How Moammar Gadhafi’s regime built a surveillance network called the Electric Army that captured all Internet traffic going in and out of Libya, and how dissidents fought back.
Gwaider’s favored method, like that of Kevin Mitnick, the famous American hacker he admired, was “social engineering,” which meant tricking the victims into giving up access themselves. In Tawati’s case, all he had to do was send her a Word document infected with a Trojan, which installed malware on her computer when she opened it. At that point he had access to everything, including her Facebook account and her supposedly encrypted Skype conversations, which Gwaider siphoned off with malware that recorded all the audio on her machine. All of it eventually got posted to the Internet in an effort to smear her. The hacker even stole photos showing her without a head scarf—rather embarrassing in Libya’s conservative culture—and regime supporters then posted these to Facebook. Hala Misrati, the TV presenter who previously had broadcast some of her emails, now played audio from a Skype conversation she had with a foreign journalist, trumpeting it as proof of her collusion with outside forces. Tawati was devastated.
“Jamming Tripoli: Inside Moammar Gadhafi’s Secret Surveillance Network.” — Matthieu Aikins, Wired
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How Moammar Gadhafi’s regime built a surveillance network called the Electric Army that captured all Internet traffic going in and out of Libya, and how dissidents fought back.
“Gwaider’s favored method, like that of Kevin Mitnick, the famous American hacker he admired, was “social engineering,” which meant tricking the victims into giving up access themselves. In Tawati’s case, all he had to do was send her a Word document infected with a Trojan, which installed malware on her computer when she opened it. At that point he had access to everything, including her Facebook account and her supposedly encrypted Skype conversations, which Gwaider siphoned off with malware that recorded all the audio on her machine. All of it eventually got posted to the Internet in an effort to smear her. The hacker even stole photos showing her without a head scarf—rather embarrassing in Libya’s conservative culture—and regime supporters then posted these to Facebook. Hala Misrati, the TV presenter who previously had broadcast some of her emails, now played audio from a Skype conversation she had with a foreign journalist, trumpeting it as proof of her collusion with outside forces. Tawati was devastated.”
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Published: May 18, 2012
Length: 25 minutes (6,350 words)
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Four Western journalists and a former Army Ranger-turned-counterinsurgency expert arrange a paintball game with members of the Shiite militant group, with the hopes of learning more about what motivates them:
It took nearly a full year to pull together this game, and all along I’d been convinced that things would fall apart at the last minute. Fraternizing with Westerners is not the sort of thing Hezbollah top brass allows, so to arrange the match I’d relied on a man we’ll call Ali, one of my lower-level contacts within the group.
Ali had sworn that he’d deliver honest-to-God trained fighters for an evening of paintball, but when the four-man Hezbollah team first walked into the building, I was dubious. In the Dahiyah, the southern suburbs of Beirut controlled by Hezbollah, every macho teenager and his little brother consider themselves essential members of ‘the Resistance.’ And one of the fighters—a tall, lanky, 20-something with a scruffy beard and the spiked-and-gelled hairdo favored by secular Beirut kids—seems like a wannabe. Especially after he introduces himself as Coco.
“Paintballing with Hezbollah.” — Mitchell Prothero, VICE
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Four Western journalists and a former Army Ranger-turned-counterinsurgency expert arrange a paintball game with members of the Shiite militant group, with the hopes of learning more about what motivates them:
“It took nearly a full year to pull together this game, and all along I’d been convinced that things would fall apart at the last minute. Fraternizing with Westerners is not the sort of thing Hezbollah top brass allows, so to arrange the match I’d relied on a man we’ll call Ali, one of my lower-level contacts within the group.
“Ali had sworn that he’d deliver honest-to-God trained fighters for an evening of paintball, but when the four-man Hezbollah team first walked into the building, I was dubious. In the Dahiyah, the southern suburbs of Beirut controlled by Hezbollah, every macho teenager and his little brother consider themselves essential members of ‘the Resistance.’ And one of the fighters—a tall, lanky, 20-something with a scruffy beard and the spiked-and-gelled hairdo favored by secular Beirut kids—seems like a wannabe. Especially after he introduces himself as Coco.”
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Published: Mar 23, 2012
Length: 19 minutes (4,871 words)
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[Fiction, not single-page] Life as a soldier in the Israeli Defense Force, and a trip to the tear-gas tent:
“Do you love the army?” my commander asks.
“Yes and no, I mean I definitely believe that it is important in a country like ours to serve in the army, but I hope for peace, and on a personal level, of course, boot camp presents its own hardships, and also—”
“Enough,” my boot-camp commander says.
