Ways Terrorists May Use the Internet

There are some ways that terrorists use the internet, like publicity, that are common knowledge. There is strong evidence that terrorists use the internet in other ways, such as communication by email. There are other ways terrorists could use the internet that there is not evidence of, but since detection systems are recently developed technologies, there could be much terrorist activity that goes undetected. Lieutenant Colonel Timothy L. Thomas, an analyst with the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office, suggests that there are nine ways that terrorists could use the internet. Some of them are probable, some of them are possible, but most of them are uncertain. In many of the suggested uses of the internet, the terrorist would wish to remain undetected.

The nine ways are:

1. Gathering information about targets. Terrorists can use the internet to gain access to sensitive information about important targets and use that leverage to blackmail governments and businesses. Concern about the availability of information over the internet was revealed when many websites removed information after the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center. On October 18 the Pentagon bought all rights to Space Imaging Incorporated's images of Afghanistan. Recently, concern has arisen over the internet availability of satellite images from Google Earth.
2. Financial Support. Like any organization, terrorists can gather financial support and trade stocks via the internet. The Chechen Republic provided information on one of its websites on how to donate money to the Chechen breakaway from Russia. There is also evidence that terrorists are using cyberfraud to finance terrorist acts.
3. Connection. Terrorists can use the internet to communicate about when and where to meet, and also use it as a meeting place and an information forum in and of itself.
4. Extortion. Terrorists could extort money from financial institutions or extort specific outcomes from decisionmakers by threatening to use the internet to destroy credibility or commit cyberattacks.
5. Publicity. Terrorists have already used the internet to publicize their causes. For example, after bombing began in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden broadcast a call to kill all Americans via television and the internet. Publicity is the first priority of terrorists as identified by Ernest Evans, and the internet offers unprecedented publicity potential.
6. Global freedom. The internet offers terrorists the opportunity to communicate and coordinate attacks from another country. Information traveling over the internet is not monitored like physical comings and goings are. Terrorists can opperate from a friendly nation-state against a remote target.
7. Psychological effects. Due to its seeming credibility, the internet contains the potential to be exploited to terrorize people psychologically.
8. Decentralization. Because of the way the internet is organized, without any central control, if provides the opportunity for terrorists to organize in the same way. Unwitting hackers could thus become accomplices in crimes they knew nothing of.
9. Secrecy. Messages encryped and encoded in various ways can be sent over the internet or posted somewhere on the internet. However, there is also evidence that while governments were busy checking for complicated secret messages hidden on the internet, the orchestrators of the September 11 attacks were communicating about them in open emails.

--http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/de-terror/de-terror.htm

It is almost certain that there are ways that terrorists use the internet that we are not aware of. However, the fact remains that there is no evidence that terrorists use the internet in some of these ways. In fact, there would be little motivation for terrorist organizations to use complex data encryption strategies when open emails will suffice. Some of the speculation of how terrorists use the internet is more a product of the fascination of fear than of rational observation. However, it is reasonable to assume that terrorists will take advantage of the resources that the internet provides, and may be doing so undetected already. It is important to investigate how terrorists may use the internet and to prepare for future developments.

An example of steganography (hiding images under other images), one way which terrorists could use the internet. The first picture is of the celebrations in Washington DC following the Gulf War. The second is Osama bin Laden's first fatwa (religious edict) calling Muslims to kill all Americans. The fatwa is not actually encrypted here, but in steganography the first image would be visible, but the second would be secretly encoded in it and recoverable. A few days before the September 11 attacks, researchers at the University of Michigan combed the internet for messages encrypted using steganography and other methods, but found none.

--http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/de-terror/de-terror.htm