперт ЦРУ Винсент Каннистраро (Vincent Cannistraro) в свою очередь считает, что опасно полагаться на непрофессионала при проведении разведовательной работы. "Это может выглядеть как большой ресурс для обеспечения правопорядка. С другой стороны, это может стать площадкой для большого количества злоупотреблений".

The story did really get around!

[NYC]

and one in French too

http://haganah.org.il/hmedia/press-07nov02-LeTemps_ch.pdf

[Stealth]

One of the main reasons I joined the forum was because I heard about Regis's death. Foefive emailed me about it.

I was very saddened and wanted to express my deepest condolences and sorrow. I pray God grants him eternal peace and have mercy and blessing upon his soul. I also wish his family and friends have strength to cope with such a loss.

All in all, I must say that I liked the guy a lot and will always remember him in my heart and in my prayers.

[Motley]

^up^

[Virginia]

Heroes or Nettlesome Hacks?

Some Internet vigilantes think they’re fighting terrorism, but their efforts to shut down Web sites linked to Al Qaeda and other groups may be doing more harm than good.

By Brad Stone
Newsweek
Updated: 9:51 a.m. ET July 13, 2005

July 13 - Freelance counterterrorist Aaron Weisburd is not an employee of any of the three-letter federal agencies. He works alone in his attic in Carbondale, Ill., far from the hotbeds of terrorist activity. Yet for the last three years, the 41-year-old computer programmer has been obsessively monitoring dark corners of the Internet such as Qal3ah.org, the Web site where, last week, a group called the Secret Organization for Al Qaeda’s Jihad in Europe placed a dubious claim of responsibility for the London bombings that took at least 52 lives.


Weisburd is the creator of Internet Haganah, a self-proclaimed “global open-source intelligence network dedicated to confronting Internet use by Islamist terrorist organizations, their supporters, enablers and apologists.” In other words, he’s an Internet vigilante. When terrorists emerge on the Web with beheading videos, propaganda or recruitment pitches, Weisburd—or any of his dozen, virtual colleagues around the country—move quickly to get them booted out of cyberspace. This makes Weisburd either a hero or a nuisance, depending on your point of view.

Since he started his voluntary mission shortly after the September 11 attacks, Weisburd claims to have knocked 718 Islamic extremist sites off the Web. His group either contacts the Internet Service Providers that may be unwittingly hosting sites connected to terrorist organizations or simply posts the offending URLs on Internet Haganah (haganah.org.il)—and trusts that their thousands of Net-savvy readers will use less civil tactics, like denial of service attack (a massive flood of Web traffic designed to overwhelm a Web site) to oust terror sites from the Web.

In an e-mail interview with NEWSWEEK, Weisburd says that booting terrorists offline interferes with their anti-American operations. “The point of the exercise is to keep the bad guys moving … If you force the enemy to operate in a dynamic environment, where they have to keep moving and thus exposing themselves, you force errors.”

Law enforcement officials generally dislike vigilantes; the general thinking is that they can’t help with the big cases and they sometimes ruin the easy ones. Internet vigilantes are no exception. Terror experts say that lone actors or organized groups like Internet Haganah can scuttle ongoing surveillance of Islamic Web sites and eventually force terrorists to find less observable ways of spreading their message.

It’s no coincidence, they argue, that in just the past year, Islamic extremists have gotten savvier in their use of the Internet. In early 2004, Iraqi insurgent Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and his group posted the video of the execution of Nicholas Berg, an American contractor working in Iraq, to one Web site, which was quickly overwhelmed with traffic. Today, terrorists post evidence of their atrocities on dozens of sites and coordinate their operations on secret e-mail lists, password-protected Web sites and audio chat services like PalTalk, which don’t leave behind a printed record. “The level of sophistication of these groups has become just unbelievable,” says Rita Katz, who monitors Islamic fundamentalist Internet activities as director of the D.C.-based Site Institute.

Katz and other terror experts worry that the vigilantes are forcing the extremists to hone their tactics, pushing them further into the dark underbelly of the Internet. “I used to believe we should take down every terrorist Web site that was run from the U.S.,” she says. “What I learned later on is when you take them down, you don’t achieve much. You achieve a momentary victory. But then the Web site is up again somewhere else.”


Evan Kohlmann, a New York City-based terrorism analyst, says that the anti-terror vigilantes do more harm than good. “We want these guys to surface, to get comfortable and to think they are completely safe,” he says. “That’s when they make mistakes.” While he appreciates the freelancers’ patriotic fervor, he urges Internet vigilantes to weigh the benefits of moving quickly against the costs to the overall science of counter-terrorism. “I understand the sentiment but they are doing damage. They are making these guys stronger. They are giving them antibodies.” The FBI doesn't comment specifically on the Internet vigilantes, but it has said in the past that efforts to stop criminals should be left to the government.


One of the originators of the anti-terror vigilante movement is not around to address the criticism. Jon Messner, an online pornographer horrified by what he saw on September 11, was able to register the address for an abandoned Al Qaeda Web site, Alneda.com, in early 2002. He then set up what appeared to be the legitimate Al Qaeda site and captured data in his server logs about who was visiting and linking to it. Messner tried to involve the FBI, but his ruse was detected by Al Qaeda by the time federal agents were able to react.

Bitter about how his improvised sting was mishandled, and ill from what he said was a mold infestation in his new Ocean City, Md., mansion, Messner committed suicide earlier this year. Among the sites he left behind is ItsHappening.com, a forum for others to share information and coordinate efforts against online jihadists.

Another hotbed of non-government anti-terror activity is the Northeast Intelligence Network. Douglas Hagmann, a private investigator in Erie, Pa., set up the site after September 11 and now works with 18 self-styled terrorist researchers and analysts from around the world. “Essentially, we monitor the really crappy Web sites out there that spew hatred and venom, and we conduct investigations where necessary,” he says. “We’re independent and don’t charge anything for this. None of us have lives. We don’t bowl. We don’t golf. We just do this.”

Hagmann’s site translates Islamic postings into English, rails against Islam and the idea of it as a “peaceful religion,” and urges a hard line in the war against terror. While Hagmann and his team occasionally alert authorities to terror sites operating from U.S. servers, he avoids actively knocking the sites offline. “We conduct surveillance,” he says. “It’s all passive. We go in surreptitiously and we leave surreptitiously. It’s a lot better then going in like a bull in a china shop.”

For his part, Weisburd of Internet Haganah has disdain for the notion that Internet vigilantes do more harm than good. He contests the assertion that Islamic extremist Web sites are now more difficult to track, and says the biggest obstacle to effective investigation of terror sites is “turf warfare between [federal] agencies.”

He may be on to a larger truth. According to Amit Yoran, former head of the National Cyber Security Division at the Department of Homeland Security, there’s widespread consensus among national security analysts that intelligence groups must do a better job sifting and exploiting so-called “open source intelligence,” publicly available information like Islamic Web sites. For that to happen though, Internet vigilantes may need to step back and let the Feds do their jobs.

© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

[Motley]

Bump to keep this within the 30 day limit of thread viewing

[Motley]

up.

[Motley]

up. (Never forget him)

[Motley]

Up for Jon

[Motley]

9/11 bump