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Program automating online jihad found in the wild

Security researchers say they have discovered a program that could be used by Islamic terrorists to launch data attacks against Western targets. The "Electronic Program of Jihad," as its creators have dubbed it, asks for a username and password once it's installed, according to this entry on the McAfee Avert Labs Blog. The …

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Steve Roper
Pirate

Voluntary trojans = resistance of the future?

Sounds a bit like an idea I saw mooted in one forum a while back - to develop a "voluntary Trojan" that provided full disclosure of what it did, and asked you to install it if you wanted to participate in DDoS attacks against the RIAA and the like. Sort of a "join the resistance botnet" kind of idea. While aiding jihadists isn't what the group had in mind for such a project, rather something that could be used by Westerners to fight back against increasingly despotic regimes, I'm not surprised that the jihadists have picked up on the same line of thinking.

amanfromMars

Civil Defence Forces of the Digital Underground Movement ....SMART BIOS for SIM.BIOSIS*

A voluntary Trojan in one world is a guided missile missile in another.

Jihad has morphed into the Information and Intelligence Sphere of Operations, where IT is most welcome to Share ITs Intellectual Wares. Brain Food is Good for the Soul and Communications Opens up all Manner of Pleasures for ITs Flesh.... although it is not Compulsory to Gorge on or Deny Access to New Fields/Green Enterprise Zones. New Fears are only Personal Imagination Running Riot.

Subscriber Identity Module.Beta In Out Special IntelAIgents Servers..... ISPYZ .....Binary Wizards 42 Bewitch and Bewilder with ITs Beta Edutainment Programs, the Pedestrian Being/Lower Primate.

Man is easily led with Candy, is he not?

Give any Man, Good or Bad, what he Wants and you will Control him Completely with the Allure of the Candy. Be aware and beware of what you would pay to Control though, lest IT Blight/Bite/Launch a Series of Bytes against the Hand that feeds IT. Some things are just not Worth the Waste to Control and only Encourage further Wasted Control......... Systems Blood Suckers/Parasitic Bugs.

Anonymous Coward
Joke

HAVE A LINK?

May I choose a subset of sites I would like to attack?

I mean "Western, Jewish, Israeli, Muslim apostate and Shiite websites" is a bit vague, besides, I have no intention to attack Jewish, Israeli, Muslim apostate or Shiite websites ... and only a subset of Western websites ... located on the other side of the pond ...

@Steve, hey, why not, lets give the RIAA some good old-school American spanking! Have the link?

I feel like the Russians 100 Years ago!

Uns bleibt, was gut war, was klar war,

dass man bei Dir immer durchsah

und Liebe, Hass doch nie Furcht sah,

Commandante Che ...

Stuart Van Onselen

Doomed resistance

It's an interesting idea, but I doubt it will have much effect, either for "good" or for "evil".

I don't see how voluntary networks will ever attract the stupendous numbers of compromised machines running, for example, Storm and its variants.

Besides, all the RIAA has to do is push their pet Congressmen to declare mere possession the software illegal, putting the users in even more trouble, without any direct, personal benefit. Then watch the number of volunteers plummet.

Anyway, I'm not too sure I would consider internet vandalism "good" at all. Even if the target of the DDOS "deserves" it, there will be "collateral damage", i.e. slow-down or complete unavailability of other, non-related sites.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Written by a Saudi?

Most certainly won't work then!

Anonymous Coward
Boffin

Nothing

"But it seems to me, they have not reached the technical level of some criminal groups, for now."

- And by criminal groups we specifically mean the Russians and their 'Storm' botnet.

Simon
Joke

How about...

"In order to show your Jihad support also against Western, Jewish, Israeli, Muslim apostate and Shiite OSes please delete your current OS and forward this message to 10 Jihad friends"

Rob
Black Helicopters

Perfect tool too catch a Jihadist

Would it not be a good idea for the intelligence community to release the exact same program but with slight modifications, say like reporting on who actually installed it and uses it and also what else is on their computers. The intelligence people could just sit back and watch the info roll in.

Anonymous Coward
Happy

Scam?

The site doesn't take PayPal by any chance? Sounds like a great way to make money out of dumb wannabe terrorists. $19.99 for an electronic Jihad program that sprays random packets out of a PC and sucks up 100% of the CPU. Most of the amateur suicide bombers out there would never notice that the only service being denied was their own... 419 for gullible Al Qaidans? It's probably run by the CIA

Anonymous Coward
Coat

>Shite websites

There are far too many bad web sites out there, it's high time someone did something about them.

Anonymous Coward
Joke

WTF

What!!

You mean non-white-non-christians are allowed internet access!!!! ????

WTF is the world coming to ....

Anonymous Coward
Coat

Spelling Mistake

If the Trojan were to attack "shite" websites then i suspect it would gain a lot of sympathy. And have to work hard as there are many such sites.

Thesaurus : shite = no good, crap, very bad etc

Keith Turner
Pirate

Asking for it

"For one thing, the system has no fast-flux network or other decentralized command-and-control features, so it would be relatively easy for someone to take it down."

Or possibly easy to take it over and control an established network where the idealists believe they are attacking their enemies but end up attacking PartyPoker (again).

Yeah, if I were that way inclined I'd wait a bit and even maybe encourage its use amongst those eager to topple the West before using it for my own evil ends.

Anonymous Coward
Coat

You know what they say..

One mans botnet is another mans cyber jihad!

Nick

@ Spelling Mistake Coward

Funnily enough I was thinking the same thing, take down all the shite websites. Trouble is, I suspect there are more websites of this nature on the internet than there are human beings on this planet.

Dave
Boffin

in cyber war all may not be what it seems to be

where disinformation may be more valuable than information and truth resides only the mind of the believer

(eek! am I sounding like AMfM?)

Anonymous Coward
Mars

@Dave

Yes, But At Least You Don't Type in Camel Case!

Anonymous Coward
Mars

Simon, wrong sequence

"please delete your current OS and forward this message to 10 Jihad friends"

I'd think forwarding before deleting would work better.

P.S. how come amanfrommars doesn't use his dedicated thingycon?

Jeremiah Steidl
Black Helicopters

@ dave

Yes, yes you are. Thanks for revealing your true identity.

Anonymous Coward
Jobs Horns

makes me wonder..

..which non-western jihad-approved software they used to write their programms with? now thats irony on a base level.

..or maybe steve jobs is behind this to ensure mac dominance for good this time?

Anonymous Coward
Coat

cyber suicide?

if a PC joined to the cyber jihad "dies" during the attack, what it will receive when it reaches the landfill?

... 72 virgin ... hard disks?

black raincoat in the bakc and the big umbrella, please...

Simon
Coat

@Anonymous Coward

Yes, that was intentional to make my joke even more "Hilarious" ;-)

Mike Moyle
Coat

"al Qaeda's Cyber Warriors" icon

The networked computers that the lightning bolt is trying to disrupt appear to be late-model Macs, or at least, Mac-inspired hardware design.

Clearly, Homeland Security needs to put Cupertino on its list of critical infrastructure, to be defended at all costs!

Anonymous Coward
Pirate

Re: Doomed Resistance

"I don't see how voluntary networks will ever attract the stupendous numbers of compromised machines running, for example, Storm and its variants."

Make the anti-RIAA jihadware part of a new encrypted bittorrent clent. You'll have literally millions of users in a matter of days.

Posted anonymously to ward off the "easy target" mentality of the RIAA. They're all TURDS anyway.

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