“Are you afraid to die?” she asks. She skips two questions. She knows I am trouble, although I have barely caused any yet. Maybe trouble isn’t something you do, it’s something you are.
“The Sound of All Girls Screaming.” — Shani Boianjiu, Photos: Peter Sutherland, Vice
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[Fiction] [Not-single page] Life as a soldier in the Israeli Defense Force, and a trip to the tear-gas tent:
“‘Do you love the army?’ my commander asks.
“‘Yes and no, I mean I definitely believe that it is important in a country like ours to serve in the army, but I hope for peace, and on a personal level, of course, boot camp presents its own hardships, and also—’
“‘Enough,’ my boot-camp commander says.
“‘Are you afraid to die?’ she asks. She skips two questions. She knows I am trouble, although I have barely caused any yet. Maybe trouble isn’t something you do, it’s something you are.”
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Published: Nov 2, 2011
Length: 13 minutes (3,276 words)
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A family discovers new details about their son’s death in Iraq, and wonders why the U.S. lieutenant responsible was not punished:
A year after Dave Sharrett II died, his parents, Vicki and Dave Sr., were nearly at peace. They had come to accept the Army’s explanation of how it all happened in the “fog of war.” They were confident in the Army’s promises of transparency and accountability for the lieutenant who fired the fatal shot.
Then came the third knock on the door.
After a memorial service for their son at Fort Campbell, Ky., in February 2009, soldiers who fought alongside him paid a surprise visit to the Sharretts. In a cramped room at the Holiday Inn Express, the soldiers used words such as “cover-up” and “lies.” They brought video recordings shot from aircraft high above the chaos that showed how Dave Sharrett II and two other American soldiers were killed.
“David Sharrett’s Family Still Wants Justice for Friendly Fire Death in Iraq.” — Tom Jackman, Washington Post
See also: “The Life and Death of Pvt. Danny Chen.” — Jennifer Gonnerman, New York magazine, Jan. 7, 2012
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A family discovers new details about their son’s death in Iraq, and wonders why the U.S. lieutenant responsible was not punished:
“A year after Dave Sharrett II died, his parents, Vicki and Dave Sr., were nearly at peace. They had come to accept the Army’s explanation of how it all happened in the ‘fog of war.’ They were confident in the Army’s promises of transparency and accountability for the lieutenant who fired the fatal shot.
“Then came the third knock on the door.
“After a memorial service for their son at Fort Campbell, Ky., in February 2009, soldiers who fought alongside him paid a surprise visit to the Sharretts. In a cramped room at the Holiday Inn Express, the soldiers used words such as ‘cover-up’ and ‘lies.’ They brought video recordings shot from aircraft high above the chaos that showed how Dave Sharrett II and two other American soldiers were killed.”
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Published: Feb 27, 2012
Length: 21 minutes (5,308 words)
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The evolution of how we recruit and train spies—starting with the OSS in the 1940s—and our changing expectations of what the job entails and what motivates those who sign up:
I remember him saying something like: “This is the only thing in the Army that you can volunteer for and then get out of if you change your mind.” That’s because we had signed up for something illegal, even immoral, according to some people, he said.
It was called espionage. We were not going to be turned into spies, he explained, but “case officers” — the people who recruit foreigners to be spies. Put another way, he went on, we were going to persuade foreigners to be traitors, to steal their countries’ secrets. We were going to learn how to lie, steal, cheat to accomplish our mission, he said — and betray people who trusted us, if need be. Anyone who objected, he concluded, could walk out right now.
He looked around. One man got up and left. The rest of us, a little anxious, stayed put.
“What Makes a Perfect Spy Tick?” — Jeff Stein, Washington Post
See also: “The Journalist and the Spies.” — Dexter Filkins, New Yorker, Sept. 19, 2011
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The evolution of how we recruit and train spies—starting with the OSS in the 1940s—and our changing expectations of what the job entails and what motivates those who sign up:
“I remember him saying something like: ‘This is the only thing in the Army that you can volunteer for and then get out of if you change your mind.’ That’s because we had signed up for something illegal, even immoral, according to some people, he said.
“It was called espionage. We were not going to be turned into spies, he explained, but ‘case officers’ — the people who recruit foreigners to be spies. Put another way, he went on, we were going to persuade foreigners to be traitors, to steal their countries’ secrets. We were going to learn how to lie, steal, cheat to accomplish our mission, he said — and betray people who trusted us, if need be. Anyone who objected, he concluded, could walk out right now.
“He looked around. One man got up and left. The rest of us, a little anxious, stayed put.”
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Published: Feb 9, 2012
Length: 12 minutes (3,249 words)
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