[Mitchell]

If it had named Atta, it would be much LESS convincing.

Well, I wasn't thinking that Atta's name would appear, but that the entry would have included a fake name. That would have been less suspicious that an entry with no name.

Of course, maybe there was a fake name. We really don't know.

[Mitchell]

I meant:

less suspicious than ...

not

less suspicious that ...

[Travis McGee]

I think "Hamburg student" is totally plausible. Every service will have their own tradecraft SOPs, which may or may not be followed to the letter by a senior intelligence officer.

[txhurl]

There are some old posters that we need around now to help with this. I hear it's bad karma to ping them once they're banned.