The Value Of The Internet For Terrorists - Case Study Al-Qaeda - Research Proposal Example

THE VALUE OF THE INTERNET FOR TERRORISTS: CASE STUDY AL-QAEDA Rationale of the topic While the danger that cyber-terrorism poses to the Internetis frequently debated, surprisingly little is known about the threat posed by terrorists' use of the Internet. The Internet has become a forum for terrorist groups and individual terrorists, both to spread their messages of hate and violence and to communicate with one another and with sympathizers [http://www.adl.org/ , 2006]. The great virtues of the Internet-ease of access, lack of regulation, vast potential audiences, and fast flow of information, among others have been turned to the advantage of groups committed to terrorizing societies to achieve their goals [Weimann, 2004]. The mass media, policymakers, and even security agencies have tended to focus on the exaggerated threat of cyber-terrorism and paid insufficient attention to the more routine uses made of the Internet [Weimann, 2004]. Those uses are numerous and, from the terrorists' perspective, invaluable. Hence, it is imperative that security agencies continue to improve their ability to study and monitor terrorist activities on the Internet and explore measures to limit the usability of this medium by modern terrorists. It is of vital importance to be informed about the uses to which terrorists put the Internet and better able to monitor their activities. The present study while focusing on the use of internet by the terrorists groups will also attempt to shed light on the vulnerability of the internet to rampant abuse by anti-social elements. The study will also critically examine the long term effect of anti cyber- terrorism measures by the government. Importance of the topic With the enormous growth in the size and use of the network, positive aspects of the internet were challenged by the use of the internet by extremist organisations of various kinds. Groups with very different political goals but united in their readiness to employ terrorist tactics started using the network to distribute their propaganda, to communicate with their supporters, to foster public awareness of and sympathy for their causes, and even to execute operations [Weimann, 2004]. The cyber attacks arising from the events of September 11 reflect a growing use of the Internet as a digital battleground [Jenning, 2001]. Since 9/11, public awareness of, and government concern with, Internet security issues has mushroomed. Several news reports and studies have suggested that Al-Qaeda preparations for the terrorist attacks were facilitated by the use of new information and communication technologies, including those associated with the Internet [Deibert, 2006]. FBI director Robert Muller while addressing the Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate mentioned Cyber-terrorism as a clearly emerging threat. There is cause for uneasiness as the present generation of terrorist groups are found to be increasingly computer savvy, and some probably are acquiring the ability to use cyber attacks to inflict isolated and brief disruptions of U.S. infrastructure. Muller expressed apprehension that as terrorists become more computer savvy, their attack options will only increase [Muller, 2003]. In this context it is particularly important to make an in depth study on the efficacy and use of internet to terrorists groups and to evaluate their way of utilising the cyber world to spread their network and activities, such as for generating support, and networking among their affiliates. Objectives of the study 1. The study will focus on terrorist groups' 'use' of the Internet, in particular the content of the groups' Web sites, and Terrorist groups' use of the Internet for the purpose of inter-group communication and coordination. 2. The possible 'misuse' of the internet by terrorist groups 3. To analyse political agenda or religious fanaticism associated with cyber terrorism 4. To understand the nature and spread of online presence of Al-Qaeda and their gradual and systematic entry into cyberspace. 5. To analyse the cost of applying counter terrorism measures by the government What are you hoping to understand This study aims to understand how the terrorists use the internet with particular reference to the Al-Qaeda and its associates. The study will try to generate a reasonably clear idea about functioning of the terrorists groups or their affiliates through the internet. Allegation of terrorists taking recourse to illegal money transaction and credit card forgery would be dwelt upon to verify the validity of such claim. The study is expected to shed light on the fund transaction process of important terrorist group like the Al Qaeda. A brief Literature Review In Wilkinson's [Wilkinson, 1997] reassessment of media and terrorism, terrorists' manipulation and exploitation of the media is shown to play a crucial part in their propaganda war. The author feels that voluntary self-restraint and self-regulation by the media are the best policy options for a democratic society in regard to the media's response to terrorism, but that the mass media need to work harder at devising measures of self-restraint that are both appropriate and effective. Conway [Conway, 2002] examines the concept of cyber terrorism and of the opinion that although the terrorist groups are making widespread use of the internet, so far they have neither resorted to cyber-terrorism nor shown inclination to move towards that direction. She classified the key uses of the internet by terrorist