Al Qaeda is Eyeing MySpace, Facebook, Friends Reunited, PalTalk
Great Britain’s Security Service MI5 requested its British troops to remove personal details of themselves off popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Friends Reunited due to discovering that they were being monitored by Al-Qaeda operatives. In the January, 2008 Free Republic article, ‘Al-Qaeda eyes MySpace Pages’, Gordon Thomas writes about the concern expressed by the MI5 chief Jonathan Evans in a document titled ‘Personal Security’. Evans asks for security service personnel to be aware of the monitoring and gathering of personal details that can be formed into intelligence used to launch terrorist attacks against their colleagues, or family members.
Though access to many of these social websites may be for members only, all one needs to register is an e-mail address. Al-Qaeda operatives are using hundreds of false accounts to access personal information. And what are they finding?
Thousands of military and security personnel who have posted detailed information about themselves, their careers, personal pictures and family members, date of birth, locations of where they are living, photos of colleagues and weapons.
