U.S. Navy Shuts Down Computer Named “Gestapo”

The computer server named “gestapo” was discovered by a reporter investigating harassment and cyber-stalking of Muslim journalists after learning that the suspicious World Wide Web server had hit on a personal webpage and the web host name “gestapo.cnrrc.nola.navy.mil” had turned up in its website statistics. Further investigation revealed that “gestapo” also visited a computer in the Goddard Space Flight Center at NASA on March 26, 2004 and a computer at Colorado State University in July 2002. The Department of Defense Network Information Center in Vienna, VA had no record of a computer named “gestapo” because it was a fifth level domain name. The DoD Network Information Center does not register domains beyond the 4th level.

Name Server records for “gestapo” also revealed that the parent web server for “gestapo” called “cnrrc-k2.cnrrc.nola.navy.mil” displayed a “no access” message along with a sinister Java applet linked to an internet graphic artist’s web page in Sweden called Durius.com. Robert Jeppesen of Durius.com could provide no information on the person behind “gestapo”. “Thousands of web pages use my applets, and I am not personally involved in any of them,” he said.

Lt. Mike Kafka declined to provide the name of the person behind the domain name of the web server called “gestapo” but said “the server name directly violated Navy policy; was inappropriate and was disconnected.”  With respect to concerns that the domain name “gestapo” suggested a link between members of the U.S. Navy at the CNRRC and a white supremacist or neo-Nazi group, Lt. Kafka said it “implies no affiliation with any group.” He also denied that the server had been subjected to any hacking activity or contained any white supremacist material, newsgroups or chat rooms.

According to Lt. Kafka the server was named by a computer tech approximately six years ago, but declined to give his name and disclose what, if any disciplinary action had been taken. The webpage displaying a “no access” message and the sinister graphic was apparently put in place after an internet portal had been closed to the public and the graphic with its no access message put in its place. It was apparently linked to Durius.com because the tech personnel responsible thought it was interesting.

This incident has heightened the American Muslim community’s concerns over a possible rise in the number, or severity, of racist incidents against Muslims as the grave stones of Muslim veterans of WWI and WWII were desecrated with Nazi symbols in Strasbourg, France on June 14 and in Haguenau on June 24. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has also noted a rise in vandalism against mosques in the United States and physical and verbal attacks on Muslims.