Tampa Web Company Hosted Site Called Vital To al Qaeda

January 28, 2008

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A computer program that is said to give al-Qaeda greater communications capabilities, hosted on what some consider “arguably” the most significant al-Qaeda Web site, was hosted until this morning by a Tampa company in the same building as the United States attorney’s office.

The company took down the site after a phone call from The Tampa Tribune.

“Mujahideen Secret 2 is designed to allow Mujahideen encrypted communication online using elaborate algorithms and symmetrical and asymmetrical encryption keys,” said Eli Alshech, director of the Jihad and Terrorism Studies Project for the Middle East Media Research Institute, which is based in Washington.

The program, Alshech says,” shows their improved level of sophistication.”

Typically, Alshech says, al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups perform the bulk of their most sensitive communications offline because of that lack of secure communications. Mujahideen Secret 2 is an effort by widely disbursed organizations to conduct secret communications online, a potential logistical bonanza.

Although the new program might not give jihadists what they are seeking, the Web site the program can be found on is of great concern, according to A. Aaron Weisburd, who runs the Internet Haganah, a Web site dedicated to hunting and disrupting jihadist Internet communications.

Intelligence investigators describe the site as “arguably the single most important Qaeda Web site currently in operation,” Weisburd says.

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