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"To a greater and greater degree,
terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and bin Laden's
al Qaida group, are using computerized files, e-mail, and
encryption to support their operations," CIA Director George
Tenet wrote last March to the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. The testimony, at a closed-door hearing, was later
made public.
Through weeks of interviews with U.S.
law-enforcement officials and experts, USA TODAY has learned
new details of how extremists hide maps and photographs of
terrorist targets — and post instructions for terrorist
activities — on sports chat rooms, pornographic bulletin
boards and other popular Web sites. Citing security concerns,
officials declined to name the sites. Experts say it's
difficult for law enforcement to intercept the messages.
"It's something the intelligence,
law-enforcement and military communities are really struggling
to deal with," says Ben Venzke, special projects director for
iDEFENSE, a cyberintelligence company.
Officials and experts say the Internet is
a new form of the "dead drop," a Cold War-era term for where
spies left information. Officials and experts say the messages
are scrambled using free encryption programs set up by groups
that advocate privacy on the Internet. Those same programs
also can hide maps and photographs in an existing image on
selected Web sites. The e-mails and images can only be
decrypted using a "private key" or code, selected by the
recipient .
"The operational details and future
targets, in many cases, are hidden in plain view on the
Internet," Venzke says. "Only the members of the terrorist
organizations, knowing the hidden signals, are able to extract
the information."
Officials say bin Laden began using
encryption five years ago, but recently increased its use
after U.S. officials revealed they were tapping his satellite
telephone calls in Afghanistan and tracking his
activities.
"We will use whatever tools we can —
e-mails, the Internet — to facilitate jihad against the
(Israeli) occupiers and their supporters," Sheik Ahmed Yassin,
the founder of the militant Muslim group Hamas said in a
recent interview in the Gaza Strip. "We have the best minds
working with us." | 
