Tampa web-hosting firm removes jihadist website

Another one is still hosted out of Phoenix. "Local Firm Removes Jihadi Web Site," by Howard Altman for The Tampa Tribune (thanks to Bill Warner):

TAMPA - A Tampa Web-hosting company has taken down a Web site used by al-Qaida for communicating in secret and hiding files from investigators.

The company, Noc4Hosts, took the action Monday after it was informed about the site by The Tampa Tribune. Noc4Hosts, at 400 N. Tampa St., is in an office building that also rents space to the Tampa district of the U.S. attorney's office.

The Web site includes a graphic interface program that is of special interest to those who monitor jihadi activity. Known as "Mujahideen Secrets 2," it allows for encryption of messages and files.

[...]

Noc4Hosts "is not in cahoots with al-Qaida," said Steve Eschweiler, the company's general manager.

The site, he says, was one of several hundred thousand the company hosts. Web hosting companies keep banks of computer servers where individual Web sites are based.

"If there is anything anti-American, we will take them down," Eschweiler says. "We work closely with authorities any time something like this comes up."

Eschweiler said he took down the site, which was at alekhlaas .info/forum, after a call from the Tribune. He would not say whether he has been contacted by investigators about the site.

He did say authorities sometimes request that he keep up certain sites.

"If it is not immediately taken down, there is a reason for that, but I can't really say anything more than that without disclosing information," Eschweiler said. "Read between the lines. We are as American as anyone."

[...]

The Web site, he said, is extremely popular. "When I looked at it, it had a counter that said it has had 17 million visits."

The U.S. attorney's office would not comment on the site, the encryption program or whether an investigation is under way.

The Web site often used by al-Qaida is of great concern, according to A. Aaron Weisburd, who runs the Internet Haganah, a Web site dedicated to hunting and disrupting jihadi Internet communications.

Intelligence investigators describe the site as "arguably the single most important al-Qaida Web site currently in operation," Weisburd says.

The site was registered on January 22, 2006, by a man named Peterson Hoffman in Amman, Jordan.

Though Eschweiler shut down the Web site, the information is still available online.

Another version, with a different Web address, is being hosted by a company in Phoenix, he said.

Posted by Robert at January 30, 2008 8:12 AM
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