New Delhi: Terror suspect David Headley
ensured ways to escape surveillance and was "very careful"
about exchange of information with his accomplices either in
his country or in Pakistan relying on traditional technique
used by militants, US based think tank Stratfor has said.
He used a method known as electronic dead drop which
facilitates easy exchange of messages without any transfer of
emails from one person to another thus ruling out any chances
of being tracked down.
"Headley also used a common militant communication method
of creating messages and then saving them in the drafts folder
of a Web-mail service rather than sending the message.
"The person creating such a message can then provide a
colleague with the user name and password for the Web-mail
account, which enables the second person to log on and read
the communication in the draft folder without an e-mail having
been sent. This procedure is referred to as an electronic dead
drop," Stratfor has said in its analysis.
"In addition to facilitating communication, these dead
drops can be used to save notes that a terrorist operative
does not want to physically carry on his person for fear of
being caught with them.
"In September, we noted that Najibullah Zazi used this
method to send his bomb making notes from a training camp in
Pakistan to himself rather than risk physically carrying the
notes into the United States, where they could have been found
during a search of his belongings," Stratfor has said.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009, 16:21