[Cryptography] Bin Laden satphones

[Arnold Reinhold]

> On Nov 22, 2015, at 9:42 PM, Watson Ladd <watsonbladd at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Nov 22, 2015 5:07 PM, "Henry Baker" <hbaker1 at pipeline.com <mailto:hbaker1 at pipeline.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> At 11:41 AM 11/22/2015, Donald Eastlake wrote:
>>> On Sun, Nov 22, 2015 at 10:50 AM, Henry Baker <hbaker1 at pipeline.com> wrote:
>>>> ...
>>>> 
>>>> Earlier in his career, Osama Bin Laden used (Iridum?) satphones for communications.
>>> 
>>> Nope, Inmarsat I believe, which is cheaper than iridium <www.inmarsat.com>.
>> …

>> Here's a pretty good rundown of this 'urban myth', which apparently originated with the CIA's Foreign Denial and Deception Committee!  [I didn't make this up!]
>> 
>> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/osama_sat_phone_20060110
>> 
>> But as early as 1996, Time magazine had reported that Bin Laden “uses satellite phones to contact fellow Islamic militants.”  Time gave its source as Taliban officials, not U.S. intelligence­-giving the lie to Bush’s assertion that government leaks were to blame for the outing of that piece of information.
> 
> The information Bush claimed was classified and leaked was not that
> bin Laden used Iridium, but that the US could track him with it. This
> fact doesn't appear in the second link in your email. Obviously bin
> Laden knew what kind of phone he used! I haven't dug up the Washington
> Post article the 9/11 commission cited as containing this detail to
> check whether or not the fact appears, but it doesn't appear in the
> Time article.

The 9/11 Commission did not say which paper it was, but the White House and members of the commission said it was the *Washington Times*,  not the Washington Post or the New York Times. And no, the Washington Times article in question did not say anything about the U.S. ability to track bin Laden. All it said, (in the 22nd paragraph) was “He keeps in touch with the world via computers and satellite phones and has given occasional interviews to international news organizations.”  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/dec/21/20051221-121117-9232r/?page=all <http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/dec/21/20051221-121117-9232r/?page=all>

Of course, as others have pointed out, one does not need a leak to explain why bin Laden ditched his satellite phone right after he was almost killed by a cruse missile. But the government rarely lets facts get in the way of an alarming story that bolsters their agenda, as we are seeing today in the post-Paris battle over encryption.

Arnold Reinhold


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