FC: Reporter poses as Internet terrorist, dupes Computerworld

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

[Here's an excerpt from Computerworld's now-deleted article that appeared 
yesterday: 'A radical Islamic group that is on the U.S. State Department's 
list of designated terrorist organizations has claimed responsibility for 
the release of the Slammer worm late last month... In an exclusive exchange 
of e-mails with Computerworld spanning two weeks, Abu Mujahid, a spokesman 
for Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a self-proclaimed radical Islamic jihadist 
organization, said the group released the Slammer worm as part of a "cyber 
jihad" aimed at creating fear and uncertainty on the Internet... According 
to Mujahid, one of the worm's first instructions, a so-called "push" 
command, includes the number 42, which is the sum of the letters H, U and M 
if you add up the numbers that correspond to the point at which each one 
falls in the Roman alphabet. H is the eighth letter; U is the 21st; M is 
the 13th...' --Declan]

-Declan


http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/cybercrime/story/0,10801,78238,00.html

    Journalist perpetrates online terror hoax
    By DAN VERTON
    FEBRUARY 06, 2003

    Editor's note: An online story yesterday by Computerworld
    reporting on terrorist claims of responsibility for having authored
    the Slammer worm was based on a hoax. The security reporter who wrote
    the story, Dan Verton, explains in this first-person account how he
    and others were misled by a U.S. journalist who pretended to be
    someone named "Abu Mujahid." The original story has been removed from
    Computerworld's Web site.

    ---

    There's an old Italian proverb that says, "Those who sleep with dogs
    will rise with fleas." That's the situation in which I now find
    myself.

    While catching a few fleas isn't unusual in the murky, dog-eat-dog
    world of reporting on hackers and terrorists, this hoax is different.
    Had it been a simple scam, I might be embarrassed. But in this case,
    the scammer is Brian McWilliams, a former reporter for Newsbytes.com,
    which is now owned by The Washington Post Co.

    For the past 11 months, McWilliams has operated a Web site,
    www.harkatulmujahideen.org, which once belonged to a real terrorist
    organization based in Pakistan. It was during legitimate research into
    pro-terrorist Web sites that I first came across the
    Harkat-ul-Mujahideen site and McWilliams.

    In an elaborate scheme to dupe security companies and journalists,
    McWilliams acknowledged last night that he purchased the domain name
    last March and registered it under the name of "Abu-Mujahid of
    Karachi." He also left a legitimate mirror site in place on a server
    in Pakistan and by his own admission has been receiving e-mails from
    people looking to join the actual terrorist group. He then posed as
    Abu Mujahid in his communications with people and the news media.

    [...remainder snipped...]




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