Entries Tagged "terrorism"

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No-Buy List

You’ve all heard of the “No Fly List.” Did you know that there’s a “No-Buy List” as well?

The so-called “Bad Guy List” is hardly a secret. The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control maintains its “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List” to be easily accessible on its public Web site.

Wanna see it? Sure you do. Just key OFAC into your Web browser, and you’ll find the 224-page document of the names of individuals, organizations, corporations and Web sites the feds suspect of terrorist or criminal activities and associations.

You might think Osama bin Laden should be at the top of The List, but it’s alphabetized, so Public Enemy No. 1 is on Page 59 with a string of akas and spelling derivations filling most of the first column. If you’re the brother, daughter, son or sister-in-law of Yugoslavian ex-president Slobodan Milosevic (who died in custody recently), you’re named, too, so probably forget about picking up that lovely new Humvee on this side of the Atlantic. Same for Charles “Chuckie” Taylor, son of the recently arrested former president of Liberia (along with the deposed prez’s wife and ex-wife).

The Bad Guy List’s relevance to the average American consumer? What’s not widely known about it is that by federal law, sellers are supposed to check it even in the most common and mundane marketplace transactions.

“The OFAC requirements apply to all U.S. citizens. The law prohibits anyone, not just car dealers, from doing business with anyone whose name appears on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Specially Designated Nationals list,” says Thomas B. Hudson, senior partner at Hudson Cook LLP, a law firm in Hanover, Md., and publisher of Carlaw and Spot Delivery, legal-compliance newsletters and services for car dealers and finance companies.

Hudson says that, according to the law, supermarkets, restaurants, pawnbrokers, real estate agents, everyone, even The Washington Post, is prohibited from doing business with anyone named on the list. “There is no minimum amount for the transactions covered by the OFAC requirement, so everyone The Post sells a paper to or a want ad to whose name appears on the SDN list is a violation,” says Hudson, whose new book, “Carlaw—A Southern Attorney Delivers Humorous Practical Legal Advice on Car Sales and Financing,” comes out this month. “The law applies to you personally, as well.”

But The Bad Guy List law (which predates the controversial Patriot Act) not only is “perfectly ridiculous,” it’s impractical, says Hudson. “I understand that 95 percent of the people whose names are on the list are not even in the United States. And if you were a bad guy planning bad acts, and you knew that your name was on a publicly available list that people were required to check in order to avoid violating the law, how dumb would you have to be to use your own name?”

Compliance is also a big problem. Think eBay sellers are checking the list for auction winners? Or that the supermarket checkout person is thanking you by name while scanning a copy of The List under the counter? Not likely.

Posted on April 10, 2006 at 6:23 AM • View Comments

Announcing: Movie-Plot Threat Contest

NOTE: If you have a blog, please spread the word.

For a while now, I have been writing about our penchant for “movie-plot threats“: terrorist fears based on very specific attack scenarios. Terrorists with crop dusters, terrorists exploding baby carriages in subways, terrorists filling school buses with explosives—these are all movie-plot threats. They’re good for scaring people, but it’s just silly to build national security policy around them.

But if we’re going to worry about unlikely attacks, why can’t they be exciting and innovative ones? If Americans are going to be scared, shouldn’t they be scared of things that are really scary? “Blowing up the Super Bowl” is a movie plot to be sure, but it’s not a very good movie. Let’s kick this up a notch.

It is in this spirit I announce the (possibly First) Movie-Plot Threat Contest. Entrants are invited to submit the most unlikely, yet still plausible, terrorist attack scenarios they can come up with.

Your goal: cause terror. Make the American people notice. Inflict lasting damage on the U.S. economy. Change the political landscape, or the culture. The more grandiose the goal, the better.

Assume an attacker profile on the order of 9/11: 20 to 30 unskilled people, and about $500,000 with which to buy skills, equipment, etc.

Post your movie plots here on this blog.

Judging will be by me, swayed by popular acclaim in the blog comments section. The prize will be an autographed copy of Beyond Fear. And if I can swing it, a phone call with a real live movie producer.

Entries close at the end of the month—April 30—so Crypto-Gram readers can also play.

This is not an April Fool’s joke, although it’s in the spirit of the season. The purpose of this contest is absurd humor, but I hope it also makes a point. Terrorism is a real threat, but we’re not any safer through security measures that require us to correctly guess what the terrorists are going to do next.

