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A. Aaron Weisburd is a freelancer.
But he specializes in targetting Islamic radicals on the web, according to Ariana Eunjung Cha's article in the Washington Post.
It did not take long for one e-mail to catch his attention: Ekhlaas.com was offering instructions on how to steal people's personal information off their computers. It was a new development for an Islamic discussion site accustomed to announcing "martyrdom operations," or suicide bombings, against U.S. troops and others in Iraq.Weisburd quickly listed the discovery in his daily log of offensive and dangerous sites, alerting his supporters. A few days later, Ekhlaas experienced an unusual surge in activity, the hallmark of a hacker attack, forcing the company hosting the site to take it down.
It was another small victory for Weisburd, one of a new breed of Internet activists. Part vigilantes, part informants, part nosy neighbors, they search the Web for sites that they say deal in theft, fraud and violence.
Law enforcement both likes and loathes him. They like him for the tips, they loathe him for getting sites shut down that could provide valuable leads.
And the whole project raises some profound questions.
When is a denial of service attack justified?
When is trying to shut down speech justified?
If your goal is eradicating hate and terrorism, is it better to allow hatred and incitement to happen publicly in order to better fight it or to drive it back to the fringes?
What is the difference, if any, between speech and action?
Would you feel differently if Weisburd were targetting spammers and identity thieves?
I got no answers, after all, its only Monday morning.
But I do have things to think about, which is a good way to start the week.
Posted by Ryan Singel at April 25, 2005 09:48 AM
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Tracked on April 26, 2005 08:06 PM
Post a commentI'll note we had *nothing* to do with any DoS attack on Ekhlaas. Nor were we the only people who knew the site existed. I could use the Ekhlaas case to somehow try and justify DoS'ing sites, but since I'm actually trying to discourage such behavior I'm letting that incident pass without much fanfare. As for Internet Haganah, best to actually read the site rather than take the Washington Post's word for it.
Posted by: Aaron Weisburd at May 1, 2005 06:16 AM