Re: Cyber Vigilantes Track Extremist Web Sites, Intelligence Experts Balk at Effort

[Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>]

On Sat, Mar 22, 2008 at 09:52:22AM -0400, Richard M. Smith wrote:
> Just last month alone, Warner was instrumental in helping shut down three
> Web sites hosted by a Tampa Internet service provider (ISP) that contained
> text, images and video related to attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and
> Afghanistan.

What an abysmally stupid person.  Hasn't it occured to this idiot that:

        - when your adversary is busy blabbing about their thinking,
                strategy, tactics, etc. that the last thing you want
                to do is get them to shut up?
        - that even amateurish spammers work around things like this
                with ease, so surely any terrorist organization
                worthy of the designation can do the same?
        - that if the pros have spotted such a web site, and have
                concluded that it something other than a fake or
                a random annoyance, that they have no doubt by now
                sent a national security letter to the web host
                and are harvesting the logs, so shutting down the
                site cuts off a stream of possibly-useful intel?
        - that a sufficiently-clever adversary could use each one of
                these incidents to gain counter-intelligence?
        - that shutting down a web site does absolutely nothing toward
                getting the material removed from the Internet?
        - that "getting the material removed from the Internet" isn't
                an attainable goal, and may not even be a desirable one?

<sigh> I suppose not.

---Rsk
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