'MI6' 'hits' 'al-Qaida' in 'Operation Cupcake'

The abundance of quotation marks in this headline is intentional: I wanted to try the BBC style, inspired by their lawyers, I suspect. Nah... one and only experiment. The story itself is from UPI this time.

Britain's cyberwar against al-Qaida took a sweet turn when intelligence officials hacked into a Web site, subbing bomb-making plans with a cupcake recipe.

The cyber operation was undertaken by MI6 and and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters to disrupt efforts by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to recruit so-called lone wolf terrorists with the English-language Inspire magazine, The Daily Telegraph said.

Of course, I am happy to read about this achievement by a famous intelligence service. There are only two points I would like to discuss here.

The first has to do with the order of magnitude of this intelligences feat. You have to agree that, compared to the towering historical achievements of MI6 in the past, such as almost singlehandedly winning the Cold War, getting rid of Francisco Scaramanga, the Man with the golden gun, the epic victory against Ernst Stavro Blofeld etc., putting a picture of a few cupcakes on someone's site is, to say it gently, a bit of a anticlimax. But possibly, just possibly, the next step will be to replace the picture of Osama Bin Laden (Piss Be Upon Him) with a choice of several lolcats. This will learn them, I am sure.

Another, more important issue related to that same story: it is widely known that grown-ups, be they the best spies the history has known or evil scientists of highest caliber, are simply unable to do the hacking required for the task described in the article. The only kind of people who are in sufficient command of their facilities and are willing to undertake such a mission for peanuts are kids, aged between 10 and 14. Which opens a new can of worms: does MI6 use child labor? Are the British Parliament, the British government and her Majesty aware of such a horrendous goings-on on the soil of Albion (unless, of course, it is foreign children that were used)?

Someone has to get to the bottom of this, I declare.

And the last one, but it doesn't count as a point, just a random find: Amazon UK do know what is what (click on the image, as usual):