Hacking Al Qaida

Just because you're a paranoid terror wannabe doesn't mean they aren't watching you — and hacking your jihadi online fanzine. The Washington Post reports that British intelligence vandalized the debut issue of Inspire magazine after the United States reportedly turned down a similar plan.

Inspire billed itself as "the first magazine issued by al-Qaida in the English language" when it launched in June 2010. It urged lone-wolf terrorists to take up arms with a mixture of new and recycled al-Qaida propaganda. It's accessibility in English made it a splash in the Western press. With ludicrous articles like "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom," some thought it was a fake.

But among its target audience, it caused a panic. When downloaded from online file-hosting services, the PDF's first few pages looked just fine. The rest of it, however, was filled with a continuing stream of gibberish characters.…

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