Is Bin Laden Lacking a Point?

If I were to name the masters of PSYOPS, that would be terrorists, who without a super power's financial capabilities still manage to achieve the "media echo" effect they seem to be so good at. As you will eventually read in case you haven't though about it before, to me Al Jazeera always seems to be the launching platform given its strategic position in the region, and the rest of the world's media are the disseminators -- anything fresh and terrorism related increases raitings.



Yesterday, I came across to a translated version of Bin Laden's most recent "State of Jihad" speech April 23, 2006, and I feel blaming the "infidels" for whatever goes around the world, or taking anything against Islam personally, is a very weak point. From the article :



"One more time Al Jazeera pomotes an Usama Bin Laden speech. After airing portions of the Bin Laden audiotape al Jazeera posted large fragments of the “speech” on its web site. This was the longest version possible we were able to have access to. After careful reading, my assessment of the “piece” got reinforced: This is not just another audiotape or videotape of a renegade in some cave.


Regardless of who is the speaker and his whereabouts, the 30 minutes long read statement is a declaration, probably as important as the February 1998 declaration of war against America, the Crusaders and their allies. Imagine yourself as an Arab viewer: The speech was repeated endlessly throughout the day. Bin Laden didn't have his 20 minutes of shine, but 24 hours at least. The Bin Laden audiotape wasn't played one or two times but until every word was sinking deep in the minds of the attentive viewers. However the most powerful part of the speech wasn't restricted to its content: Al Jazeera lined up the best of its "experts on Islamist groups" to react instantly to the audiotape and throughout the day, and add "more details and substance."



At the bottom line, religion still remains the opium of the masses and an excuse for not taking care of your own destiny but expecting "someone else" to.

Pass the Scissors

Counterfeiting U.S currency is a profitable business given its stability and actual valuation, and so is money printing! It's just that sometimes there are too much legally printed money as well, and the Fed is raising the interest rates for the sixteenth time during the last two years -- which doesn't stop it from making a buck in between.


Did you know you could get Uncut Currency sheets "of fresh crisp new $1.00, $2.00, $5.00, $10.00 and $20.00 greenbacks right off the press will delight someone special in your life. They make an especially unique gift for that "hard-to-buy-for" person."


While I always joke that availability stands for temptation, that's a "process utilization" worth envying, but too much money available isn't always a good thing.

Snooping on Historical Click Streams

In a previous post "The Feds, Google, MSN's reaction, and how you got "bigbrothered"? I gave practical advices on how can easily do your homework on the popularity of certain search terms and sites, without the need of issuing a subpoena. The other day, AlltheWeb (Yahoo!) introduced their Livesearch feature, seems nice, still it basically clusters possible opportunities. Now the interesting part, on the next day Google launched Google Trends which is :



"builds on the idea behind the Google Zeitgeist, allowing you to sort through several years of Google search queries from around the world to get a general idea of everything from user preferences on ice-cream flavors to the relative popularity of politicians in their respective cities or countries."

This is what I've been waiting for quite some time, and you can easily make very good judgements on key topics based on regions, languages, even cities -- marketers get yourself down to business!



Antivirus, Malware, Spyware, NSA, Censorship, Privacy



What's next, the rise of MyWare and its integration on the Web? Give a try to Yahoo!'s Buzz, and PacketStormSecurity's instant StormWatch as well.

Wiretapping VoIP Order Questioned

There's been a lot of buzz recently on the FCC's order requiring all VoIP providers to begin compliance with CALEA in order to lawfully intercept VoIP communications by the middle of 2007 . Yesterday, a U.S judge seems to have challenged the order, from the article :



"The skepticism expressed so openly toward the administration's case encouraged civil liberties and education groups that argued that the U.S. is improperly applying telephone-era rules to a new generation of Internet services. "Your argument makes no sense,'' U.S. Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards told the lawyer for the Federal Communications Commission, Jacob Lewis. ''When you go back to the office, have a big chuckle. I'm not missing this. This is ridiculous. Counsel!' The Justice Department, which has lobbied aggressively on the subject, warned in court papers that failure to expand the wiretap requirements to the fast-growing Internet phone industry ''could effectively provide a surveillance safe haven for criminals and terrorists who make use of new communications services.''



What's worth mentioning is that on a wide scale VoIP services are often banned in many countries, ISPs don't tend to tolerate the traffic which on the other hand directly bypasses their VoIP offers, and even China, one of the largest telecom market continues to have concerns about VoIP. Companies also seem to be revising their practices while trying to block Skype, among the most popular VoIP applications. Rather interesting, T-Mobile just announced that it would ban VoIP on its 3G network, but is it inability to achieve compliance or direct contradiction with their business practices?


Whatever the reason, VoIP communications aren't everyone's favorite, but represent a revolution in cheap, yet reliable communications. The more easily a network is made wiretap-ready, the easier for attackers in both, the short, and the long-term to abuse the backdoored idea itself, so don't. You can actually go through the 2005's Wiretap Report and figure out the cost of wiretapping, limiting it by promoting insecure networks isn't going to solve anything, given you actually know what you're looking for at the bottom line.



Image courtesy of EFF's "Monsters of Privacy" Animation.



Related resources :
VoIP, FCC, CALEA
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act and Broadband Access and Services
Secure VoIP - Zfone
Sniffing VoIP Using Cain
Oreka VoIP Sniffer