groups as information provision, financing, networking and planning, recruitment and information gathering through other web-sites Stating identical view, Michael Vatis, former head of the United States National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), has stated that "Terrorists are already using technology for sophisticated communications and fund-raising activities. As yet we haven't seen computers being used by these groups as weapons to any significant degree, but he, like others, warns that this will probably happen in the future" [Veltman, 2001]. Indeed, according to a recent study, 75 percent of Internet users worldwide believe that 'cyber-terrorists' may "soon inflict massive casualties on innocent lives by attacking corporate and governmental computer networks." The survey, conducted in 19 major cities around the world, found that 45 percent of respondents agreed completely that "computer terrorism will be a growing problem," and another 35 percent agreed somewhat with the same statement [Paulsen, 2001]. Coll and Glasser opined that the Al Qaeda and other Jihadi groups have a vast presence in the internet but hampered by the nature of internet itself, the government has proven ineffective at blocking or even hindering significantly this vast online presence [Coll & Glasser, 2005]. Like growing number of terrorists groups, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) maintain a website in the internet to plead their causes and garner support, especially in Canada [Gerringer, 2002]. Terrorist websites carry pages devoted to suicide terrorists including their names, pictures, personal backgrounds, actions and praise of their heroism and holy sacrifice. An analysis of the contents of the terrorist websites indicates that an important target audience, in addition to supporters of the organisations is the international 'by standers' public and surfers who are not involved in the conflict. Judging from content of many sites, one might infer that journalist constitute another 'by stander' target audience (Yael and Sills, 2005). Whether the internet is used to plan and coordinate terrorist attack is still an open question but it is certain that it is being used in attempts to recruit and train followers of terrorist causes. There are thousands of websites maintained by known terrorist groups, including two run by Al-Qaeda that features hints about how to kidnap, torture and kill hostages [Straubhaar, and Larose 2006]. Due to various retaliatory moves by the US, the Al-Qaeda planning cells travel to and from safe locations for higher level coordination meetings and Al Qaeda might not rely as much on physical meetings to sustain its command and control network. U.S officials indicate that Al-Qaeda made use of the internet to facilitate its global command and control network [Kragin, 2004]. It is estimated that a minimum of the state department's twenty eight designated foreign terrorist organisation implement website and e-mail communication facilities. US officials claim that some group allegedly use cyberspace to transmit specific instructions to fellow members such as maps, directions, photographs, codes and technical explosive details. Almost most groups appear to use the internet for propaganda purposes, there is increasing evidence that e-mail correspondence including encrypted messages is used to plan attacks, the like of which was witnessed on 9/11 [Clark, 2004]. To ensure that the researchers and experts have access to terrorist websites for research and intelligence analysis, several organisations are collecting, archiving and analysing Jihad terrorist websites. Although all of these organisations manually capture and analyse terrorist websites to publish research reports, none publish their specific collection building and analytical approaches. Except for using search engines to identify terrorist websites, none of the organisations seem to use any other automated methodologies for capturing and analysing terrorist websites (Kantor et al., 2005). Does the thesis intend to support the existing literature The current study will focus on how the terrorist value the internet, their spread and interconnectivity through web as also the content, management, and permanency of these websites. The study will be carried out without any preconceived notion which the existing literatures may hold. Methodology The study would be carried out in two parts. The first part will deal with information's and data retrieved from available sources such as i) research institutes and libraries, ii) journals, books, and articles, and iii) relevant websites. The second part of data would collected from restricted sources where easy access is not generally possible such as State department sources, terrorist archives, terrorism research centre and so on. The data would be classified and analysed in relevant sections of the dissertation. Sources All the information will be gathered from secondary sources which consist of accessible web sources, State department sources, books, journals and articles in reputed dailies and magazines. Information from confidential and sensitive sources if allowed would be collected through proper application from the university. Where ever possible charts would be provided for easy understanding. Chapter Structure The study will consist of six chapters and the main chapters will be of approximately 2,000 words, except introduction and conclusion chapters, which will be about a 1,000 words each. The chapters will tentatively include: Chapter1. Introduction Introduction will discuss about