I would have thought keeping carefull watch on terrorist web sites, for the upload of files and video clips, would be easy, effective and probably lead to catching terrorists.
Yet the only thing ive heard regarding this was by a British minister, (cant remember who it was ) who said something along the lines of " its pointless wasting resources, as the files are normally uploaded from some anonymous Bagdad internet cafe". WTF??
The US must be in control of most comms, (pots, satellite uplinks / phones, mobile masts, isps, etc) in Iraq. We cant spot a file upload to a web site which we are watching??
How many internet cafes are there in Bagdad??? Even if there were loads, large video files still take time to upload. Why on earth has no-one been caught doing this??
Even if the isp / hosting server is not inside Iraq, it must be piss easy for the US to track what is going on.
Anyone have any technical reasons why catching someone uploading a file to a known web site in a country where you have total control over the communications infrastructure, is not possible?
Sin
Sinical_Brit
I posted a similar thread a few months ago asking why we couldn’t track down the Saudi terrorist websites. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=262363
Thanks for that Wolf. I’m off to read it now.
If a Mod thinks the threads are too similar, then i dont mind it being zapped.
Cheers
Sin
SinicalBrit
I don’t think the posts are similar enough that it would make the mods shut this down. I just thought I’d post what has already been said in order to bring out new information.
I’ve noticed from your posting that you are just as frustrated as I am about these slimy barbarians.
WAG - There was a news byte a while back (no cite) that a method for communicating among terrorists is to create a free email account and not use it to send email. Instead, someone writes a message and saves it as a draft, unsent message. Someone else logs onto that account later and reads the draft. No email is acually sent. The account merely serves as a drop box point. However, there needs to be some coordination and communication beforehand so everyone using that account knows the account and password.
With web sites, using anonymous surfing tools, it is possible to hide upload points as well as download points. However, once a web site has been located it should be possible to monitor accesses to it and from it. Using other unknown tools NSA may possess it might be possible to trace to the uploader or downloader. However, time is the killer since someone could upload a file and disappear. By the time the data is analysed the uploader could be long gone. Also, an upload could be done automatically long after the human is gone.