Follow The Blood Money

Adam L. Penenberg investigates the international cash-for-martyrdom industry, wherein secret US banking operations help fund suicide bombers:

What struck Osen was how organized the whole process was: the banal evil of the international cash-for-martyrdom industry. After a suicide attack, a caseworker from one of Hamas’s social welfare institutions would sit down with family members and take down information on a standard set of forms. The documents resembled the kind of forms a mortgage applicant might fill out, except with a cover page that translates into something like “The Martyrs Receive Reward from their Lord, They and Their Light.” The caseworker recorded the applicant’s closest relatives, family income, number of dependents, whether they were particularly in need of money, as well as banking and contact information, including cell phone numbers and home address.

Source: pando.com
Published: Feb 23, 2014
Length: 2 minutes (600 words)

No Second Chance For Stephen Glass: The Long, Strange Downfall of a Journalistic Wunderkind

In May 1998, Adam Penenberg was an editor at Forbes Digital Tool, Forbes magazine’s website, when an angry editor showed him a copy of Stephen Glass’ article “Hack Heaven,” demanding to know why Penenberg hadn’t come across the story himself. Kicking himself for missing the scoop, Penenberg started to investigate and stumbled upon a massive case journalistic fraud.

After I finished reading, I’m pretty sure I muttered “Holy shit!” I had never heard of Jukt Micronics, digital extortion deals or hacker agents. Glass cited anti-hacker legislation, a hacker organization and a law enforcement agency that was news to me. I had never encountered an organization called the National Assembly of Hackers, wasn’t aware of any recent conventions, had never read a hacker newsletter titled “Computer Insider,” nor did I know any hacker with the nom de hack “Big Bad Bionic Boy.” In fact, I didn’t recognize one single fact in “Hack Heaven” save perhaps for the existence of the Internet.

But how could I have missed such a big story? At Forbes.com, I covered business and technology, but also explored music and software piracy, computer hacking, phone phreaking, identity theft, credit card fraud, cyber-spooks and all things relating to the dark side of the Internet. These weren’t part of my job description but were popular with readers, often attracting traffic from people who wouldn’t have known Forbes from Fodors. They quickly became my specialty.

Source: pandodaily.com
Published: Jan 27, 2014
Length: 27 minutes (6,993 words)