the rationale of the study and provide a broad coverage of the topic ranging from internet usage by terrorist, the threat of cyber terrorism and cyber security infrastructure. Cyber laws and regulations at the federal and state level will be discussed. Since cyber attack has no national limits, need for international cooperation and harmonization of laws will also be discussed. The chapter will also state the thesis and present the research questions that the dissertation hopes to answer. Chapter 2 Literature Review and methodology Chapter two will consists of literature review. Literature will include articles from journals, newspapers, magazines and also from relevant websites. Government reports and terrorism research reports will also be reviewed depending on accessibility. Relevant book sources will also be consulted. This chapter will also discuss the data collection methods, treatment of data and how and where the data was obtained. Some of the data for this research cannot be put into quantifiable terms and therefore is subjective in nature which will also be mentioned. Chapter 3 Value of internet to terrorists In this chapter, study will be focussed on activities, identifying, analyzing, and illustrating ways in which terrorist organizations are exploiting the unique attributes of the Internet. Growing and increasingly sophisticated terrorist presence on the World Wide Web will be discussed in depth in this chapter. Areas covered will be on issues like content of terrorists' websites, their audiences, networking etc. Probable purpose of using the internet by the terrorist groups such as fund raising, publicity and propaganda will be explored. 4. Al Qaeda- A case study In this chapter, the use of cyberspace by Al-Qaeda terrorists will be discussed and will consist of an assessment of i) Al-Qaeda's integration of internet and other associated communication technologies to spread their propaganda war starting from the historical development to the present , ii) researching the content of the groups websites, iii) illegal money transactions and credit card forgery cases, if any, iv) Networking with affiliated groups v) internet as a means of recruiting new members, and vi) use of cyberspace for fundraising activities. 5. Electronic Governance and Anti-Cyber Terrorism Measures This chapter will deal with both reactive and proactive measures towards countering the (mis)use of the cyber world by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, particularly focusing upon the provisions of electronic governance after 9/11. Possible future means, as conceived and realized by different governments to pre-empt events similar to the one that spotlighted the terrorists' deviant ingenuity of utilising the information available in the internet to plan the attack, would be explored and key features of counter-systems developed would be highlighted. Potential and any pit falls of such mechanisms also would be included. 6. Conclusion Chapter five will contain the summary and conclusion drawn by the study. Much of this section will be subjective as the data used will be subjective in nature. The findings will be discussed in detail and lucid manner. Finally the chapter will discuss about the limitation of the study and will make recommendations for improving on the shortcomings of this research. It will make recommendations as to what might be included in future research projects. References Coll, Steve and Glasser, S.B.(2005) Terrorists turn to the web as base of operations, Washington Post staff writers, Sunday, August 7, retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com on 4th March, 2006. Conway, Laura (2002) Reality Bytes: Cyber terrorism and terrorist use of the internet, First Monday, Peer reviewed journal on the internet, retrieved from the website: http://www.firstmonday.dk Clark. D (2004) Technology and terrorism, Transaction publishers, pp.133-134. Deibert, R.J. (2006) 9/11 and Information Security, retrieved from the website: http Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate://www.ssrc.org/ on 5th March, 2006. Gerringer, A.E. (2002) Terrorism: From one Millennium, to the next, Writers club press, p.196 Jenning, Dorothy (2001) Is Cyber terror next Social Science Research Council, retrieved from the website: http://www.ssrc.org/ on 5th March, 2006. Kantor, P et al eds. ( 2005) Intelligence and security informatics, Springer, p.403 Kragin. K (2004) The dynamic terrorist threat, Rand corporation, p.42 Muller, Robert (2003) War on Terrorism, US information State Government, retrieved from the website: http://usinfo.state.gov/ on 4th March, 2006. Poulsen, Kevin (2001). "Cyber Terror in the Air," www.SecurityFocus.com (30 June). Straubhaar, J and Larose.R (2006) Media now: Understanding media, culture and technology (with CD-ROM and Infotrac), Thompson learning Inc., p.420 Terrorism Update (1998) Terrorist activities on the internet, Retrieved from the website: http://www.adl.org/ on 2nd March, 2006 Veltman, C (2001). "Beating Cyber Crime," Daily Telegraph (1 March), p. 12E. Weimann, Gabriel (2004) www.terror.net: How modern terrorism uses the internet, Special Report No.116, United States Institute of Peace, retrieved from the website:http://www.usip.org/, dated 3rd March, 2006. Wilkinson, Paul (1997). The media and Terrorism: A reassessment, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.9, No.2. pp. 51-64. Yael. D, Danny.B, Sills.J eds. ( 2005) The Trauma of Terrorism: Sharing knowledge and shared care an international handbook, The Howarh Maltreatment and Trauma Press, p. 385-388. Read More