Posted on 06/04/2005 12:32:36 PM PDT by wagglebee
An Internet company under criminal investigation for hosting Islamic terrorist websites is using electronic shell games to make it difficult to track down those responsible for its actions.
As Newsweek reported, during the past year, 357Hosting, formally based near Utrecht in the Netherlands, hosted a number of Islamic websites that showed the videos of beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq and messages from Iraqi-based al-Qaida leader Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.
The public prosecutor's office in Utrecht told Newsweek it has opened a criminal investigation into possible Internet hate crimes. But, the magazine reported, the former operator of the hosting company claims ownership of the firm has already moved out of the Netherlands.
Publicly available documentation seems to support that claim. Registration information for 357Hosting, founded in 2002, now lists the company as being in Gaza, Sijaia, in the Palestinian territory.
The location was changed sometime between Feb. 6 and Feb.10, 2005, although the telephone numbers remain the same.
In e-mails to Newsweek, 357Hosting's former chief, who asked to be called "Awad," acknowledged that his business last year hosted websites "that may be deemed as radical," including sites that glorify the actions of Iraqi militants and others promoting the Palestinian resistance.
For example, until at least May 5, 2005, 357Hosting was the cyber home to a currently inactive Hamas site, and at one point it also hosted Shareeah.org, a site promoting Abu Hamza, a notorious London-based radical Islamic cleric now in jail in Britain on terror-related charges.
A site still apparently hosted by 357 is www.albasrah.net, described in Internet registration information as featuring "photographs and press bulletins from groups opposed to the occupation of Iraq."
In addition to unflattering electronically manipulated pictures of President Bush, site operators also take aim at MSNBC, writing, "The American MSNBC network has accused al-Basrah of propagandizing the terrorism of az-Zarqawi (sic) and preaching anti-Semitism and hate towards the West. The goal behind this slander is to close down the albasrah.net website.
"For our part, we reject this erroneous claim for one simple reason: the al-Basrah Network is not taken in by the fairy tale pushed by the American and British invaders that the phantom that they call az-Zarqawi (sic) hovers over every part of Iraq and that it is he who resists the invaders. ... The albasrah.net website has not published any reports about az-Zarqawi (sic) because we, like all Iraqis, do not believe this mythological figure exists on the pure soil of Iraq. Iraq is fighting Anglo-American terrorism in its own, native Iraqi Resistance movement, which offers itself as a sacrifice for the liberation of the country, determined to continue fighting until the last inch of Iraqi soil is freed from today's barbarian hordes.
"To claim that we 'hate the West' is a pitifully lame argument. Iraqis highly esteem their friends in the West who rejected American terrorism, and who took to the streets in their millions to protest and to obstruct U.S. aggression. Many in the West continue to contribute reports, and provide hard evidence of the atrocities being committed by the invaders as they continue to trample the human rights of the Iraqi people."
There was another message on Albasrah with a translation provided on Yahoo's Cybersilkroad2003 Group and titled, "Letter from the militant leader of the Iraqi Resistance."
It read in part: "I expect the Party to lock itself into jihad and the mobilization of the people behind the Mujahedeen, arousing them to revolution against the occupation and to leave political relations to the political leadership and that only within very narrow limits. Reject all elections. Boycott them forcefully and prevent them wherever you can do so. Kill the traitors and stooges; pursue them and strike them down. Do not allow for any stability, because stability serves the enemy and his puppets.
"It is not permissible for us to play the role of loyal opposition to traitors, mercenaries and stooges in this political game into which the enemy wants to drag us, a game which in reality is his plan for our destruction. Hold fast to the Resistance. Arouse the people to revolution behind it. Give them every help and encouragement. Stay defiant and relentless in the jihad and for the eternal message of our Arab Nation."
There was no immediate response to an e-mailed request sent to Albasrah requesting comment.
On its acceptable use policy, 357Hosting comments, "When customers disseminate information through the Internet, they also must keep in mind that 357Hosting does not review, edit, censor or take responsibility for any information its customers may create. The customers are 100 percent responsible for theire (sic) own actions."
However, the 357 policy continues, "Adult-oriented websites or adult content is not allowed on our servers."
Who is behind 357Hosting?
Trying to find out who is, or who may be, playing a part in helping 357Hosting stay online is somewhat like attempting to complete a jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces.
By using an online Internet registration service, it was initially found that 357Hosting appeared to share computer space with three other sites. They were www.As-sirat.com, www.Shaheeds.org (Arabic for homicide bomber) and www.Shamilonline.org.
One of the Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, apparently at least marginally involved with 357Hosting is an international company with its American headquarters based in Reston, Va., called Beyond The Network America Inc.
An e-mail to BtN requesting comment was answered by BtN Access Legal Counsel Cindy Perkinson.
She wrote in part, "Please note that BtN Access does not host any of the listed sites. The sites belong to a customer of a BtN Access customer. BtN Access is an ISP and in this case provides Internet access only to our customer. As a result, we have no control over the content of these or any other sites owned by our customer's customers. Even if BtN Access were to suspend access services to a customer such as this, the site owner can (and usually does) switch services to any one of literally hundreds of other ISPs."
