Qaeda Internet Claim Could Be Impossible to Trail I found this to be an interesting current events story in its intersection of technology, politics, and terrorism.
Two points: 1. I’ve seen very few articles explaining how Al Qaeda is able to communicate efficiently with its brothers-in-arms throughout the world. Are they really as fiercely Internet savvy as we or the government likes to think? Does any of the money that Mr. Bush authorized for the Pentagon go towards communication analysis? In pure flights of fancy, I wonder what would happen if we just pulled the plug on the Internet one day. I know this is heresy in some parts. But would that stop terrorists from their devilry? Nope. 2. I notice that journalists often put “hot” links to sites they want their readers to visit. In this article, there is a non-“hot” link to a Web site claiming responsibility for the Kenya attacks. This seems to me to be biased journalism — these folks are pure evil but why not make it easy for readers to see directly what sites journalists are talking about?