May 19, 2011: The Indian and American investigation into the late 2008 Islamic terror attack in Mumbai India has turned up some strange stuff. The latest example is what the American FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) came up with when they sniffed around what Pakistani suspects were doing on the Internet. One of these suspects, an ISI officer (major Sameer Ali) was found to be using the email account of an Indian Army officer (major Shantanu De). Even more curious was the fact that Ali took thousands of classified documents found in major De's email files.

Major Ali works for ISI (the Pakistani CIA/military intelligence agency) and evidence had already been uncovered showing Ali worked with the Islamic terrorist groups that planned and carried out the Mumbai attack. What is still a mystery is why Ali picked De's email account to hack into. While De was not supposed to have all those classified documents, he was able to explain that. De was preparing for promotion exams. That did not work out well, as De was punished with a demotion for having the classified documents in an unprotected place.

It's not uncommon for officers, and troops, to take classified electronic documents for study, or just out of curiosity. Despite the severe punishments you are liable for if caught, apparently many military personnel still do this, and the security officials have been unable to stop it. To further complicate matters, the Pakistani government will not let India or the U.S. talk to major Ali, or any other ISI officers found to have been involved with Islamic terror groups. So the Indians, and the FBI, are still trying to figure out how vulnerable everyone's email accounts are to Pakistani intelligence efforts.