Posted on 11/07/2001 9:11:30 PM PST by BlackJack
CAN HE SAVE THE WORLD?
Teen hacker turned terrorist-hunter, Kim Schmitz, thinks he can hack into Osama bin Laden's money supply. Trouble is, he's not sure if he can stay alive long enough to do it. By Angus Batey
Monday October 29, 2001
'What I am doing here is very risky," explains 27-year-old, 23-stone, six-and-a-half foot German computer hacker-turned-businessman Kim Schmitz. "I'm not only risking my freedom, but also my life. I've had threats from several sources. If one fanatic thinks he would do a favour to somebody who doesn't like me in the Islamic world, it's the easiest thing just to come by and give me a bullet."
Schmitz is speaking both about his posting of a $10m reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden, and the perceived reaction to Yihat - Young Intelligent Hackers Against Terrorism - a guerrilla army of computer programmers he has assembled to stifle funding to terror groups worldwide.
Yihat targets financial institutions it believes handle terrorists' money, breaks into their servers, traces suspicious transactions, and passes the information it gleans to the FBI. Set up in the wake of the September 11 attacks, in which two of Schmitz's friends died, Yihat is claiming two successful "operations" to date - hacks of the Al-Shamal and Arab National banks have yielded what Schmitz claims is clear evidence of terrorist financial transactions.
"The FBI released a list of 22 terrorists," Schmitz says, "and two of the names on the list had bank accounts at the Arab National Bank, with the same birthdays. So there is a very big chance that these guys have accounts there. One of the employees of the bank informed us that people potentially involved in this crime [September 11 attacks] have accounts there, and this was verified. We forwarded all this information to the FBI."
Quite how much difference this will make is not clear. The FBI's head office in Washington claims no knowledge of Schmitz or Yihat, and its online terrorist information tip website has so far received more than 130,000 leads. The Arab National Bank's London office says they "do not discuss such matters with journalists", when contacted by the Guardian about the hack.
Could it be his real name ist: "Dieter?" Denken sie.
The Big Bad Wolf ST.LOUIE1 probably took it. LOL
Snitch! .. : (
Thanks, King.
The 'Saint'. LOL
Lately he's been pouring his money and time into the (by now) virtually worthless Letsbuyit.com. The last time I looked he was buying stock at EUR 2.40 and telling the World it would be bigger than Yahoo.com. The stock is currently trading at EUR 0.15 (Ouch!)
Kim is desperately trying to raise money through his Kimvestor unit for a variety of start-ups and uses outlandish publicity stunts to attract attention. The problem for him is that there are real hackers out there who got tired of his cheap gimmicks and when he started this Yihat stunt the hacked into and defaced his website with the logo of the hacker group (Fluffy Bunny) which is only slightly R-Rated. Joke's on him I guess. No one really knows if he still has much money. Apparently he has enough to keep the gags going.
Who would have ever thought....
you'd become a "King", and I, a "Saint"....
just by declaring it so.
But here we are! LOL
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