The serious tone with which the journalist wrote this got me laughing out loud: His remarks have since prompted an outcry from fundamentalist women, who are fighting or pleading for the right to be terrorists.

This by the way, is computer illiteracy: While the most popular site requires names and passwords, many people use only nicknames, making their identities and locations impossible to verify. Internet anonymity is a myth (very specific but extremely improbable exceptions notwithstanding). It might be anonymous for common mortals, but not to an authority with warrant powers.

for the average home or internet cafe internet user, yes, Shaheen - for anyone dedicated enough to post videos of decapitations or attacks on American troops on jihadi websites, there are methods - such as satellite uplinks, TOR, heavy 256+ public-key encryption, and decoy web addresses - to make it much more difficult to find one's current location. Given that they probably don't stay on for very long, and have techies of their own setting up secure accounts and software. (I don't think Osama, Zawahiri, or Zarqawi have ever demonstrated their own IT capabilities or even referenced them)

as for alQ women fighting for the right to blow up the party, this does sound like irony, and I know there must be an Onion headline waiting to happen. Give us a chance, either Matthew or I will come up with a worse pun.

satellite uplinks, TOR, heavy 256+ public-key encryption, and decoy web addresses

No Dawud, none of these garantee anonymity. Some of them make it more difficult than others to track someone down, but that's pretty much it (Public key encryption by the way garantees confidentiality of content, not anonymity - which in the case of content posted on a public website is pretty irrelevant - and if some authority wanted to access your encrypted content, most would know how to be persuasive enough to have you hand your keys over). With some of those technologies, tracing someone back *after* a connection is over is very difficult or impossible indeed for practical purposes (though I doubt the chimps above posting on a web forum are tech-savvy enough for them).

For practical purposes though, with a warrant you can 1) check ISP logs with a high probability that tracing back will be trivial since most of those users haven't used any obfuscation technique 2) if they did, trace back to next node and repeat - tedious but possible. Most commonly though, you'll want to actively monitor any given site used by those animals. In such case tracing a source is trivial, even with obfuscation. Which is why countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, etc., dedicate hundreds of cops to constantly monitor Internet traffic. And when they feel like catching someone, they do. A few of those thinking they were anonymous while speaking out against their regimes prematurely joined their creator.

Do these idiotic women have no inkling of what an Al Qaeda world regime would mean for them? Never, ever leaving their homes for a start, and having "rights" that would make today's Saudi women look like a load of men-free rampaging Boadiceas.

Al Qaeda is antithetical to any increase in women's rights and participation, let alone emancipation to the front lines of the jihadi militia. The whole point of fundamentalism is to get the sacred honour-bearing vaginas back under the black shrouds behind the high walls immediately and permanently.

I sometimes wonder if anyone looking at terrorism has considered "cannot get laid" and the frustration/mysogeny feedback loop as a major factor in young men joining radical, violent groups. They tend to be assholes already, anyway.

Antiquated --

I think that's more or less off base, except in the sense that hormonal young males have a sense of violent adventurism

This story, which even hints that employment and marriage somewhat helped end the subjects interest in binLadenism, gives a more straightforward set of reasons.

"A calling to defend fellow Muslims and a bit of aimlessness . . . "

"In 1995, Hubayshi was a 19-year-old college student looking for more meaning in his life.. . .and aiding Muslims in distress seemed like the most admirable and altruistic route. He was initially inspired by a fiery taped sermon . . . but a series of videotapes produced by Arabs fighting in Bosnia completed his transformation.

I suspect the answer is usually that things are what they appear to be: the answer is in political economy (with a religious nationalist spin) and not psychopathology, although the latter has its place, and certainly not found extensively in frustrated testosterone which normally tends to lead to football, porn, trips to Egypt and situational same-sex than in wanting to self-destruct with a bang in some far off land while adhering to a system that preaches even less contact with females (post-death virgins notwithstanding).

MH

May I just bow down in reverence? Martyr she wrote is possibly one of your best puns.

Of late I am thinking he should write the titles on my posts.

I dont know if I can devote much time to your free mock it economics.

To the Bint --

I humbly appreciate your good word. Now to return to hundreds of infinitely more horrible puns.

I read that 3 times at least before I figured out the pun.

I thought that one was pretty plain on its face.

Actually, I figured out none of them. Must be my English or cultural references (I dismiss my superior IQ as a potential cause).

Martyr she wrote / Murder She Wrote may require television generational and locational things.

But Free market, free mock it, to one who mocks well and is an economic Liberal. Not a stretch.

mmkay. Kinda saw the free mock it thing but was expecting something more subtle, so didn't think it was it.

For the Murder she wrote, I had to google it up. Man, you're a dinosaur.

Murder, She Wrote is popular on this side of Atlantic to this day. Like Gilligan's Island or American Idol, everyone's heard of it.

"Murder, she wrote" - I was actually thinking of the song by Chaka Demus & Pliers ...

--MSK*

That is a VILE tune.

@Shaheen, you clearly have never been a student watching daytime tv anytime in the past decade.

B,

I didn't say it is a good tune, just that that's my association to "Murder, she wrote".

--MSK*

Bint, anglocentrism, ha!

That said, you're might be right, I was too busy laying down my global domination plans. Daytime TV? I thought my great-grand-ma watched that.

Your great-grandma is certainly in the target demographic for "Murder, She Snooped."

For the Murder she wrote, I had to google it up. Man, you're a dinosaur.

Bah, I spent my childhood watching that. And the A-Team. Some concerned public body somewhere really should investigate the combined cultural impact of Mr. T and The Lansbury on 12-year old kids.