Pakistan rejects complicity in bin Laden case - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English

So 'Pakistan rejects complicity in bin Laden case'

Well they would, wouldn't they? But the US press account seems determined to make this a dispute between the US and Pakistani governments when in reality it is a dispute between the democratically elected politicians and anti-democratic factions in the military.

Neither Bin Laden nor the Taleban were ever popular in Pakistan. Musharraf, their main supporter in Pakistan was never popular either, he seized power in a coup and lost it the first time there was a democratic election.

The reason the Pakistani government needs to tread cautiously and appear to resist certain types of US pressure is not fear of domestic Taleban/Al Qaeda supporters. Even though they do exist, they never voted for Benhazir Bhutto's party anyway. The reason they have to be cautious is the risk of a military coup.

So it probably suits the Pakistani government to appear to be under pressure from the US to perform a purge of the military. It gives them a pretext to 'reluctantly' do what they would like to in any case. Just as Pakistan has to officially appear affronted at the invasion of its sovereignty in the killing of Bin Laden while being rather glad he is eliminated. The Taleban imposed a far more humiliating infringement on Pakistani sovereignty when they occupied and effectively rulled the Swatt valley for a period.

Pa. suit: Furniture rental co. spies on PC users | ajc.com

Umm, what made someone think this would be legal?

Pa. suit: Furniture rental co. spies on PC users

The rental company appears to have a clueless lawyer who imagines attack is the best form of defense:

Aaron's, which bills itself as the nation's leader in the sales and lease ownership of residential furniture, consumer electronics and home appliances, said the lawsuit was meritless. It said it respects its customers' privacy and hasn't authorized any of its corporate stores to install the software described in the lawsuit.

It does not take a legal genius to see that the plaintif suffered an injury here. The only question is who is liable. Since the employee had knowledge of the spying software and the employee was acting for the store, it is very hard to see how Aaron's could not be liable.

Aaron's best chance to avoid class action status would be to persuade the court that this is an isolated incident and it is anxious to repair the damage. Describing the suit as meritless does not seem a good way to achieve that.

Authenticating Bin Laden's Body

Josh Marshall ponders the question of whether the US should release photos of Bin Laden's body.

That is a good question but one that at this stage probably has no good answer. Given the number of 'birthers' peddling a crackpot conspiracy theory about the President's place of birth I can well imagine members of Al Qaeda engaging in similar denial of the obvious. It is even possible, likely even that the same unscrupulous US politicians who saw advantage in pandering to birtherism will see benefit in claiming Bin Laden's death is a hoax.

So a better question would be how to provide proof beyond an unreasonable doubt that someone is dead.

One way to do this would be to use numbered, sealed tamper-evident bags. These are produced by several suppliers and were originally used for demonstrating that cash deposits have not been tampered with by couriers. A store keeper puts their takings in the bag notes the serial number and gives it to the courier. They then call the recipient and tell them the serial number of the bag. When the courier gives the bag to the recipient they check the serial number of the bag is correct and that it has not been tampered with.

The bags are made of a fairly durable but thin plastic and are self sealing with an incredibly strong glue that cannot be parted without leaving evidence. Some bags have a tamper evident strip in the glue so that the bag says 'void' if opened.

Tamper Evident Bag Provided by SecurityBag.com

These bags are used to establish the chain of custody for evidence in criminal trials.

So a basic protocol for establishing the death of BinLaden would be

1. Secure the area
2. Determine Bin Laden is dead
3. Cover most of body with sheet
4. Begin recording proceedings with video camera providing notarial authentication
5. Take tissue sample from body
6. Place tissue sample in evidence bag
7. Note serial number of bag
8. Seal bag
9. Stop recording
10. Place video camera in evidence bag
11. Transfer bags to laboratory
12. Begin recording of proceedings with video camera providing notarial authentication
13. Remove samples
14. Extract DNA
15. Print out DNA analysis
16. Stop recording
17. Publish all data

The serial numbers are unique but an unreasonable doubter could assert that the producer had been suborned into producing unnumbered bags and the number added later. So a way to provide additional proof that the evidence has not been tampered with would be to use two bags, one inside the other and put one or more bank notes, preferably from different countries inside the outer bag but not the inner. The serial numbers on the bank notes would then be used to provide additional proof that the evidence had not been tampered with.

