American Hackers Against Jihad Websites

Michelle covers a story where "Muslim computer-hacker gangs have launched a massive attack on Danish and Western Web sites as part of the mass protests across the Arab world over the publication of cartoons making fun of the Prophet Mohammed." And how Islamic hackers are waging an internet war on websites who offend their delicate senses.

We're not alone in this and nor are we defenseless in not attacking pre-emptively or afterwards. We do have an army of American hackers going after these nutballs.

Hackers attack

Recognising the importance of the web in the development of Islamic extremism, intelligence services in western countries closely monitor the internet and develop counter-campaigns; the intelligence services are assisted in their efforts in a loose organisation called American Hackers, who work in an organised manner to attack jihadi sites. The famous al-Qal’a website, which claimed responsibility for the London attacks on 7 July, only remained live for less than an hour after that announcement.

Radical Islamic sites, on their part, have developed a high degree of sophistication in defending themselves. On most of the sites, one can find sections called ‘electronic jihad’. These contain information about ‘electronic holy war’ tactics, as well as references to the activities of the ‘Islamic Hackers’ who defend Islamic websites and attack moderate Islamic sites. Occasionally, jihadi hackers congratulate each other in chatrooms for destroying one liberal site or another.

Hit and run

Since jihadi sites are not welcome at the established hosting companies, they usually take refuge in so-called ‘free host’ providers. In order to prevent attack, they often move between locations, informing followers about their new whereabouts through mailing lists. Some jihadi sites containing just books have remained online and intact for years. Sites involved in practical jihad, however, are likely to be targeted. In some cases this leads to a sort of virtual guerrilla hit-and run practice, when a radical site emerges somewhere, is immediately visited by its followers and then disappears again before it is tracked down by its enemies.

There is one pro-American hackers group called "Freedom Cyber Force Militia" who hack into Arabic websites such as al Jazeera.

Hackers have replaced the news website of Arab satellite TV network al-Jazeera with a stars-and-stripes logo saying "Let Freedom Ring".

Both the Arabic site, at (http://www.aljazeera.net), and the English- language version at (http://english.aljazeera.net) could not be accessed on Thursday (March 27, 2003). Users who tried to log onto the site found a message that read, "Hacked by Patriot, Freedom Cyber Force Militia" beneath a logo containing the U.S. flag. "This broadcast was brought to you by: Freedom Cyber Force Militia," the site said. "God bless our troops!!!"

Al-Jazeera information technology manager Salah Al Seddiqui said someone had hijacked the domain name and redirected it to another server computer. "Our website is working but nobody can see it," Al Seddiqui said.

The al-Jazeera website has faced near-constant cyber attacks since an
English-language version devoted exclusively to the war in Iraq was launched on
Monday. Hackers have blitzed the site with meaningless data in an effort to
squeeze out legitimate traffic and render the site inaccessible, a technique
known as a "denial of service" attack. That attack eased at around 3 a.m. London
time on Thursday, Al Seddiqui said, but the domain name was hijacked shortly
after.

Often with crippling consequences to these Arabic websites who support terrorisism. But the US government told hackers to leave these Arabic websites alone and warned that "patriotic hacking" was a felony and could even backfire.

Even 'patriotic hackers' can be fooled into launching attacks against their own interests by exploiting malicious code that purports to attack the other side when in fact it is designed to attack the interests of the side sending it - NIPC advisory

Patriotic hackers. That's a new one.