Terrorism and the Internet: new media - new threat?

The Internet is a powerful political instrument, which is increasingly employed by terrorists to forward their goals. The five most prominent contemporary terrorist uses of the Net are information provision, financing, networking, recruitment, and information gathering. This article describes and explains each of these uses and follows up with examples. The final section of the paper describes the responses of government, law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and others to the terrorism-Internet nexus. There is a particular emphasis within the text on the UK experience, although examples from other jurisdictions are also employed

Reality bytes: cyberterrorism and terrorist 'use' of the Internet

This paper examines the concept of cyberterrorism. Fringe activity on the Internet ranges from non-violent 'Use' at one end to 'Cyberterrorism' at the other. Rejecting the idea that cyberterrorism is widespread, the focus here is on terrorist groups' 'use' of the Internet, in particular the content of their Web sites, and their 'misuse' of the medium, as in hacking wars, for example. Terrorist groups' use of the Internet for the purpose of inter-group communication is also surveyed, partly because of its importance for the inter-networked forms of organisation apparently being adopted by these groups, but also due to the part played by the Internet in the events of September 11 and their aftermath

Social Media Accountability for Terrorist Propaganda

Terrorist organizations have found social media websites to be invaluable for disseminating ideology, recruiting terrorists, and planning operations. National and international leaders have repeatedly pointed out the dangers terrorists pose to ordinary people and state institutions. In the United States, the federal Communications Decency Act’s § 230 provides social networking websites with immunity against civil law suits. Litigants have therefore been unsuccessful in obtaining redress against internet companies who host or disseminate third-party terrorist content. This Article demonstrates that § 230 does not bar private parties from recovery if they can prove that a social media company had received complaints about specific webpages, videos, posts, articles, IP addresses, or accounts of foreign terrorist organizations; the company’s failure to remove the material; a terrorist’s subsequent viewing of or interacting with the material on the website; and that terrorist’s acting upon the propaganda to harm the plaintiff. This Article argues that irrespective of civil immunity, the First Amendment does not limit Congress’s authority to impose criminal liability on those content intermediaries who have been notified that their websites are hosting third-party foreign terrorist incitement, recruitment, or instruction. Neither the First Amendment nor the Communications Decency Act prevents this form of federal criminal prosecution. A social media company can be prosecuted for material support of terrorism if it is knowingly providing a platform to organizations or individuals who advocate the commission of terrorist acts. Mechanisms will also need to be created that can enable administrators to take emergency measures, while simultaneously preserving the due process rights of internet intermediaries to challenge orders to immediately block, temporarily remove, or permanently destroy data

Cybersecurity: mapping the ethical terrain

This edited collection examines the ethical trade-offs involved in cybersecurity: between security and privacy; individual rights and the good of a society; and between the types of burdens placed on particular groups in order to protect others. Foreword Governments and society are increasingly reliant on cyber systems. Yet the more reliant we are upon cyber systems, the more vulnerable we are to serious harm should these systems be attacked or used in an attack. This problem of reliance and vulnerability is driving a concern with securing cyberspace. For example, a ‘cybersecurity’ team now forms part of the US Secret Service. Its job is to respond to cyber-attacks in specific environments such as elevators in a building that hosts politically vulnerable individuals, for example, state representatives. Cybersecurity aims to protect cyberinfrastructure from cyber-attacks; the concerning aspect of the threat from cyber-attack is the potential for serious harm that damage to cyber-infrastructure presents to resources and people. These types of threats to cybersecurity might simply target information and communication systems: a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on a government website does not harm a website in any direct way, but prevents its normal use by stifling the ability of users to connect to the site. Alternatively, cyber-attacks might disrupt physical devices or resources, such as the Stuxnet virus, which caused the malfunction and destruction of Iranian nuclear centrifuges. Cyber-attacks might also enhance activities that are enabled through cyberspace, such as the use of online media by extremists to recruit members and promote radicalisation. Cyber-attacks are diverse: as a result, cybersecurity requires a comparable diversity of approaches. Cyber-attacks can have powerful impacts on people’s lives, and so—in liberal democratic societies at least—governments have a duty to ensure cybersecurity in order to protect the inhabitants within their own jurisdiction and, arguably, the people of other nations. But, as recent events following the revelations of Edward Snowden have demonstrated, there is a risk that the governmental pursuit of cybersecurity might overstep the mark and subvert fundamental privacy rights. Popular comment on these episodes advocates transparency of government processes, yet given that cybersecurity risks represent major challenges to national security, it is unlikely that simple transparency will suffice. Managing the risks of cybersecurity involves trade-offs: between security and privacy; individual rights and the good of a society; and types of burdens placed on particular groups in order to protect others. These trade-offs are often ethical trade-offs, involving questions of how we act, what values we should aim to promote, and what means of anticipating and responding to the risks are reasonably—and publicly—justifiable. This Occasional Paper (prepared for the National Security College) provides a brief conceptual analysis of cybersecurity, demonstrates the relevance of ethics to cybersecurity and outlines various ways in which to approach ethical decision-making when responding to cyber-attacks

