ObL evidently communicates his wishes via videotape. How hard would it be to take his most recent productions and make Hollywood reproductions of them, using either a convincing look-alike, or computer-generated graphics?
At first, the reproductions should be as precisely identical to the originals as possible, with one very obvious feature identifying them as bogus (e.g., every fourth word is "mugwump"). Subsequent reproductions should differ in obvious ways, but ways that aren't attributable specifically to a bogus source (e.g., if the original shows him sitting, the bogus one shows him standing in the same room). These bogus tapes should be widely distributed along with copies of the genuine tapes, and should rarely differ in general content from the types of messages currently coming from ObL.
Then, if "events" require ObL to make a shift in direction, his minions will have reason to mistrust the tapes they receive. This will probably not prevent ObL from communicating with his people, but it will at least make them have to take more risks to communicate reliably. As such, it is one of many ways to begin to "flush them from their holes."-- beauxeault, Sep 17 2001 (??) this osama bin laden? http://www.moi.gov.ir/official iranian government homepage is h(ij)acked [mihali, Sep 17 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] This idea, I like. Maybe it might even be possible to sucker some of them. I wouldn't do anything so blatant as 'mugwump', though.-- StarChaser, Sep 17 2001 Have him donate his fortune to the 700 Club. ;)-- arghblah, Sep 18 2001 Why not slowly develop about 20 or 30 Osamas, all saying different things, all claiming to be the real Osama, and that all the others are fake. No one would no what to believe. Meanwhile, assasinate the real one and continue producing the tapes!
Speculation; is Osama alive or dead? "I'm alive!", "No, I'm alive!!"-- zero5, Sep 18 2001 Either way, someone's going to be in dire straits.-- st3f, Sep 18 2001 [UB]: I thought according popular Christian doctrine, three folks can call themselves Jesus.-- sdm, Sep 18 2001 Nice, Rods, very nice.-- DrBob, Sep 18 2001 Good idea. Maybe even have a doctored Bin Laden commanding his minions to commit suicide before the U.S. can get to him.
I like UnaBubba's idea, too.
Flooding the world with fake Bin Laden communiques could cause some healthy disarray among these scum.-- seal10, Sep 18 2001 //e.g., every fourth word is "mugwump"//
Best laugh of my day so far, beaux. Cheers!-- 1percent, Sep 18 2001 If you knew who the intended recipients of the tapes are (the idea assumes the developer of the idea would have this knowledge), then it would be simpler to merely deliver a bomb to them instead of a tape. If that's the goal of the idea, anyway...-- snarfyguy, Sep 29 2001 I dont believe in an Osama.-- abadon, Nov 10 2007 How do you know that the CIA didn't manufacture all the Osama tapes on a soundstage in Texas? This may already be baked. That aside, if you track the face of the standin and match the face with a cg mask, it probably would take less then 6 months to create a studio that could output a stream of Osama tapes that would be photorealistic to reasonable resolutions. He doesn't really move his face around a lot. If he showed more emotion, it would probably be much more difficult.-- mylodon, Nov 11 2007 If they really wanted to catch him it would have been made a priority and accomplished by now. He serves our current administration more by remaining a boogeyman.-- normzone, Nov 11 2007 Just send out a challenge to everyone on Youtube. A few video edits and maybe a small reward later, and we have 20 000 Osamas. Never underestimate hackers.-- Shadow Phoenix, Nov 11 2007 Subvert the subversives. I like it.-- wagster, Nov 11 2007 random, halfbakery