Looks like some one broke the internet again this morning. All of mu.nu and blogspot were down for awhile.

I mentioned the other day that we had been getting a slough of death threats following a mention of The Jawa Report over at Islamonline. My first reaction is that we were the victim of a denial of service attack out of Saudi Arabia. The reason that I am suspicious is that the Islamonline post also mentions jihadi hacker 020, who also took over Aaron's Rantblog once again today.

Here is a screenshot from the message he left at Aaron's hacked site today:

Hey, 020, nice try. But I'd be a little jumpy if I were you. Who is that knocking on your door as we speak.........???

Posted by: Rusty at 08:56 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Over the past few days a number of death threats have been e-mailed to various writers for The Jawa Report. The specific threat is that "God permitting, I will cut your neck."

Why would normally rational and tolerant people threaten to cut off our necks? Because some of our authors have dared to insult the Holy Quran. I'm sure those issuing the threats are simple misunderstanderers of the Quran's injuction to, you know, strike at the necks of the infidels.

And, just to keep things straight, we are all infidels. And proud of it.

It looks like the threats come on the heels of a posting at Islamonline. I can't make out the entire post, but it seems to be something about some "cowards" at an Islamic conference who didn't speak out violently enough against those who ridiculed Mohammed in those now infamouse cartoons, or who had blasphemed the Koran, in the discredited stories about "Koran flushing" at Guantanamo.

I did, though, understand the part about certain "vile sons of monkeys, pigs, and cross worshippers" followed by some links to various bloggers associated with The Jawa Report. Also, the poster notes that the call to arms against The Jawa Report comes on the heels of several attempts of online terrorism by "Saudi Hacker 020" --- a reference to the online terrorist who has been attacking Aaron's Rantblog (site currently under attack and down).

There's also some allusion to how when we do finally get attacked not to blame those killing us, but rather that it is the just punishment of Allah.

So, I insult the Quran and you threaten my life? I'm not sure if I should be scared or if I should strut around the office today gloating that I finally got my fatwa? I'll go with the latter.

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta!

UPDATE: Death threat tracked to ......drumroll.....wait for it....I bet you're going to guess Switzerland, right? ......

Cairo, Egypt. Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you?

Vinnie's death threat.
Howie's death threat.
Bluto's death threat.

Posted by: Rusty at 09:09 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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I was blabbing on the blog this week about how I had never received a direct death threat yet. Well the dry spell is over boys and girls.

From: hisham faiad h_faiad@yahoo.com Signed-By: yahoo.com | Mailed-By: yahoo.com

To: rustyshacklefordatympetjawa@gmail.com, mchlhwrd@gmail.com
Date: May 7, 2006 7:09 AM

Subject: why u insult the holly qouran ? why why

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/084371.php

why u insult the holy qouran ? why why
did u know any thing about the holy qouran ? he is the speaking of allah ( the good )allah give u ur head , hand , leg , face , eye ... etc and he can take this things all of this things so why u insult his speaking why why ? where ur mind go ? ur without mnid . allah Venge of u . i ask u somthing .

give me ur country & address and give somtimes to ............ cut ur neck
yes i willl cut ur neck beazn allah i will do that if ur brave give ur address and somtimes to killing u cut ur hand whiche Sacrilege the holy qouran

in shaa allah i will cut ur neck

Posted by: Howie at 08:35 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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The AP is reporting that the Pentagon monitors thousands of jihadi websites. I'm seriously stoked to hear this. The Islamist use the internet to their advantage to recruit and disseminate propaganda. It's good to know somebody is watching what the enemy is doing.

Houston Chronicle via Robert Spencer:

A Pentagon research team monitors more than 5,000 jihadist Web sites, focusing daily on the 25 to 100 most hostile and active, defense officials say.

The team includes 25 linguists, who cover multiple dialects of the Arabic language and provide reports on events sparking anger on extremist Web sites, Dan Devlin, a Pentagon public diplomacy specialist, said Thursday. The researchers, for instance, focused in November on the backlash caused by the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The question I have for the Pentagon is this: Why haven't you shut them down?

Sure, we can gather intelligence from these websites. But what does this intel really produce? An occasional arrest of a jihadi wannabe? It's difficult, at best, to track down terrorists from information gathered on Islamist forums, and impossible to do so if they are posting to those forums from Iraq or Afghanistan.

So, again, does the value of that intelligence outweigh the damage done by the propaganda? I don't think so.

Here is a VOA report about the same Congressional hearing. It's really rather scary, and I believe it bolsters my position that these websites need to be shut down.

What they heard surprised even those who were somewhat familiar with al-Qaida and other groups use of the Internet to spread anti-American and anti-Western propaganda.

Bruce Hoffman is a counter-terrorism expert with the RAND Corporation.

"The internet, once seen as an engine of enormous education and enlightenment, has instead for many of these radical jihadi groups become a purveyor of the coarsest and most base conspiracy theories," said Bruce Hoffman.

Hoffman says nearly 5,000 websites are maintained by terrorist groups. More than a dozen groups producing their own video, and half of these he identifies as Iraqi insurgent groups....

Terrorist groups design their material to intimidate, particularly in the case of Iraq, in addition to spreading hate themes, and attempting to recruit new members. Some web sites openly advertise for internet or information specialists.

The presentation drew this reaction from Democratic Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, and Republican Mike Rogers.

ESHOO: "We're reminded that terrorism is psychological warfare and that is really what is being waged with these."

ROGERS: "They are very sophisticated. Not only are they out recruiting individuals they have finance networks globally, they recruit people globally. They also have a media message targeted at specific groups. That is a very sophisticated global operation."

What, if anything, can be done? Bruce Hoffman says the challenge is to match military and other steps aimed at depriving terrorists of physical sanctuaries, with action in cyberspace:

"The success of U.S. strategy importantly, will depend on our ability to counter al-Qaida and the radical jihadis ideological appeal, what I call countering the five R's: the resonance of their ideological message, their ability to recruit and replenish their ranks, and their capacity for regeneration and renewal we have seen in recent years," he said.

Posted by: Rusty at 08:33 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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After being mentioned without being really mentioned today on CNET. Aarons.cc has been hacked again.

The hacker left this email address. Mail To : 020@xp020[dot]com

Seems to me these guys have caused enough trouble and not just for Aaron.

Jawa Report Online Terrorism Archive. more...

Posted by: Howie at 09:19 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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