Some of Her Best Friends Are Terrorists

This month's *WIRED *mag has a fascinating profile of Shannon Rossmiller, a Montana mom who befriends and betrays online jihadists -- while she gets her kids ready for school. Her social networking has helped bust a half-dozen terror rings, authorities say.

Rossmiller succeeds by exploiting a fundamental flaw in al Qaeda's famously decentralized organization. The absence of a strict hierarchy makes it pretty easy for a cunning person to mix among the terrorists.
So she poses as a potential al Qaeda soldier looking for like-minded comers. She creates multiple characters and uses her older and more respected personae to invite the new ones into private forums. There are other self-taught counterterrorists like her, but they tend to translate and discuss, lurk and report. Rossmiller works the terrorism boards as if she were playing a complex videogame. Her characters come complete with distinct personalities and detailed biographies that are as richly conceived as any protagonist on an HBO series. She keeps copies of everything, time-stamps files, and takes screenshots. She has an Excel spreadsheet that details the 640 people with whom she has had contact on these boards since 2002...

In May 2002, [for instance,] Rossmiller saw a post from a man in
Pakistan who said he had access to Stinger missiles he wanted to sell.
She wrote back to the person she now identifies in her files as Rocket
Man, posing as someone interested in purchasing his wares. After a few exchanges, she abruptly threatened to cut off contact unless he provided proof he was who he said he was. "And I'll be gol-danged if a few days later, a nice little zip file appears with pictures of him sitting on some crates." The inventory numbers of the Stingers were clearly visible. Rossmiller then realized that her hobby had turned into something that needed attention from the FBI.

Rossmiller's not the only private citizen that's tangling with
Islamic extremists online, of course. Earlier this month, terror-hunted Rita Katz made headlines when she accused the Bush Administration of blowing her surveillance of Al-Qaeda's "intranet."

Then there's Joseph G. Shahda, a Boston engineer who's "happily claiming credit" for knocking offline "40 militant Islamist Web sites," including "some of the world’s most active jihadi sites, with forums full of extremist chatter."

“These sites are very, very dangerous,” Shahda tells the New York Times. “And I think we should keep going after them. They are used as recruiting tools for terrorists, arousing emotions, teaching how to hate.”

Except it’s not quite that simple, when you talk to some terrorism experts. Mr. Shahda’s one-man operation highlights the tension over what to do about online jihadi militancy — a tension that has grown along with the material. Perhaps it’s better to shut it down, and try to prosecute those involved. Or maybe the material should be left up, as a way to learn something valuable in the larger battle against terrorists.

Or maybe the sites can be used like honey and flypaper, to lure jihadists to their doom.

ALSO:
* Inside Al-Qaeda's "Intranet"
* Intel Director Launches Qaeda Leak Probe
* Ex-Spies Blast Qaeda Breach
* Al-Qaeda "Intranet" Goes Dark After Leak
* Osama: Back in Black
* DARPA's New Tools for Net Defenders, Cyber-Snoops
* Pentagon Launching Net Attacks
* Air Force Readying Cyber Strikes
* Al-Qaeda Channels Pixar
*Inside the Insurgent Noise Machine
* Terrorists Keep Blogs, Too
* Al-Qaeda Ramps up Propaganda Push
* Al-Qaeda Propaganda at New High