Hackers hit Qaeda-linked Iraq group's website

[-Cp]

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=6354785&section=news

Hackers hit Qaeda-linked Iraq group's website
Tue 28 September, 2004 15:54

DUBAI (Reuters) - Hackers on Tuesday attacked a website of an al Qaeda-linked group that beheaded two U.S. hostages in Iraq, rerouting visitors to a page showing a penguin toting a machine-gun and warning against hosting such sites.

The site of the Tawhid and Jihad Group of al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, set up on a site providing free web hosting, last week carried a tape of British hostage Kenneth Bigley appealing for his life as well as videos of the decapitation of the two U.S. hostages.

"Host them and your next!" was the message left on the site by the hackers, calling themselves TeAmZ USA, who have already attacked several Islamist and pro-al Qaeda Web sites.

Zarqawi's group has threatened to kill Bigley next if women prisoners in Iraq are not released, but has not set a deadline.

Al Qaeda and other militant groups have widely used the internet to spread their message, often using sites providing free web hosting and frequently moving after their sites have been taken down.

 

[insein]

innovative. I admire their spirit. Hackers for freedom.

 

[waltky]

Now we're talkin' upper echelon hackers...

Hack Attack Reportedly Downs Al Qaeda Network
June 29, 2011 | A popular jihadist Internet forum has been knocked off the Internet, and counterterrorism experts say it appears it was hacked.

Cybersecurity analysts say the al-Shamukh forum appears to have been taken down by a fairly sophisticated cyberattack that hit not only the website, but the server -- which is the main computer that enables people to access the site over the Internet. Evan Kohlmann, a counterterrorism expert who tracks jihadist websites as a senior partner with Flashpoint Partners consultancy in New York, described the site as a key Al Qaeda propaganda forum. He said it bounces around between Internet hosts every few months, but has seemingly been allowed to exist as an open secret, possibly allowing a Western government to use it as an intelligence resource.

"These sites can be like spy satellites, they're great ways of gathering information about your adversaries," he said in an interview late Wednesday. "Bringing them down is like shooting at your own spy satellites. But there are others who don't agree with that." He said there's been a "struggle behind the scenes" in the U.S. government about whether to allow the site to stay up. Other cyber experts agreed that the site is a popular jihadist forum.

"The al-Shamukh website had become the most trusted and exclusive haunt for e-jihadists," said Jarret Brachman, a terrorism expert who has spent a decade monitoring Al Qaeda's media operations and advises the U.S. government. "If it doesn't come back up soon, the forum's registered members will start migrating to the half a dozen other main forums, all of whom are probably chomping at the bit to replace Shamukh as the pre-eminent Al Qaeda forum."

The Defense Department said late Wednesday that it was aware of reports that Al Qaeda's Internet operations had been disrupted, but could not comment on the specific incident. Kohlmann raised the possibility that a government could be behind the website's problems. If true, this would not be the first time that government officials have sabotaged an Al Qaeda website.

Read more: Hack Attack Reportedly Downs Al Qaeda Network - FoxNews.com

 

[nitroz]

I want to help these hackers.... better yet, hack one website to sabotage them!
If I could help leave one of these terrorists killed or captured, then I will feel accomplished and then continue to sabotage them more.