Good luck.

EDITED TO ADD (4/4): There are hundreds of ideas here.

EDITED TO ADD (4/22): Update here.

Posted on April 1, 2006 at 9:35 AM • View Comments

Cubicle Farms are a Terrorism Risk

The British security service MI5 is warning business leaders that their offices are probably badly designed against terrorist bombs. The common modern office consists of large rooms without internal walls, which puts employees at greater risk in the event of terrorist bombs.

From The Scotsman:

The trend towards open-plan offices without internal walls could put employees at increased risk in the event of a terrorist bomb, MI5 has warned business leaders. The advice comes as the Security Service steps up its advice to companies on how to prepare for an attack. MI5 has produced a 40-page leaflet, “Protecting Against Terrorism”, which will be distributed to large businesses and public-sector bodies across Britain. Among the guidance in the pamphlet is that bosses should consider the security implications of getting rid of internal walls.

Open-plan offices are increasingly popular as businesses seek to improve communication and cooperation between employees. But MI5 points out that there are potential risks, too. “If you are converting your building to open-plan accommodation, remember that the removal of internal walls reduces protection against blast and fragments,” the leaflet says.

All businesses should make contingency plans for keeping staff safe in the event of a bomb attack, the Security Service advises. Instead of automatically evacuating staff, companies are recommended to gather workers in a designated “protected space” until the location of the bomb can be confirmed. “Since glass and other fragments may kill or maim at a considerable distance from the centre of a large explosion, moving staff into protected spaces is often safer than evacuating them on to the streets,” the leaflet cautions. Interior rooms with reinforced concrete or masonry walls often make suitable protected spaces, as they tend to remain intact in the event of an explosion outside the building, employers are told. But open-plan offices often lack such places, and can have other effects on emergency planning: “If corridors no longer exist then you may also lose your evacuation routes, assembly or protected spaces, while the new layout will probably affect your bomb threat contingency procedures.” Companies converting to open-plan are told to ensure that there is no significant reduction in staff protection, “for instance by improving glazing protection.”

Posted on March 31, 2006 at 5:14 AM • View Comments

Al Qaeda Hacker Captured

Irhabi 007 has been captured.

For almost two years, intelligence services around the world tried to uncover the identity of an Internet hacker who had become a key conduit for al-Qaeda. The savvy, English-speaking, presumably young webmaster taunted his pursuers, calling himself Irhabi—Terrorist—007. He hacked into American university computers, propagandized for the Iraq insurgents led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and taught other online jihadists how to wield their computers for the cause.

Assuming the British authorities are to be believed, he definitely was a terrorist:

Suddenly last fall, Irhabi 007 disappeared from the message boards. The postings ended after Scotland Yard arrested a 22-year-old West Londoner, Younis Tsouli, suspected of participating in an alleged bomb plot. In November, British authorities brought a range of charges against him related to that plot. Only later, according to our sources familiar with the British probe, was Tsouli’s other suspected identity revealed. British investigators eventually confirmed to us that they believe he is Irhabi 007.

[…]

Tsouli has been charged with eight offenses including conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to cause an explosion, conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, conspiracy to obtain money by deception and offences relating to the possession of articles for terrorist purposes and fundraising.

Okay. So he was a terrorist. And he used the Internet, both as a communication tool and to break into networks. But this does not make him a cyberterrorist.

Interesting article, though.

Here’s the Slashdot thread on the topic.

Posted on March 28, 2006 at 7:27 AM • View Comments

"Terrorist with Nuke" Movie Plot

Since when did The New Scientist hire novelists to write science stories?

A truck pulls up in front of New York City’s Grand Central Station, one of the most densely crowded spots in the world. It is a typical weekday afternoon, with over half a million people in the immediate area, working, shopping or just passing through. A few moments later the driver makes his delivery: a 10-kiloton atomic explosion.

Almost instantly, an electromagnetic pulse knocks out all electronics within a radius of 4 kilometres. The shock wave levels every building within a half-kilometre, killing everyone inside, and severely damages virtually all buildings for a kilometre in every direction. Detonation temperatures of millions of degrees ignite a firestorm that rapidly engulfs the area, generating winds of 600 kilometres an hour.