It is my belief that the US government has already eliminated all reasonable doubt that Bin Laden has been killed. Does the protocol I propose eliminate unreasonable doubt as well? I would hope so but some people will dispute even the most indisputable facts.

Bin Laden in hiding

So bin Laden wasn't hiding in a cave after all. Who would have thought that?

Well quite a few people actually because a cave is not a particularly good place for a person needing daily medical treatment to hide. Bin Laden's kidney failure meant that he needed dialysis. That is difficult to perform in a cave and would require a constant flow of medical supplies.

Hiding in plain sight was probably Bin Laden's best option.

Why choose a military town? Well where else could you construct a fortified building without attracting attention?

Bin Laden's security precautions would be quite unusual by US suburban standards. But not so much in a garrison town close to Afghanistan and Kashmir. A lot of the buildings in the area have high walls to stop eyes looking at the womenfolk. The builders would not have known that they were building screens to hide a man rather than a woman.

Bin Laden also appears to have been pretty disciplined in keeping a low profile. He kept his personal contact with the outside world to the absolute minimum compatible with still maintaining some influence in Al Qaeda.

While he was bricked up in his hideout, Bin Laden was relatively safe. But being bricked up also meant that he could not recruit, plan or train. Some are claiming that this means that eliminating Bin Laden will have minimal impact on the ability of Al Qaeda to act and that the 'war on terror' is therefore going to continue.

This is a complete misreading of the situation in my view. Bin Laden was irrelevant to Al Qaeda's operations because there haven't been any since 9/11. Terrorist movements splinter and fracture constantly. The original goal of 9/11 was to get other jihadists to unite around Bin Laden's banner. If Al Qaeda exists in any meaningful sense it has been run by someone else for the past five years. Most likely Al Zawahiri. But I suspect that it is more than likely that when Zawahiri is eliminated he will be found in similar circumstances.

The attacks attributed to 'Al Qaeda' since 9/11 have all been planned and executed without any contribution from Bin Laden's organization. Some of the participants have ties to people who run in the same circles, but thats all. That is not a 'franchise', thats not a 'subsidiary', thats another group co-opting a brand that has already gained recognition.

Eliminating Bin Laden is a major blow in the 'War on Terror' because the whole concept was absurd and counterproductive. Bin Laden wanted to be taken seriously as an enemy. He wanted to be treated as an equal. And Bush and his administration obliged. Now they are claiming the credit for the elimination of Bin Laden, the Arab awakening in North Africa and everything else that is positive that has occurred since Obama took office. Not surprisingly there is not one thing that occurred during their watch that they have accepted blame for.

Bush's claim to have inspired the Arab awakening are as absurd as Bin Laden's. His goal was to perpetuate and extend US control of the region at any cost. He was entirely indifferent to the interests of the people living there and to the number of deaths he caused to achieve his goal.

Bin Laden did at least recognize that the region is ruled by regimes that are unrepresentative, brutal and corrupt. But his ultimate objective was of course to replace those regimes with one that would have no representation, be even more brutal and make the corruption absolute. Very few of the protesters in Egypt were calling for Bin Laden's vision of the future. Bin Laden's position provided Bush with convenient cover for his own. Opposition to the corrupt dictatorships of the region was automatically equated with support for Bin Laden's caliphate.

The removal of Bin Laden alone might not have ended the 'War on Terror', but it does give Obama the credibility to address this issue on his own terms without constant interference from the Republican party.

The removal of Bin Laden in combination with the events of the Arab Awakening have the potential to transform the region completely. Without the bogeyman Bin Laden, the dictators and despots are going to find it much harder to resist change.

The Dalek!

Salvador Dalek nears completion.

Now I have a Dalek, why not let him work in the workshop for me? He seems quite at home there.

