This has done the rounds and been roundly done for all the right reasons. There is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer. Whether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some terrorists…
Read More Authoritarianism Does Its ThingWell, this is hardly surprising; the FBI was in the habit of pretending to be on a terrorism case every time they wanted telecoms traffic data. Their greed for call-detail records is truly impressive. Slurp! Unsurprisingly, the lust for CDRs and the telcos’ eagerness to shovel them in rapidly got the better of their communications…
Read More a single net of conspiracyHow could I forget this? The Obscurer‘s coverage of the Undabomber has been marked by one man. Here he is: Peter Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the House intelligence committee, said it was examining Mutallab’s links with the radical Yemeni imam, Anwar al-Awlaki, who has inspired a number of terrorists. Awlaki had contacts with Major…
Read More Profiles in Wanktankery: Alexander Meleagrou-HitchensWhilst we’re on the subject, a couple of other terrorism things. Kingpin of Comedy Gladio, intimate of Patrick Mercer MP, and self-made spy Glen Jenvey has been arrested, ironically on charges of inciting hatred against Jews. He’s finally convinced somebody that he’s a real jihadi! Not that he’s likely to convince anyone else of anything…
Read More wanktanks against racial profilingAs you’ll probably have guessed, I’m not terrified by the pantsbomber. As Spencer Ackerman puts it: it doesn’t do any good to blow this out of proportion, since blowing things out of proportion to spur an overreaction is Usama bin Laden’s explicit strategy However, as more details have filtered out, I’ve revised my original view…
Read More the boy’s a time bomb!Here’s something interesting, from Kings of War; statistical analysis shows that there is no correlation between arrests on terrorism charges and the concentration of Muslims in the population. It’s almost as if…a gratifyingly small percentage of people are completely fucking stupid and pig-ignorant, that this is normally distributed in the population, and it’s essentially a…
Read More progress in the arsehole theory of terrorismUS security agents indulge in street theatre, frequently accidentally involving members of the public: As a presidential limousine rolls closer, an instructor cues, “How about a little homicide bomb?” Bracaglia throws himself at the limousine and detonates…..Mike “The Horse” Dutch, who is 6-foot-2 and weighs 280 pounds, has been playing villains for five years. He’s…
Read More coming to a security theatre near youF-Secure Labs’ blog points to Cyberwar is Bullshit. I say yes! And I point you to Evgeny Morozov‘s cracking 10-step guide to cyberwar fearmongering. Follow his simple plan and you’ll be able to spread arrant drivel to the underbriefed with the best of them. I especially like: 2. Begin the story in Estonia, with a…
Read More HOWTO be a Cyberwar ExpertThe thing that pisses me off about Al-Qa’ida is that they insist on egging the government on. That said, I can’t think of anything more ridiculous than Phil Woolas wanting to have reports of any foreign student who misses ten lectures. I can’t think of many things more ridiculous and contemptible than Phil Woolas anyway,…
Read More HOWNOTTO be caught as a student terroristMumbai privilege-escalation attack news. Dawn reports that a Pakistani colonel has been identified in the evidence the Indians have presented – one R. Salahuddin from the “Special Communications Group” (Via Tom “Rickay!” Ricks). However, the evidence of his involvement is an e-mail with that address in the Reply-To field. If you can spoof voice CLI,…
Read More down at Abu Asterisk’s mobile phone shop again