Local Firm Removes Jihadi Web Site
By Howard Altman of The Tampa Tribune

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.

“Mujahideen Secrets 2 is designed to allow mujahedeen encrypted communication online using elaborate algorithms and symmetrical and asymmetrical encryption keys,” said Eli Alshech, director of the Jihad and Terrorism Studies Project for the Middle East Media Research Institute, a think tank based in Washington.

The program, Alshech says, “shows their improved level of sophistication.”

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.”

More here.