Of course, that is how I made some of the parts. Printed by shapeways for $44.

Asking the wrong question

The New York Times debates Why didn't the US foresee the Arab revolts?

Why would this fact be a surprise? Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gaddafi failed to foresee the same revolts despite committing far greater resources to the task.

How do we even know if the premise of the question is correct? I am not on the President's reading list for Top Secret intelligence and neither is the New York Times. If the intelligence services had been predicting the collapse of these miserable dictatorships I would hope that they would keep it to themselves.

All six of the 'experts' asked to comment on the question assume that its premise must be correct and that had the US predicted the revolts they should have somehow acted to prevent them.

That was certainly the old model of US foreign policy: Propping up dictators in the name of 'stability'.

As the past four weeks proved, it didn't work.

Ahmedinejad's view

The Washington Post should really stop giving Ahmedinejad's shills space to write about the Middle East.

The Leverett's are a couple who used to do foreign policy for the neo-cons but for mysterious (ormore likely banal) reasons suddenly started spouting the Iranian government line in a series of tendentious opinion pieces.

According to the Leveretts, the Iranian elections were not stolen and Iran is poised to emerge more powerful as a regional player as Egypt defects from US control and thus submits to Iran's sphere of influence.

In European terms, this is like suggesting that Germany would be part of the sphere of influence of Ukraine. Egypt has a larger population than Iran, an economy that is diversified beyond oil and controls the Suez canal. In the highly unlikely event that Sunni Egypt would want to form an alliance with Shi'ia Iran under theocratic control, it is clear that Iran, not Egypt would be the junior partner.

While US influence in the region may have declined as a result of the changes of the past four weeks, the only point of having influence is to protect interests. And the interests of the US and the Western world in general are much better served by the spread of democracy than maintaining the rule of kelptocratic dictators.

As the largest remaining police state in the region, the sudden collapse of similar regimes in Egypt, Tunis and Libya must be a concern to the mullahs of Iran. And the process is far from complete. If Bahrain and Yemen fall, the regime in Saudi Arabia is going to come under further pressure. Should Saudi Arabia fall, Iran's system of government will become a glaring anomaly.

Shorter Gadhafi

Shorter Gadhafi: Claims in the foreign press that I am murdering opponents of my rule are lies and anyone who believes them is to be murdered. [Talking Points Memo]

The New Generation of MacBooks...

I was rather surprised by Apple's tagline for the new MacBook Air, 'The New Generation of MacBooks' (Apple - Mac).

As a means of selling MacBooks, fine. But what does it say about their other models?

I have the first generation MBA. It is a great design apart from the design fault on the hinges. But my original plan was to get the 17" model which is great unless you don't mind carting a large, heavy slab of aluminium round with you.

No doubt some of the people who go for the 15 and 17" models really do need the extra performance of a 2.5 GHz processor over 1.8. But some would surely find a smaller machine more than made up for a modest reduction in speed.

Stuxnet: After the hype

By now most readers of this blog will be aware of the now infamous Stuxnet virus that allegedly targeted the Iranian nuclear program, was allegedly written by Israel, Russia, China, the US and Iran itself, had no fewer than 4 zero day attacks, cost over a million dollars to write, but was clearly an amateur job, which succeeded and failed. It has disabled security systems throughout the world and there are no confirmed reports of it breaking anything.

As with many media firestorms, the analysis has tended to run in advance of the facts. And when the facts didn't fit it was the facts that were ignored rather than the analysis.

I have not looked at the Stuxnet code directly, but I have spoken with several experts who have and they all tell me the same story: The code consists of a distribution mechanism and a payload. Both are targeted to a particular group of machines but the distribution mechanism is set to infect particular groups of windows machines while the payload appears to be set to target one very specific installation.

The code appears to have been written in a modular fashion with different attacks being written by different hands. The code is layered and we are not sure that all its secrets have been revealed even now.

As with many high profile attacks, various parties have taken the distribution vector and repackaged it to attack targets of their own choice. Those parties may or may not include the original authors.