Countering Expansion and Organization of Terrorism in Cyberspace

Terrorists use cyberspace and social media technology to create fear and spread violent ideologies, which pose a significant threat to public security. Researchers have documented the importance of the application of law and regulation in dealing with the criminal activities perpetrated through the aid of computers in cyberspace. Using routine activity theory, this study assessed the effectiveness of technological approaches to mitigating the expansion and organization of terrorism in cyberspace. The study aligned with the purpose area analysis objective of classifying and assessing potential terrorist threats to preempt and mitigate the attacks. Data collection included document content analysis of the open-source documents, government threat assessments, legislation, policy papers, and peer-reviewed academic literature and semistructured interviews with fifteen security experts in Nigeria. Yin\u27s recommended analysis process of iterative and repetitive review of materials was applied to the documents analysis, including interviews of key public and private sector individuals to identify key themes on Nigeria\u27s current effort to secure the nation\u27s cyberspace. The key findings were that the new generation of terrorists who are more technological savvy are growing, cybersecurity technologies are effective and quicker tools, and bilateral/multilateral cooperation is essential to combat the expansion of terrorism in cyberspace. The implementation of recommendations from this study will improve the security in cyberspace, thereby contributing to positive social change. The data provided may be useful to stakeholders responsible for national security, counterterrorism, law enforcement on the choice of cybersecurity technologies to confront terrorist expansion, and organization in cyberspace

Terrorist Incitement on the Internet

I organized this symposium to advance understanding of how terrorist communications drive and influence social, political, religious, civil, literary, and artistic conduct. Viewing terrorist speech through wide prisms of law, culture, and contemporary media can provide lawmakers, adjudicators, and administrators a better understanding of how to contain and prevent the exploitation of modern communication technologies to influence, recruit, and exploit others to perpetrate ideologically driven acts of violence. Undertaking such a multipronged study requires not only looking at the personal and sociological appeals that extreme ideology exerts but also considering how to create political, administrative, educational, and economic conditions to effect positive change at micro and macro levels. The deep analysis that a symposium provides can paint a more comprehensive picture to explain the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of various memes, videos, interactive websites, group chat rooms, and blogs that justify, glorify, or incite violence. Moreover, understanding the operation of terrorist groups on the internet can help to explain their organizational hierarchies

Shifting realities: Tron cyberspace and the “New” consciousness in 21st Century technoscapes

The existing direction of the (mis)use of information technologies founded on the deceptively secular rationalised heritage of scientism, arguably spells the increasing proximity to a dystopian nightmare that is far from mere fiction and imbued with the eternal religious symbolic of the battle between good and evil, as depicted in the 2010 science fiction film Tron: Legacy . The historical contextualisation of events in the film reveals the promise of the unfolding of an advanced sensibility alongside these concerns, in which fantasy and science converge to liberate humanity from an increasingly limiting worldview, and information and images serve as conduits to the sacred. The critical role information stands to play in humanity’s conscious evolution is outlined in the proposed development of a “dream systems theory”, where dreams capes are defined as interconnected systems of imaginal data

Warfighting for cyber deterrence: a strategic and moral imperative

Theories of cyber deterrence are developing rapidly. However, the literature is missing an important ingredient—warfighting for deterrence. This controversial idea, most commonly associated with nuclear strategy during the later stages of the Cold War, affords a number of advantages. It provides enhanced credibility for deterrence, offers means to deal with deterrence failure (including intrawar deterrence and damage limitation), improves compliance with the requirements of just war and ultimately ensures that strategy continues to function in the post-deterrence environment. This paper assesses whether a warfighting for deterrence approach is suitable for the cyber domain. In doing so, it challenges the notion that warfighting concepts are unsuitable for operations in cyberspace. To do this, the work constructs a conceptual framework that is then applied to cyber deterrence. It is found that all of the advantages of taking a warfighting stance apply to cyber operations. The paper concludes by constructing a warfighting model for cyber deterrence. This model includes passive and active defences and cross-domain offensive capabilities. The central message of the paper is that a theory of victory (strategy) must guide the development of cyber deterrence