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Secret Messages On Porn Sites May Be Codes
WASHINGTON, Feb 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Secret coded messages on Internet porn sites and other locations on the Web may contain "blueprints" for attacks from Osama bin Laden or others, USA Today reported Tuesday.
The daily, citing U.S. and foreign officials, said encrypted instructions often show up in unusual places on the Web - sports chat rooms or pornographic bulletin boards - to avoid detection by law enforcement.
Four men who went on trial this week in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa are alleged to have been associates of bin Laden, an exiled Saudi millionaire.
Wadih El Hage, one of the suspects, allegedly sent encrypted e-mails under various names to "associates" of bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, according to the 1998 indictment against him.
The use of encryption is one reason U.S. officials have been reluctant to allow export of powerful encryption software, and is seeking "keys" to decode encrypted messages.
USA Today said people can easily download encryption software that can be used to conceal maps and photographs of targets and to post instructions for activities.
USA Today said FBI officials took more than a year to decrypt computer messages of Ramzi Yousef, convicted of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, in foiling an alleged plot to destroy 11 U.S. airliners.
"All the Islamists and terrorist groups are now using the Internet to spread their messages," Reuven Paz, academic director of Israel's Institute for Counter-Terrorism, was quoted as saying.
The report quoted U.S. officials as saying bin Laden and others are teaching encryption at their camps in Afghanistan and Sudan.
"Uncrackable encryption is allowing terrorists - Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda and others - to communicate about their criminal intentions without fear of outside intrusion," FBI Director Louis Freeh told a closed door congressional hearing last year, according to USA Today.
"They're thwarting the efforts of law enforcement to detect, prevent and investigate illegal activities."
"It's something the intelligence, law-enforcement and military communities are really struggling to deal with," Ben Venzke of the cyber intelligence company iDEFENSE told the paper.
"The operational details and future targets, in many cases, are hidden in plain view on the Internet. Only the members of the terrorist organizations, knowing the hidden signals, are able to extract the information."
"It's brilliant," Ahmed Jabril, spokesman for Hezbollah in London, told the newspaper. "Now it's possible to send a verse from the Koran, an appeal for charity and even a call for jihad and know it will not be seen by anyone hostile to our faith, like the Americans."
The daily said U.S. officials concede it's difficult to intercept, let alone find, encrypted messages and images on the Internet's estimated 28 billion images and two billion websites.
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