VoIP and tech’s murky role in Mumbai attacks

pReports out of Mumbainbsp;claim the 10 member Lashker-e-Taiba terrorist attack group was steeped in off-the-shelf consumer technology.nbsp; The FBI is reportedly assisting Indian intelligence agencies in deciphering Internet telephony signatures originating in Pakistan./p
pTerrorist controllers/handlers in Pakistan used VoIP to communicate with the Mumbai attack cell, with calls flowing out of Pakistan to satellite phones carried by the group. Conducting traffic analysis – number of calls, type of calls, frequency, and length – on the communications stream between Pakistan and Mumbai seems to have occurred, but it is not clear if Indian authorities have access to any media streams – the actual verbal conversations — of calls.nbsp;/p
pThe FBI is apparently providing support to trace back when calls started coming in to the cell phone. While not being publicly discussed, it is likely that a United States National Security Agency vacuum cleaner system sucked up the broadcasted satellite phone conversations in some form; it is unknown if the communications were encrypted end-to-end, but if they were, it would provide an additional complication to learning the substance of the communications between Lashker-e-Taiba and its Mumbai cell./p
pPlayers on both sides of the terrorist equation – both attackers and defenders – are aware of the use and application of off-the-shelf technologies for attacks.nbsp;In October, a short report by the U.S. Army 304th Military Intelligence open source intelligence team examined the potential use and application of mobile phone and VoIP technologies by terrorist groups.nbsp;While the media generally obsessed over the application of Twitter, the report also highlighted the use of GPS, software to change voices in conjunction with VoIP calls, and Google Maps./p
pFor more:br /- The Economic Times of India briefly a href=http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/FBI_files_case_in_Mumbai_terror_attacks/articleshow/3784976.cmsdiscusses/a FBI involvement in VoIP cracking.br /- Ars Technica and the media a href=http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081027-tweets-of-terror-army-microblogs-potential-terrorist-tool.htmlfetished on Twitter/a as a terrorist tool, but the U.S. Army report highlights a href=http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/mobile.pdfother technologies/a as well./p
pstrongRelated articlesa href=http://www.fiercevoip.com/story/taliban-voip-calls/2008-09-15br //a/stronga href=http://www.fiercevoip.com/story/taliban-voip-calls/2008-09-15Taliban VoIP calls – FierceVoIP/abr /a href=http://www.fierceonlinevideo.com/story/youtube-take-down-terrorist-videos/2008-09-19YouTube to take down terrorist videos – FierceOnlineVideo/a/p