26/11 terror out of the ’net’

Tall claims to devise measures to monitor cyber world, post 26/11, remain on paper only

26/11 terror out of the 'net'

Tall claims to devise measures to monitor cyber world, post 26/11, remain on paper only

Post 26/11 India has pretty much secured on land, air and water but what about the virtual space?

The chargesheet against David Coleman Headley by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) clearly mentions how the terrorist used the virtual space freely to communicate his plans to his subordinates and get orders from his Lashkar-e-Toiba handlers.

In fact, after the 26/11 terrorist attacks the government had made elaborate plans to secure the virtual space and monitor the e-traffic to sieve for information regarding terrorists and subversive elements.

Hollow claims
However, the plans remained on paper as evident by the e-mail exchanges by Headley have revealed. Though they were not as discreet but for the discerning one they carried messages of destruction across continents.

Surprisingly, none of the various Indian intelligence agencies ever got any clue of his regular mails and plans which he followed with terror organizations. "It is a complete failure of Indian intelligence agencies which promised to set up e-mail monitoring facilities after a series of serial blast and Mumbai attack last year," said former joint director of Intelligence Bureau (IB) MK Dhar.

He recalled the last year's serial blasts when Indian Mujahideen (IM) used to send mails to news channels claiming responsibility of the blasts. Soon after the serial blasts the government had promised to set up a centralized log-in system to monitor e-mail activities but after a year of Mumbai attack the plan remains on paper only.

"It would not be correct to say that we have not started to monitor e-mails but it is on a very low scale and a blanket monitoring is just not possible in another few years time even," Dhar told MiD DAY.

Get connected
But while Indian intelligence agencies were groping in dark foreign spy services were regularly monitoring Headley's mail to terror organizations. The charge sheet prepared by FBI which was presented before a Chicago court specially mentions Headley's mails to few senior terror commanders like Ilyas Kashmiri -- a HuJI leader who was later killed in a drone attack in West Pakistan.

"While FBI successfully monitored and intercepted Headley's mails to Kashmiri and other terrorists Indian agencies in fact no clue about it. Besides US several other European countries are successfully monitoring web world but we are no where close to even a decent beginning," he said.

Cyber expert Sunny Vaghela, who has been helping Gujarat police in tracing the terror, said: "Cyber monitoring or centralized log-ins are not impossible but Indian agencies made a very tall claim when they promised for it last year. In fact Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) which was supposed to establish the network issued the tender only last month which means we are at least a year away from at least a start."

No law
Not just that a system is required to monitor billions of mails generated each day, the privacy policies implemented across servers need a law to intercept. "We should have a dedicated software based monitoring system which must update its list of words, expressions and languages to be checked including the geographical locations," Dhar said.

Headley's inbox
According to the charge sheet prepared by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in July 2009 renewed its focus on India to look for potential new targets. On July 3, LeT sent a mail to its operative David Coleman Headley informing him about some 'new investment plan'
Headley replied to the LeT mailer five days later asking him, "What do you want me to do. Where are you interested in making investments?" The mail may read like two people discussing business but in fact the word 'investment' was the code word used by Headley for terror attack and here the site for investment was India.

I remember everything about that evening. The call about a shooting at Leopold Cafe, the deserted streets as I made my way to CST, my mummy roaring on the phone after hearing gunfire in the background asking me to go home, lying flat on the road as two men in a jeep indiscriminately fired. But what I remember most, as I spent the night camping outside the Taj, is that face. The man had his nose pressed against the window on one of the top floors. It was motionless for about an hour. But as the firemen got closer, the face withdrew. The window was by now covered in smoke. I'm sure he was one of the terrorists.
Aditya Anand, chief reporter, MiD DAY