Rebel and terrorist use of it

1. Mehnaaz Asad IB2-3 Rebel and terrorist use of it

2. Why do they use the Internet? • Easy access to the Internet's resources • Little or no regulation, censorship, or other forms of government control • Potentiallyhuge audiences spread throughout the world • Anonymity of communication when using VoIP and Messenger programs • Fast flow of information ( enabling the fast communication) • The internet offers the ability to combine text, graphics, audio, and video and to allow users to download films, songs, books, posters etc. • The ability to use the Internet as a broadcast media ( the popularity and the number of users increases each day)

3. How terrorists use the Internet • Psychological Warfare • Terrorists can use the Internet to spread disinformation, to deliver threats intended to spread fear and helplessness, and to show horrific images of recent actions such as replaying events through the websites.  • Cyberwarfare and cyberterrorism

4. Data Mining • The Internet is much like a huge digital library. The World Wide Web alone offers about a billion pages of information, much of it free—and much of it of interest to terrorist organizations. • Terrorists, for example, can learn from the Internet a wide variety of details about targets such as transportation facilities, nuclear power plants, public buildings, airports, and ports, and even about counter terrorism measures. • E.g. Google Earth used to find locations of a compound in Algeria which was attacked by terrorists last year

5. Networking • 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. WHY? • First, new technologies have greatly reduced transmission time. • Second, new technologies have significantly reduced the cost of communication. • Third, by integrating computing with communications, they have substantially increased the variety and complexity of the information that can be shared.

6. Terrorists use the Internet not only to learn how to build bombs but also to plan and coordinate specific attacks. Al Qaeda members relied heavily on the Internet in planning and coordinating the September 11 attacks. Hamas activists in the Middle East use chat rooms to plan operations and exchange e-mail to coordinate actions. Instructions in the form of maps, photographs, directions, and technical details of how to use explosives are often disguised by means ofsteganography, which involves hiding messages inside graphic files. Planning and coordination

7. Sharing information • The Internet is home to tons of sites that provide information on how to build chemical and explosive weapons. Examples include: • The Terrorist's Handbook and The Anarchist Cookbook, two well-known manuals that offer detailed instructions on how to construct a wide range of bombs. • The Encyclopaedia of Jihad

8. EXAMPLES • Recently, the Obama and the McCain campaigns were hacked into by a foreign government (China) trying to know their policies in advance.  • 9/11 • Saddam Hussein’s execution video on youtube. • Attacks on the Taj hotel in India in 2008

9. Political • Psychological • Reliability: information used by or handed out by terrorists. • Security: data mining • Authenticity: Terrorists could disguise themselves • Equality of access • Globalisation Social Ethical