US Hackers Cracked the PCs of Al-Qaeda

There is news of security leaks at White House which have closed down an Internet operation which had successfully cracked computers of Al-Qaeda. As per the Washington post, SITE, a small private intelligence company, hacked into the server of Al-Qaeda and was examining it for almost one year for information on spy codes and suicide bombers.

When the server was ready with a new video of Osama Bin Laden before its official release last month, SITE informed two members of Bush administration about the release. In spite of their strict condition that their hack should remained a secret, the Website had been checked by 16 Intelligence Agencies and 2 TV channels within a span of just a hour.

Within 20 minutes, the govt. registered PCs started downloading the video and in another 3 hours, several govt. computers visited the Website for copies. Not just that, the afternoon Fox news and other sections were telecasting some parts of video which includes mentioning of SITE Institute's name and screen shots of the Website.

Obviously, by that time, Al-Qaeda smelled some suspicion and immediately shut down the server.

SITE is very furious about the negligence on the part of the government. SITE's founder, Rita Katz, told Washington Post that these techniques were built after years of hard work and now due to sheer negligence of the US government, these have become meaningless and ineffective.

Spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Ross Feinstein, said that no doubt the account of events given by SITE was authentic, but it was better that the defense agencies of US tackled those monitoring, as per the news of The Inquirer on October 10, 2007.

The SITE Institute was set up after the September 11 attacks and is a non-profit enterprise which is hugely respected in the intelligence community. As a result of this leak, several attempts to catch more terrorists have weakened.

As per the news of Vnuent on October 15, 2007, assistant to the president for counterterrorism and homeland security, Fran Townsend, has promised to conduct an investigation.

Related article: US Passes Baton to Asia in Spam Relay

» SPAMfighter News - 10/30/2007