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al-qaida

Hacking for freedom: U.S. hacks al-Qaeda sites in Yemen

The war on terror has gone cyber.

The U.S. State Department has been hacking into al-Qaeda websites in Yemen to change al-Qaeda propaganda that bragged about killing Americans, according to an Associated Press report.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made mention of the covert cyber operations on Wednesday, saying a team of State Department hackers plastered al-Qaeda sites with with altered versions of the ads. These new ads portrayed how al-Qaeda attacks have affected the Yemeni people. The missions were carried out in a 48 hour-period.

"Extremists are publicly venting their frustration and asking supporters not to … Read more

Researcher: Bin Laden's beard is real, video is not

On the Friday before the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Osama bin Laden appeared in a new video, his first since prior to the U.S. presidential elections in 2004. In analyzing the video, Neal Krawetz of Hactor Factor, an expert on digital image forensics, said in his latest blogs that the video contained many visual and audio splices, and that all of the modifications were of very low quality.

Most striking is bin Laden's beard, which has been gray in recent images. For this video it is black. "As far as my tools can detect, there has … Read more

Al-Qaida manipulates videos, images, says Black Hat speaker

LAS VEGAS--In a presentation at the Black Hat conference here Tuesday, Neal Krawetz of Hacker Factor showed how basic manipulations to images can be revealed through digital analysis.

After presenting on the specific techniques he used, Krawetz launched into what he called the case of "Dr. Z," who happens to be Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 man in al-Qaida.

Using a photo that originally appeared on December 20, 2006, in USA Today, al-Zawahiri appears to be seated before a large banner with a desk underneath. On the desk, in the photo, is a tiny cannon. Yet in the … Read more