February 15, 2006

Cartoons, Script Kiddies and Michelle Malkin

It seems that the Cartoon Jihad has spilled over into the Internet. (A Western invention thank you!) Some high-profile bloggers have had their websites attacked by denial of service attacks hosted from foreign countries. Writer Michelle Malkin is one:
THE ISLAMISTS' WAR ON THE INTERNET
Last Tuesday, during or immediately after my appearance on Fox News Channel to discuss the Mohammed Cartoons, this blog was hit by a large, foreign-based denial of service attack. Last night, my hosting service notified me that it is receiving ongoing threats from individuals vowing to take down this site--and others along with it--which will presumably continue until I take down the cartoons. For now, we are on guard and continuing with business as usual. But you should know there's something much wider and deeper going on:
She links to some reports from Internet Security people including this one from ISN Security Watch -- an excerpt:
...Since the explosive growth of the virtual jihad community after the loss of Afghanistan, which has seen the number of radical websites mushroom from less than 100 to several thousand today, the mujahideen have demonstrated their sophistication in the medium.

Much discussion space is given not only to protecting themselves from penetration, but for taking the hacker warfare to their enemies. Most radical jihadi forums devote an entire section to the technique. For example, in the “jihadi hacker forum” of the radical jihadist al-Ghorabaa site (http://www.alghorabaa.net/forums), the most popular comment strings are: “penetrating computer devices” and “easy methods to penetrate servers in an intranet”.

Further postings feature: “How to steal passwords (deliverable via email)”; “How to reveal the passwords under the asterisks”; “How to protect yourself from attack”; “Can you be arrested due to your emails?”; “Encyclopedia of hacking sites”; “Concealment on the web: a lesson in intermediaries” (anonymous browsing techniques); and “A book in Arabic for instruction in hacking techniques”.

This last posting provides a 344-page, profusely illustrated, step-by-step guide intended by the anonymous author for “terminating pornographic sites and those intended for the Jews and their supporters”.
It's a war and it's happening now. We need to wake up if we are to stay free. Michelle lists a gmail account and she posted a few samples of email she has received since writing about the Cartoons -- here is one:
From: naser jianpour (n_jianpour@yahoo.com)
To: writemalkin@gmail.com
Mailed-By: yahoo.com
Date: Feb 10, 2006 12:04 PM
Subject: we will kill you

I am Iranian I am a mosleme .
We will kill you( every )
down with you( Crectian & jowe.)
world is mine.
The last line kind of gives it away -- pathological megalomania, lusting for the Caliphate that never existed and probably secretly jealous of the fact that the average Arabs education is one of the worst on this planet. Just so we understand each other a bit better, please read my post:
Tales of Nasrudin -- why I like Muslims but detest Islamists
 to understand my feelings towards the true practice of Islam. Posted by DaveH at February 15, 2006 9:47 PM
Comments

I still prefer 'Jihadists' to 'Islamists' because even the groups 'affronted by the audacity' of including the name of the religion in the title of 'a radical extremist group' have problems arguing against 'Jihadist'.

Jihadists are a self-identifying group. "We're at war with _anyone_ who pursues _any_ type of jihad against the US. Yes, even the stupid cartoon jihad."

It does have the deficiency of being somewhat circular "We're at war with anyone who is at war with us." It is what we did in WWII after all - our first beach-landing was in Morocco under fire from _French_ troops. The self-identifying bit should (IMNSHO) _NOT_ be overlooked. I think it is clear that Moussaoui would say 'Yes' to the question "Are you a Jihadist?" or "Are you at war against the West?". And that alone should be sufficient to earn him a transfer from criminal court to control of the military.

'Islamist' is one of the more correct terms out there, but actually _using_ it (ok, in Seattle, my bad ;) seems to inevitably drag the entire conversation off course into a debate about the Caliphate. With the term Jihadists, there's a lot less debate about 'how can we appease them', especially after one points out that the 'buy out' is 72 virgins. ;)

Posted by: Al at February 16, 2006 8:44 AM
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