Perkinson added, "I am sure that you are sensitive to the issue of free expression of ideas. Further, as an investigative journalist, I am sure that you are aware that sites such as these, regardless of how despicable we may find their content, often offer valuable information and insights to law enforcement."
However, Frontpage Magazine noted, "[It's very disturbing] that American Internet companies are helping the enemy in the 'War on Terror' by providing Web hosting and other services to overseas terrorist groups, and the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI appear to be incapable or unwilling to act on the matter. The number of such websites operating with the collusion of U.S. Internet companies, knowingly or otherwise, is truly alarming."
Asked in a subsequent e-mail who BtN's customer was, Perkinson responded, "As noted in my earlier message to you, these sites ... are not our customers. We don't have information on who owns/operates these websites. We only know that the ... addresses are allocated to one of our customers, who resells that address space to its (customers)."
After again being asked who BtN's customer is, Perkinson wrote, "None of the below sites is a customer of BtN Access. Your assumption that we provide a server to our customer is not correct; we provide bandwidth only to our customer, who then leases (equipment) to their ... users in their own facility. These sites don't reside on our network, and the servers are not located in our facilities. The sites in question are, in fact, customers of a customer of our customer (three levels down from us)."
However, Internet Haganah's Aaron Weisburd said that BtN is nonetheless still playing a role in helping 357Hosting stay on line.
"They are providing bandwidth, the actual, physical connection to the Internet and an IP address (a code made up of numbers that identifies a particular address on the Internet)," Weisburd said. "When you say 'hosting,' that gives them a way out. ... They admit that they provide bandwidth."
Internet Haganah is, according to its website, "a global open-source intelligence network dedicated to confronting Internet use by Islamist terrorist organizations, their supporters, enablers and apologists."
And why is that "bandwidth" so important? The Frontpage Magazine piece noted, "Terrorist groups like ... to use American Web hosting companies because the prices are cheaper than found overseas, and U.S. firms have the greatest bandwidth – that is, the power to reach the maximum audience over phone lines and cable."
Using three different services to investigate 357Hosting produced a different electronic address (67.15.122.9 as opposed to 63.223.72.186) and a different ISP. This time, it appeared the Houston-based Everyone's Internet, well-known for hosting terror sites, is at least helping keep 357Hosting online and may be hosting the controversial company.
Internet terror researcher Johnathan Galt said, "My opinion (is that) 357Hosting is at Everyone's Internet. Perhaps they just moved there."
Requests for comment sent to three e-mail addresses at Everyone's Internet were not immediately acknowledged or answered.
Galt suggested the records of the first electronic verification service may have been a few days behind the second one. Rechecking the first service a couple of days later proved Galt's contention: Everyone's Internet was now listed as the online home of 357Hosting.
Weisburd, however, had an alternative explanation.
"In my experience," he said, "357Hosting uses multiple IP addresses for its sites, so ... sometimes the IP (addresses will be different), which makes complaining about it difficult."
Electronic shell game
It appears that the official former home of 357Hosting was in the Netherlands, although how much of the company's operation was actually carried out there is open to question. Then 357Hosting made an apparent move to Gaza – at least for contact purposes.
Currently, the company appears to have split its operation into a variety of parts, making detection much more difficult. As BtN's Perkinson admitted, her company provides bandwidth to a customer that ultimately ends up getting sold to 357Hosting. That is the apparent extent of BtN's involvement.
However, 357Hosting is apparently housed on computer servers located at Everyone's Internet. In an admittedly normal procedure, the 357 name apparently was registered through an Internet name registration service called www.enom.com, which is also the registrar for a number of other terrorist websites.
The situation gets even more confusing when researching the Albasrah website, which is apparently hosted by 357Hosting. While it appears that Everyone's Internet is home to 357Hosting, the electronic address for Albasrah is 194.109.209.222, which traces to the Dutch company www.xs4all.nl.
E-mailed requests for comment to www.xs4all.com were answered by an automated response from the company's abuse department, which read in part, "Depending on the severity of the case, we may or may not discontinue service to the customer. In cases where we do not discontinue the service, we may, at our discretion, decide to send the user an official warning."
As the criminal investigation into 357Hosting continues, Newsweek reported that 357's former owner claimed that Dutch authorities once indicated the firm's activities were legal: "My policy was freedom of speech ... as long as they didn't violate laws, so no threats, no bomb-making manuals and things like that."
"Awad" told Newsweek that earlier this year, after 357's activities became controversial in the Netherlands, he turned the hosting business over to a new owner in Jordan, whom he declined to identify.
A "spokesman" for the new owners, telephoned by Newsweek at Awad's recommendation, would not identify himself or the new owners. But Awad told Newsweek that 357Hosting would continue to host radical websites to promote what he called "free speech" and to counter what the spokesman claimed is excessive Jewish influence in the media.
Several e- mails sent to 357Hosting requesting comment were not answered.
I think its great! I love Powell as Batman and Rumsefeld as Conan! Great!
ping
Yep.
Thanks for the ping Calpernia.
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http://www.truthusa.com/911news.html
Sounds like "A wad" to me...
ping
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