How the plotters slipped US net

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How the plotters slipped US net

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• Publié par: ycyzadom
• Nombre de lectures: 44
• Langue: English

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Guardian | How the plotters slipped US net

How the plotters slipped US net

10/2/01 10:48 AM

Spy networks failed to detect email and satellite conversations used to plot the attack on the US - and now America wants to know what went wrong, reports Duncan Campbell More internet news Special report: Terrorism in the US

Duncan Campbell Thursday September 27, 2001 The Guardian

As US forces converge on Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden's satellite phone has not been cut off. But calls to the terrorist leader's laptop-size satphone - relayed via an Inmarsat satellite 40,000 km over the Indian Ocean - are going unanswered.

His number - 00873 682505331 - was disclosed earlier this year in the New York trial of his associates for bombing the US embassy in Kenya. Callers now hear a message stating he is "not logged on or not in the dialled ocean region".

His satphone was used frequently during the 90s. Bin Laden was heard advising Taliban leaders to promote heroin exports to the west. National Security Agency (NSA) officials even played recordings of him talking to his mother to security-cleared visitors to their headquarters, as a trophy of their prowess. After failing to warn of the attack, the agency has fallen silent.

According to US intelligence, the satellite phone has not been switched on all year. Experts do not believe he was unaware of the US eavesdropping, which is simple to do. Even amateurs can tap Inmarsat using an antenna made of DIY parts and a scanner bought for £150 in the high street. Bin Laden may, however, have been unaware that NSA "sigint" satellites, listening from space, could pinpoint his location. The satellites are controlled from ground stations near Denver, Munich, and at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire. But they could only locate him when he was logged on.

Using this method, US intelligence believed in 1998 that they had found him. In August 1998, President Clinton authorised a cruise missile attack on a training camp at Khost, Afghanistan. By the time the missiles landed, Bin Laden had gone.

Having failed to forestall the worst attack of all, many Americans have taken to blaming new technology.

Congress will shortly debate a new Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, which will further loosen controls on electronic surveillance. The NSA already operates a global communications surveillance system in conjunction with Britain's GCHQ. One of the proposed provisions would allow GCHQ to conduct random surveillance of American citizens' communications and send them on. This would breach the US bill of rights. (Non US citizens have no protection.)

The potential use by terrorists of the net and encryption have for years been a major target of intelligence agencies and politicians. They have demanded curbs on privacy and the banning of encryption. Throughout the 90s, the IT community was continually focused on whether or not security software that used encryption should also use "escrow". Escrow requires keys allowing private messages to be decoded to be given to the government.

In December 1999, the US government abandoned controls on the use of "strong encryption". It was also forced, on commercial grounds, to follow European countries and abandon the demand that encryption be illegal unless escrowed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4264719,00.html

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