Shannen Rossmiller

She got a plan on how to navigate this dark part of the internet. It was a pretty elaborate plan, and she needed help to do it. So she turned back to her group, the Seven Seas, and looks for help there. One member of the Seven Seas group that she got on well with was a guy named Brent Ashley. He was based in Ontario, Canada, and was a nuclear physicist and a software developer.

She got a plan on how to navigate this dark part of the internet. It was a pretty elaborate plan, and she needed help to do it. So she turned back to her group, the Seven Seas, and looks for help there. One member of the Seven Seas group that she got on well with was a guy named Brent Ashley. He was based in Ontario, Canada, and was a nuclear physicist and a software developer.

And they both had similar opinions that these terror groups should be stopped. He, too, thought that working online together could enable them to spot patterns, maybe uncover possible threats, and then warn the authorities who could step in and stop more horrible things from happening. So between them, they came up with a plan utilizing Brent's software developer skills.

And they both had similar opinions that these terror groups should be stopped. He, too, thought that working online together could enable them to spot patterns, maybe uncover possible threats, and then warn the authorities who could step in and stop more horrible things from happening. So between them, they came up with a plan utilizing Brent's software developer skills.

They called it Operation Whirlpool, and this is how it worked. The plan was to put some malware on a potential terrorist's computer, a keylogger, something that watched every keystroke that the target typed and reported back everything to Shannon and Rent. They could disguise it to look like a document where you needed to open it to read it, right?

They called it Operation Whirlpool, and this is how it worked. The plan was to put some malware on a potential terrorist's computer, a keylogger, something that watched every keystroke that the target typed and reported back everything to Shannon and Rent. They could disguise it to look like a document where you needed to open it to read it, right?

But it was really an executable program, and once triggered, the keylogger would then run silently in the background, recording everything and uploading it, and the user would see the document and be unaware that there was malware still running. They were hoping this might get them chat logs or private messages that could be incriminating evidence.

But it was really an executable program, and once triggered, the keylogger would then run silently in the background, recording everything and uploading it, and the user would see the document and be unaware that there was malware still running. They were hoping this might get them chat logs or private messages that could be incriminating evidence.

But yeah, I mean, this is snooping 2003 style, but still it's snooping. And they had to be careful because she was a sitting U.S. judge. If she somehow put her malware on another American's computer who was not a terrorist, it could be the end of her career. So she wanted to try to only target non-Americans.

But yeah, I mean, this is snooping 2003 style, but still it's snooping. And they had to be careful because she was a sitting U.S. judge. If she somehow put her malware on another American's computer who was not a terrorist, it could be the end of her career. So she wanted to try to only target non-Americans.

So Brent finished up this little spy program, and together they started thinking up ways on how to get it onto a target's computer. The answer Shannon thought was simple. Self-training manuals were real popular with radical Islamists.

So Brent finished up this little spy program, and together they started thinking up ways on how to get it onto a target's computer. The answer Shannon thought was simple. Self-training manuals were real popular with radical Islamists.

The Jihadist Encyclopedia is a huge document, like over 8,000 pages huge, and there are chapters on everything from explosives to tactics to weapons and close fighting. It was something these guys followed and referred to a lot. So Shannon and Brent decided to add this program to the encyclopedia.

The Jihadist Encyclopedia is a huge document, like over 8,000 pages huge, and there are chapters on everything from explosives to tactics to weapons and close fighting. It was something these guys followed and referred to a lot. So Shannon and Brent decided to add this program to the encyclopedia.

They packaged it up, nestled neatly inside a zip file, and called it something interesting to entice people to open it, then uploaded it to the Jihad Encyclopedia and waited. They needed a victim to come and get it from the encyclopedia and open the zip file and run the program. Then they could see everything that person typed on their computer. Operation Whirlpool was underway.

They packaged it up, nestled neatly inside a zip file, and called it something interesting to entice people to open it, then uploaded it to the Jihad Encyclopedia and waited. They needed a victim to come and get it from the encyclopedia and open the zip file and run the program. Then they could see everything that person typed on their computer. Operation Whirlpool was underway.

The eagle has left the nest. She started thinking about how she could get people to download. but just putting it up there didn't quite attract anyone to grab it and look at it. So she needed to come up with ways to get people to download it specifically and run it.

The eagle has left the nest. She started thinking about how she could get people to download. but just putting it up there didn't quite attract anyone to grab it and look at it. So she needed to come up with ways to get people to download it specifically and run it.

She thought about using her fake identity, Abu Zita, to somehow trick someone to go download the malware and run it, but she didn't want this to backfire, and maybe it resulted in her being discovered and her identity is burned. She wanted to be extra sneaky here. Then she remembered her friend Kasser. He was respected in that community and was a regular contributor to the Jihad Encyclopedia.

She thought about using her fake identity, Abu Zita, to somehow trick someone to go download the malware and run it, but she didn't want this to backfire, and maybe it resulted in her being discovered and her identity is burned. She wanted to be extra sneaky here. Then she remembered her friend Kasser. He was respected in that community and was a regular contributor to the Jihad Encyclopedia.