Email Search: The latest weapon in anti-terror arsenal

[R. A. Hettinga]

 http://www.timesofindia.com/Articleshow.asp?art_id=1670765

The Times of India Online
Printed from origin.timesofindia.com > India
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The latest weapon in anti-terror arsenal
SIDDHARTH SRIVASTAVA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2002  4:59:02 PM ]
EW DELHI: According to senior officials, tracking e-mails of arrested
terrorists has become a foolproof method of gaining hard evidence.

"There can be no fooling around with an e-mail IDs and passwords," says an
official of the Intelligence Bureau, "Once a terrorist is caught his e-mail
IDs can be cross-checked immediately. So, he better be telling the truth.
Phone records or other statements require a time lag before they can be
confirmed," he adds.

Of course, the fact that the modern generation terrorist is generally
educated and tech-savvy helps.

Officials say, whether it is Aftab Ansari or Omar Sheikh or for that
matter, even a Dawood Ibrahim or a Chhota Shakeel, the kind of information
that has been generated now would not have been possible without accessing
their e-mails.

Investigators are still grappling with more information about the attackers
on the Parliament, as they have not been able to break into their e-mails
as yet.

"Most of the current lot of criminals have become extremely chary of using
their phones given the past record of tapping by intelligence agencies.
However, they felt free exchanging critical information on the Internet,"
says the official.

It is through a series of e-mail exchanges between Ansari and Sheikh that
the involvement of the two in the WTC attack has been confirmed.
Interrogators of Ansari here got hold of several of his e-mail IDs,
farhanmalik at hotmail.com, aftabansari169 at hotmail.com to connect to the
series of e-mail exchanges between him and Sheikh.

The CBI and the IB used e-mail interception technology to track Ansari by
tracing his e-mails in January, first to servers in Dubai and then to
Islamabad. The local Internet service provider was roped in to determine
the exact location from which Ansari had sent an e-mail which turned out to
be Islamabad.

Even in the case of Sheikh, the police in Karachi, helped by a
cyber-tracking team from the FBI, traced the three men who had sent the
e-mails about Pearl's abduction to the media. The arrested men lead them on
to Sheikh. The authorities then picked up Sheikh's in-laws from Lahore,
exerting pressure on him to surrender.

Earlier, Intelligence agencies had cracked into the e-mail IDs of Dawood
Ibrahim and Chhota Shakeel to confirm their presence in Pakistan post
December 13.
© Bennett, Coleman and Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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