The only firm geographic information we have is that the code has employed signed code components signed under two separate code signing certificates, both issued to Taiwanese companies. I think this is a particularly significant piece of evidence since there are not very many code signing certificates in circulation. It is not something a hacker is likely to come across unless they are looking for it. And whoever was looking for the code signing certs was almost certainly able to read Chinese.

That said, the modular nature of the code suggests that the virus was written by many hands. I suspect that the task of writing the code was outsourced to several independent contractors, none of whom would have needed to know the ultimate purpose. They may well have outsourced the task of obtaining code signing certificates to Chinese or Taiwanese hackers to throw investigators off the trail.

Anyone with sufficient money and criminal connections could have written the distribution code. The payload is rather different. It appears to be very closely focused on one single target. This was initially suggested to be the Iranian centrifuge enrichment plant but my sources suggest that the Iranian Bushehr nuclear power plant is a more likely target.

One of the reasons for thinking that the target was Iran was that the Iranians themselves complained about being subjected to a Western cyber attack. Then they suddenly stopped complaining and denied that there had been any impact whatsoever.

Whatever the target was, we are pretty sure that the code did not target any major installation that the operators were willing to admit was the target. It is possible that Stuxnet targeted a European or US plant, but I very much doubt that this could have been kept secret. We are also fairly certain that whoever wrote Stuxnet had a very good reason for wanting to disable the plant, even though this was unlikely to succeed for more than a few months.

This last aspect of the attack makes it very unlikely that Israel or any Western country would be responsible. Whatever the target, it is highly unlikely that any cyber-attack against a well designed control system can achieve more than a temporary denial of service. Whoever wrote the Stuxnet code was revealing that they knew a very great deal about the design of the target. It is not very likely that any intelligence agency would want to put such a valuable strategic asset at risk for the sake of some casual vandalism that would be repaired in a few months.

Even more compelling is the fact that the Bushehr plant is not yet operational. Disabling a running plant is one thing, disabling a plant that is not yet commissioned would require considerably greater and more detailed inside knowledge.

If the target was the Iranian centrifuges, the knowledge could only have come from inside Iran itself. That is not impossible, there is certainly a complex power struggle going on within the regime. But it seems very unlikely.

The Iranian Bushehr reactor seems a much more likely target than the centrifuges. At least two parties had access to detailed knowledge of the plant's design - the Iranians and the Russian's who designed it. It is also possible that there are plants in other countries built to the same design and that a third party could have learnt some of the details from them. I find this unlikely however since respect for Russian nuclear engineering was severely damaged after Chernobyl. Other than the Iranians, it is unlikely that the Russians have had many recent customers.

Why would Russia sabotage a plant they built themselves? Well it used to be standard operating procedure during the days of the Soviet Union. Countries would buy all manner of technology from Russia and then learn that it was not so much an outright purchase so much as a lease. Selling the Iranians a power plant and then sabotaging it to force the Iranians to pay for repairs is the way the Soviet Union did business and is the way that Russia does business today - as European countries buying Russian natural gas have found to their cost.

We certainly do not have conclusive proof, but the Russia theory is the only one that fits all the facts we know and is the best fit to those facts. Russia has built its cyber-warfare capability through an alliance with organized crime, commissioning the deployment code is certainly well within the type of favor that Kremlin-sponsored criminal groups such as the Russian Business Network have performed in the past.  The payload was probably written separately and tested out on an actual Russian power plant with the identical control system - presumably with the plant shutdown or otherwise safe.

In conclusion, the Stuxnet attack appears to me to be a highly professional attack perpetrated by the Russian government on their ally to coerce Iran into agreeing to accept Russia's proposal to reprocess Iranian fuel. This would allow Russia to recoup the cost of the attack through revenues from the reprocessing and would ensure that Iran remained dependent on Russian technology in the future.

Iran agreed to the reprocessing deal in 2005 and then backed out. A few months ago Iran changed course again and agreed to honor their earlier agreement. The Bushehr Nuclear plant began to be loaded with fuel on 21st August and is scheduled to begin generating power in the near future.