[LottiFurmann]

Originally posted by cerulean
This appears to be a typical pattern for al-Qaeda sites. They appear for a few days, are discovered, and are then taken down. Wonder what's the point of it.

Can someone put up a site (under a separate domain name) in the US without presenting proper identification documents and naming a functioning bank account to the provider, btw.?

[Beerinkol]

Fits in, doesn't it?

Palestinian may be link to al-Qaeda network in U.S.
By Reuters
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pa...ID=0&listSrc=Y

[PhillipHer]

Stratfor Analysis: The Palestinian Strategy: Summary

cont'd
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The needed transformation of the Islamic world will take a long time to achieve. On the other hand, from the Palestinian point of view, time is on their side. Given that all quickly attainable solutions leave them in an unacceptable condition, they have nothing to lose by playing for the long-term solution. Given Palestinian psychology, a long-term strategy of enormous proportions is politically more viable than short-term strategies that cannot deliver genuine solutions. They can either capitulate or continue to struggle, but a small Palestinian state would not satisfy their needs. Nor could it preclude the continuation of war by Palestinian rejectionists and therefore would not be accepted by Israel. The Palestinians' only hope is a redefinition of the general geopolitics of the region.

It is in this sense that the ongoing suicide campaign must be understood. Having accepted that no political settlement in the smaller context of Israel and Palestine is possible, the Palestinians have accepted a long-term strategy of unremitting warfare using whatever means is available -- for now, suicide bombers -- as the only alternative. The price is high, but given the stakes, their view is that it is worth it. It follows that the Palestinians will accept reoccupation by Israel and use that reoccupation not merely to drain Israeli resources but also to create an atmosphere of war designed to energize the Islamic world for a broad redefinition of relationships.

The suicide bombing campaign cannot be intended to achieve any significant short-term goal. First, it is not likely to generate a peace movement in Israel --quite the contrary. Second, it locks the United States into alignment with Israel, rather than driving a wedge between the two. Finally, it creates an extreme psychology within the Palestinian community that makes political flexibility all the more difficult. The fervor that creates suicide bombers also creates a class of martyrs whose sacrifices are difficult to negotiate away. The breadth and intensity of the suicide bombings force us to conclude that the Palestinian leadership is focusing on a long-term strategy of holding the Palestinians together in a sense of profound embattlement, transforming the dynamics of the Arab world and then striking at Israel from a position of strength. In short, the Palestinians think that time is on their side and that sacrifices for a generation or two will yield dividends later. If they wait, they will win.

Here Palestinian strategy, intentionally or unintentionally, intersects with that of al Qaeda, which also is committed to a radical transformation of the Islamic world. Its confrontation with the United States is designed to set the stage for this transformation, enabling the Islamic world to engage and defeat the enemies of Islam.

For al Qaeda one of the pillars of this confrontation is the Palestinian question, which it defines as the recovery of Islamic land usurped by Israel, a tool of the United States and Great Britain. For al Qaeda, the Palestinian question represents the systematic repression and brutalization of the Islamic world at the hands of both Christianity and the secular West. Israel is merely the most extreme and visible dimension of Western injustice. Palestine is, at the same time, a primary means of energizing the Islamic world. The ongoing injustice of the Palestinian situation combined with the martyrdom of the bombers creates, in al Qaeda's view, both a sense of embattlement and religious fervor with profound political consequences. Hamas and Al Aqsa Martyrs are powerful recruiting tools for al Qaeda.

If the Palestinians have adopted the long-term strategy we described, then al Qaeda is the means of achieving their geopolitical end. If the precondition for the defeat of Israel is a transformation of the internal politics of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the rest of the Arab world, then al Qaeda is currently the only force fighting toward this end. In the same way that Arafat's generation aligned itself with Egypt's Gamel Abdel Nasser, Arab socialism and the Soviet Union in an attempt to find a geopolitical lever to destroy Israel, so today's generation has to look for geopolitical salvation among Islam's religious fundamentalists. Al Qaeda is the only group operating effectively at the moment and therefore, by default if not by intention, al Qaeda is serving the Palestinians' interest and vice versa.

For al Qaeda, a Palestinian settlement would be politically and morally unacceptable: Morally, it would represent a betrayal of Islam; politically, it would defuse a critical, energizing issue. Any agreement that would accept the permanent loss of territory to Israel would increase the power of accommodationists in the Islamic world. Al Qaeda needs an ongoing confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis to serve its ends; the Palestinians need tremendous pressure brought on the Arab world to serve their interests. The Palestinians also need a transformation in the Arab world. Here the two interests coincide. Israel, then, becomes a foundation of al Qaeda's political strategy in the Islamic world, as well as a test bed for tactics and military strategies.

Palestinian strategy makes no sense except in the context of alignment with al Qaeda. We need to be very careful here. We are not saying that there is deep cooperation going on between the Palestinians and al Qaeda although we would be very surprised if representatives of the two entities have not met and coordinated at times. Rather, what we are saying is that the goals of the Palestinians and those of al Qaeda have converged. Whether this was by design or by the logic of their situation is not really relevant. What is relevant is the convergence not only of tactics but also of a strategic and geopolitical perspective. Unless the Palestinians undergo a profound change of goals, they need al Qaeda to be successful to aid their own success. Al Qaeda is helped enormously by Palestinian behavior. If not a word had ever been exchanged --which we doubt -- the interests would still have converged. And the alliance that grows naturally is the most powerful one.

This means that no real peace process is any longer possible and that Israel can expect to be under constant pressure from the Palestinians. Then the question is, can Israel define a strategy for containing the Palestinians without simultaneously inflaming the Islamic world? More important, can the U.S.-Israeli relationship survive when what Israel must do to suppress the Palestinians flies in the face of American coalition-building in the Islamic world? Of course the Palestinians may hope to provoke a response from Israel that the United States cannot tolerate. However, this is not 1973. Israeli dependence on the United States is much less today than it was then, and therefore U.S. influence on Israel is much lower. Second, the United States is not likely to break with Israel when the trigger is suicide bombing -- not what the Palestinians want to hear, but it is exactly what al Qaeda would want.

This is precisely the crisis both the Palestinians and al Qaeda want to create. Al Qaeda hopes to use U.S. commitment to Israel as a tool for political mobilization in the Islamic world, since the United States cannot accept the destruction of Israel and nothing less can satisfy the needs of the Palestinians. The forecast, therefore, is for pain.

[tgs]

What you do is you pay some professional hackers to steal some credit card numbers from a website, use them w/in one hour and dump them. If you can't hack them you just buy them from a fence.

The stolen cc numbers are used to create a billing entity for another website from an ISP/Hosting company. They bill by the month with a one time charge + first month up front. By the time the CC company catches up the site is up and down and gone.

Lather rinse repeat.

BTW ~70% of credit card fraud occurs at the place of business of the retail walk-in vendor. Most of the remainder occurs in the calling center where you give your CC number over an 800 (toll free in the US) phone number. About 20% of all call centers in the US are run in prisons. That's right it's the new growth industry for private prison management - retail calling centers. They sell merchandise, telemarket and solicit for charities. There is very little straight up CC fraud online - most of the problems are the result of poor security.

[radikal]

Credit card companies don't care. They merely shift the risk back on the consumer in the form of high interest rates. The total debt load of households in the US is ~109% of total household income and most of that debt is serviced at near usury rates. In the US there is in fact NO LIMIT on a credit card interest rate. Nominally it's about 16-17% and can typically exceed 24% but legally if a CC company wants to charge 40% or 40000% there is nothing to stop them.