Foreign Policy Magazine reports that a moderate Syrian rebel group in northern Syria has captured a black Dell laptop in a village in the Syrian province of Idlib close to the border with Turkey that contained 35,347 files that turned out to be a treasure trove of documents that provide ideological justifications for jihadi organizations -- and practical training on how to carry out the Islamic State's deadly campaigns. They include videos of Osama bin Laden, manuals on how to make bombs, instructions for stealing cars, and lessons on how to use disguises in order to avoid getting arrested while traveling from one jihadi hot spot to another. Most disturbing however, is that the ISIS laptop contains a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize bubonic plague from infected animals. "The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge," the document states. The document includes instructions for how to test the weaponized disease safely, before it is used in a terrorist attack. "When the microbe is injected in small mice, the symptoms of the disease should start to appear within 24 hours," the document says.
"Nothing on the ISIS laptop, of course, suggests that the jihadists already possess these dangerous weapons. And any jihadi organization contemplating a bioterrorist attack will face many difficulties," write Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa. Al Qaeda tried unsuccessfully for years to get its hands on such biological weapons, and the United States has devoted massive resources to preventing terrorists from making just this sort of breakthrough. "The real difficulty in all of these weapons ... [is] to actually have a workable distribution system that will kill a lot of people," said Magnus Ranstorp. "But to produce quite scary weapons is certainly within [the Islamic State's] capabilities." The documents found on the laptop of the jihadist, meanwhile, leave no room for doubt about the group's deadly ambitions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Sunday August 31 2014, @10:52PM
Then again, it's also highly likely that the data contained on the laptop, will be in the possession of all of the above and more besides fairly shortly, if they haven't already.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday August 31 2014, @11:42PM
Chances are it had been booted long before it actually fell into the hands of the magazine. Further, I suspect all of the collection was downloaded from the web anyway, so its not likely to be of much actual interest.
From TFS:
The real difficulty in all of these weapons ... [is] to actually have a workable distribution system that will kill a lot of people,"
To that you have to add that people dumb enough to not guard their play-book are probably also not capable of managing any biological weapons without Killing Themselves in droves. Not that they have any particular aversion to suicide, but wiping out half your fighting force by careless handling of bio-weapons is rather more than serious than fumbling a grenade.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 01 2014, @07:02PM
Security is an afterthought by these guys as much as it is for a good majority of the worlds computer using populous. This isn't A James Bond movie or some super spy story plot. This is the real world where the bad guys use boring old Windows laptops with open office or more likely, bootleg copies of Word.