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[infowar.de] Saddams Email III: The return of the son of Saddam
Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
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http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,56292,00.html
Guess Who Yahoos? Saddam's Son
By Brian McWilliams
02:00 AM Nov. 11, 2002 PT
The U.S. State Department says Saddam Hussein's oldest son is a
murderer, rapist, torturer and smuggler. He has also been known to send
death threats by e-mail.
So why is Yahoo apparently providing Uday Saddam Hussein with a free
e-mail account, and why has Microsoft granted him a .NET Passport?
The website of Iraq's Babil newspaper, which is controlled by
38-year-old Uday, informs visitors that they can contact the publisher
by e-mail at udaysaddamhussein -!
- yahoo -
com -
In providing e-mail service to Saddam's son, Yahoo is likely in
violation of U.S. trade sanctions against Iraq, according to Rob
Nichols, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department, which enforces
trade sanctions against Iraq through its Office of Foreign Assets
Control.
"It is against U.S. law to provide services to residents of Iraq, even
if it is a free account. And the provider should cut off the account,"
said Nichols, who noted that a 1990 executive order prohibits U.S. firms
from exporting "goods, technology or services" to Iraq, with the
exception of controlled food and medical
supplies.
Citing the company's privacy policy, Yahoo officials declined to comment
on the e-mail account registered in Uday's name. Spokeswoman Mary Osako
said Yahoo is "aware of and respects U.S. trade law" and cooperates with
law enforcement when asked.
Rather than moving to shut down the address, however, U.S. intelligence
officials are "almost certainly" monitoring the account, said Robert
David Steele, a former CIA officer and founder of Oss.net, a
cyberdefense think tank.
"I would say that the U.S. government is probably reading everything in
that account and is quite happy that Uday has that e-mail," said Steele.
Like his father, Uday is clearly in the cross hairs of the White House.
A profile on the State Department website says Uday has a "history of
extreme violent behavior including murder, torture and rape of women and
girls." Uday is also "heavily involved in Iraq's smuggling against U.N.
sanctions, and in illicit financial dealings," the profile says.
Messages sent to udaysaddamhussein -!
- yahoo -
com were not immediately
returned.
Last year, using a different e-mail address, Uday reportedly sent a
death threat to a British journalist. According to an article on
KurdishMedia.com, a message from babil -!
- uruklink -
net signed by Uday
warned reporter R.M. Ahmad that "we have been able to allocate your
current residency" and "our brave (young) agents are able to stop people
like you in the time and the place that we will determine."
KurdishMedia.com founders did not respond to e-mail interview requests,
and the phone number listed on the newspaper's site was not in service.
In October, Uday's babil -!
- uruklink -
net account was found to have the same
security problem as that of his father: an easily guessable password.
Like Saddam's press -!
- uruklink -
net address, Uday's Babil inbox was
protected by a five-letter password that matched the account name.
The registration record for Uruklink.net, the domain used by Iraq's
government-controlled ISP, lists ama_72 -!
- yahoo -
com as its contact
address.
Unlike Saddam Hussein's Uruklink account, however, Uday's inbox
contained very few messages aside from viruses, spam and e-mails from
distribution lists.
Included in the Babil inbox was an Oct. 1 message from Microsoft
confirming the successful registration of a Microsoft .NET Passport for
Babil -!
- Uruklink -
net -
Passport is Microsoft's online authentication and
electronic wallet system.
A Microsoft representative would not comment on the issuance of a
Passport to Babil -!
- Uruklink -
net but said Microsoft complies with all
trade laws.
"Many Arabs believe U.S. intelligence is largely incompetent in
cyberspace," and they underestimate current U.S. government efforts to
gather information on Iraq, said Oss.net's Steele.
As a result, Uday probably does not expect that his account would be
monitored, he said.
The Yahoo account is "not high value" and it is not likely to prove a
fertile source of intelligence for U.S. terrorist trackers, Steele said.
Just as with telephone wiretaps, "the returns just aren't there" in
monitoring e-mail.
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