How Bin Laden Email System Prevented US Detection

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Christian Science Monitor reports that Osama bin Laden was a prolific writer who put together a painstaking email system that thwarted the US government's best eavesdroppers despite having no Internet access in his hideout. Holed up in his walled compound in northeast Pakistan with no phone or Internet capabilities, bin Laden would type a message on his computer without an Internet connection, then save it using a thumb-sized flash drive that he passed to a trusted courier, who would head for a distant Internet cafe. At that location, the courier would plug the memory drive into a computer, copy bin Laden's message into an email and send it. Reversing the process, the courier would copy any incoming email to the flash drive and return to the compound, where bin Laden would read his messages offline.It was a slow, toilsome process but it was so meticulous that even veteran intelligence officials have marveled at bin Laden's ability to maintain it for so long. Intelligence officials are wading through thousands of the email exchanges after around 100 flash drives were seized from the compound by U.S. Navy Seals in last week's raid in which bin Laden was killed."