Within seconds, the blast, heat and direct exposure to radiation have killed several hundred thousand people. Perhaps they are the lucky ones. What follows is, if anything, even worse.

The explosion scoops …

EDITED TO ADD (3/24): Here’s the full article.

Posted on March 24, 2006 at 11:51 AM • View Comments

Security Overreaction

Who needs terrorists? We can cause terror all by ourselves:

A worker at a Downtown building who was using a pellet gun with a scope to scare pigeons prompted a massive police response that led to the shutdown of several blocks this afternoon.

[…]

Dozens of motorcycle and special response officers responded to the area.

The Fort Pitt Tunnels inbound were shut down temporarily.

The Port Authority was forced to reroute buses around the area.

People in some buildings were told to stay inside while those in others were evacuated.

Students who attend Pittsburgh High School for the Creative & Performing Arts (CAPA High) remained in their Fort Duquesne Boulevard school this afternoon until the situation was resolved.

The All-City Senior Orchestra rehearsal scheduled for 4 p.m. at CAPA High has been canceled.

Students who attend all other Pittsburgh Public Schools have been dismissed since Port Authority buses and school buses that normally travel through Downtown were being re-routed.

Community College of Allegheny County canceled evening classes at its Downtown center tonight on Stanwix Street.

Before the all-clear was given and roads were reopened, police searched buildings floor-by-floor looking for the gunman and stationed snipers in surrounding buildings.

Posted on March 24, 2006 at 7:59 AM • View Comments

London Rejects Subway Scanners

Rare outbreak of security common sense in London:

London Underground is likely to reject the use of passenger scanners designed to detect weapons or explosives as they are “not practical”, a security chief for the capital’s transport authority said on 14 March 2006.

[…]

“Basically, what we know is that it’s not practical,” he told Government Computing News. “People use the tube for speed and are concerned with journey time. It would just be too time consuming. Secondly, there’s just not enough space to put this kind of equipment in.”

“Finally there’s also the risk that you actually create another target with people queuing up and congregating at the screening points.”

Posted on March 23, 2006 at 1:39 PM • View Comments

No Funding for Homeland Security

Really interesting article by Robert X. Cringely on the lack of federal funding for security technologies.

After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the United States threw its considerable fortune into the War on Terror, of which a large component was Homeland Security. We conducted a couple wars abroad, both of which still seem to be going on, and took a vast domestic security bureaucracy and turned it into a different and even more vast domestic security bureaucracy. We could argue all day about whether or not America is more secure as a result of these changes, but we’d all agree that a lot of money has been spent. In fact, from a pragmatic point of view, ALL the money has been spent, and that’s the point of this particular column. For a variety of reasons, there is no money left to spend on homeland security ­ none, nada, zilch. We’re busted.

I think his assessment is spot on.

Posted on March 21, 2006 at 12:39 PM • View Comments

Writing about IEDs

Really good article by a reporter who has been covering improvised explosive devices in Iraq:

Last summer, a U.S. Colonel in Baghdad told me that I was America’s enemy, or very close to it. For months, I had been covering the U.S. military’s efforts to deal with the threat of IEDs, improvised explosive devices. And my writing, he told me, was going too far—especially this January 2005 Wired News story, in which I described some of the Pentagon’s more exotic attempts to counter these bombs.

None of the material in the story—the stuff about microwave blasters or radio frequency jammers—was classified, he admitted. Most of it had been taken from open source materials. And many of the systems were years and years from being fielded. But by bundling it all together, I was doing a “world class job of doing the enemy’s research for him, for free.” So watch your step, he said, as I went back to my ride-alongs with the Baghdad Bomb Squad—the American soldiers defusing IEDs in the area.

Today, I hear that the President and the Pentagon’s higher-ups are trotting out the same argument. “News coverage of this topic has provided a rich source of information for the enemy, and we inadvertently contribute to our enemies’ collection efforts through our responses to media interest,” states a draft Defense Department memo, obtained by Inside Defense. “Individual pieces of information, though possibly insignificant taken alone, when aggregated provide robust information about our capabilities and weaknesses.”

In other words, Al Qaeda hasn’t discovered how to Google, yet. Don’t help ’em out.

Posted on March 20, 2006 at 11:53 AM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.