Pakistan Creates Cyber Crime Wing

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,58033,00.html

Associated Press 
Mar. 13, 2003 PT

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- A Pakistani security agency has launched a 
special wing to combat cyber crimes in part because the country had to 
rely on U.S. investigators to trace e-mails sent by the kidnappers of 
American journalist Daniel Pearl a year ago. 

"The purpose of establishing the National Response Center for Cyber 
Crimes is to stop misuse of the Internet and trace those involved in 
cyber-related crimes," Iftikhar Ahmad, spokesman for Pakistan's 
Interior Ministry, told the Associated Press on Wednesday. 

"The importance of this special wing was felt when Daniel Pearl was 
kidnapped, and his captors started sending e-mails to newspapers," he 
said. 

The Wall Street Journal correspondent disappeared on Jan. 23, 2002, 
from Pakistan's southern city of Karachi. 

On Jan. 27, 2002, the Journal and other media received an e-mail from 
a group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of 
Pakistani Sovereignty. The e-mail contained a photo of Pearl, 38, with 
a gun to his head. 

The FBI traced the e-mails, and police captured those who allegedly 
sent them to the newspapers, but, on Feb. 21, 2002, the U.S. Embassy 
received a videotape showing Pearl was dead. 

"The National Response Center for Cyber Crimes will play a key role in 
the days to come in tracing those terrorists who often use the 
Internet or prepaid telephone cards to communicate messages to their 
associates for carrying out acts of terrorism and other purposes," 
Ahmad said. 

The special wing has been established at the headquarters of an 
intelligence agency in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. 



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