http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061017-8003.html
US: Terrorists telecommuting to work
10/17/2006 11:22:49 AM, by Nate Anderson
Michael Chertoff, head of US Homeland Security, warned that people
don't need to travel to a country with "-stan" in its name to become
radicalized and commit acts of violence. Instead, they can now turn
to the Internet. "They can train themselves over the Internet. They
never have to necessarily go to the training camp or speak with
anybody else and that diffusion of a combination of hatred and
technical skills in things like bomb-making is a dangerous
combination," Chertoff said at a conference of international police
chiefs, according to Reuters. "Those are the kind of terrorists that
we may not be able to detect with spies and satellites."
It's easy to argue that the Internet isn't the problem here, and
that's true—it's not. The Internet is a tool, and like any tool, it
can be abused. But the Internet does provide access to information
and ideology that could never have been found in a local library 20
years ago. The US Institue of Peace compiled a list (PDF) back in
2004 of the ways that the Internet was being utilized by terrorists
around the world.
* Psychological Warfare: "The Internet—an uncensored medium that
carries stories, pictures, threats, or messages regardless of their
validity or potential impact—is peculiarly well suited to allowing
even a small group to amplify its message and exaggerate its
importance and the threat it poses."
* Publicity and Propaganda: "Until the advent of the Internet,
terrorists' hopes of winning publicity for their causes and
activities depended on attracting the attention of television, radio,
or the print media. These traditional media have "selection
thresholds" (multistage processes of editorial selection) that
terrorists often cannot reach. No such thresholds, of course, exist
on the terrorists' own websites."
* Data Mining: "Like many other Internet users, terrorists have
access not only to maps and diagrams of potential targets but also to
imaging data on those same facilities and networks that may reveal
counterterrorist activities at a target site. One captured al Qaeda
computer contained engineering and structural features of a dam,
which had been downloaded from the Internet and which would enable al
Qaeda engineers and planners to simulate catastrophic failures."
* Fundraising: "The Sunni extremist group Hizb al-Tahrir uses an
integrated web of Internet sites, stretching from Europe to Africa,
which asks supporters to assist the effort by giving money and
encouraging others to donate to the cause of jihad. Banking
information, including the numbers of accounts into which donations
can be deposited, is provided on a site based in Germany. The
fighters in the Russian breakaway republic of Chechnya have likewise
used the Internet to publicize the numbers of bank accounts to which
sympathizers can contribute. (One of these Chechen bank accounts is
located in Sacramento, California.) The IRA's website contains a a
page on which visitors can make credit card donations."
* Recruitment and Mobilization: "The SITE Institute, a
Washington, D.C.-based terrorism research group that monitors al
Qaeda's Internet communications, has provided chilling details of a
high-tech recruitment drive launched in 2003 to recruit fighters to
travel to Iraq and attack U.S. and coalition forces there. Potential
recruits are bombarded with religious decrees and anti-American
propaganda, provided with training manuals on how to be a terrorist,
and—as they are led through a maze of secret chat rooms—given
specific instructions on how to make the journey to Iraq."
* Networking: "Many terrorist groups, among them Hamas and al
Qaeda, have undergone a transformation from strictly hierarchical
organizations with designated leaders to affiliations of semi-
independent cells that have no single commanding hierarchy. Through
the use of the Internet, these loosely interconnected groups are able
to maintain contact with one another—and with members of other
terrorist groups."
* Sharing Information: "Another manual, The Mujahadeen Poisons
Handbook, written by Abdel-Aziz in 1996 and 'published' on the
official Hamas website, details in twenty-three pages how to prepare
various homemade poisons, poisonous gases, and other deadly materials
for use in terrorist attacks. A much larger manual, nicknamed 'The
Encyclopedia of Jihad' and prepared by al Qaeda, runs to thousands of
pages; distributed through the Internet, it offers detailed
instructions on how to establish an underground organization and
execute attacks."
* Planning and Coordination: "Hamas activists in the Middle
East, for example, use chat rooms to plan operations and operatives
exchange e-mail to coordinate actions across Gaza, the West Bank,
Lebanon, and Israel. Instructions in the form of maps, photographs,
directions, and technical details of how to use explosives are often
disguised by means of steganography, which involves hiding messages
inside graphic files."
The Internet makes it easier for people to indulge in tendencies that
might otherwise have remained undeveloped. Driving to a seedy porn
shop might keep someone from watching sexually explicit videos, but
pulling up content on a home PC removes this "barrier to entry."
Meeting up with strangers from neighboring states to indulge in
teenage fantasies could have happened 20 years back, but was much
more likely not to. With the rise of sites like MySpace, it's almost
simple, and it happens routinely (a friend told me such a story last
night). And the same thing is true of terrorism: the Web makes easier
what once was difficult.
In that sense, it has been hugely successful as a tool. But human
nature being what it is, such tools will be put to all sorts of uses,
many of them less than noble.
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