Are you a terrorist aide? Do you help organized killers without realizing it?
Now you might tweet a silly message or fb a pic of yourself in a ‘eat your hearts out’ scenario to upset everyone by generating envy for whatever wonderful event is occurring in your life but what that offers is a common bond you have with the terrorist. He uses exactly the same global platforms to send out his ‘kill’ message. Could be your message. Yes, it is that scary.
Jean-Paul Laborde, UN assistant secretary general and head of its counter-terrorism committee has placed on record his mind searing revelations that unless Google, Twitter and Microsoft as well as other search engines do not join the counter-terrorism movement the army of militants will grow exponentially.
The direct and dramatic collision course between social media and society’s mayhem is now inevitable. These extremists have enough geeks to fully exploit the ether. No wonder the Daesh have almost 30,000 foreign militants fighting in war-ravaged Syria and neighboring Iraq currently.
Laborde has finally articulated the unspoken. Social platforms are anti-social and deadly. In warning that the risk of attacks in these nations was increasing he indicated that this could be a worldwide threat sans frontiers.
The number of recruitments is open-ended. It could reach 100,000 even more over the next year. The statement given by the Dhaka killers that they were inspired by a Mumbai-based preacher Zakir Naik and his teachings underscore how intimidating the real time messaging is and the potential it has for creating a global network. In comparison the logistics for co-ordinating the landings in Normandy on D-Day would have been a thousand times more complex.
The report also suggests that these hired helps are now returning to their own countries and cannot be discounted as a threat. They are not only going back to Europe but to all of their countries of origin, like Tunisia and Morocco,” he told reporters in Geneva. “As a result attacks launched by foreign fighters returning to their home countries are likely to increase in ferocity, in retaliation for international military action that is putting them on the back foot,” Laborde warned.
What the world needs to do is speed up its exchange of data. The problem lies in these platforms being unable to differentiate between helping and invading user privacy. Once the floodgates open they cannot be selective to specific nations and will have to respond to queries about ‘persons of interest’ from ever intelligence agency and government in the world. The error factor would be so high that Joe Bloggs and is nobody on the street buddy would come under scrutiny. But Laborde is emphatic. There is no other way. “If we don’t catch up, we will continue to see a growing number of terrorist acts.” Logically you and I add our bit to the databases. What we write innocently to friends and family as private opinion is out there for all to see and share.
We make huge mistakes. We befriend folks we do not know. We ignore odd messages as SPAM. They stay on our sites. We allow access to ‘prize won’ feeds. Over a period we literally create a cyber-file on ourselves leaving our Iphones, tablets and computers vulnerable to hacking by elements that mean to generate harm.
This is what the US Institute of Peace says: Terrorist organizations and their supporters maintain hundreds of websites, exploiting the unregulated, anonymous, and easily accessible nature of the Internet to target an array of messages to a variety of audiences. USIP identifies no fewer than eight different ways in which terrorists are using the Internet to advance their cause, ranging from psychological warfare to recruitment, networking to fundraising. The controllers of these search engines are seemingly helpless. While they might concede giving police agencies data after the fact they are finding it impossible to deal with millions of ‘suspects’ most of whom are clueless about terrorism but would be on the ‘watch’ list.
The eight categories that are most exploited by hundreds of militant groups all of whom are adept at working the net are propaganda, publicity, appeal for recruitment and funding, social injustice, data mining, psycho-warfare and networking as well as sharing information of movements and plans.
The world still has the mental image of a guy and an AK 47 atop a hill. That imagery is obsolete. The problem is becoming urban. The Institute report says: Most terrorist sites emphasize two issues: the restrictions placed on freedom of expression and the plight of comrades who are now political prisoners. Their sites are aimed at inciting passion. You and I act as unknowing conduits when we share shock shots and messages without thinking, pass on gory photographs, befriend total strangers, start up chats on murky sites, respond to blandishments and often carelessly display hostile comments. This is the dilemma of the future. Is media the unwitting channel for making terrorism more effective?
Is each one of us on the editorial staff, a potential 6.2 billion people forwarding information that could be dangerous beyond words? The answer is yes. Is there a solution? At the moment, no. Much like the confessional social platforms are duty-bound to protect the individual. It is a client/lawyer privilege situation.
What we can do is get a little more careful with our conversations. Make our own roadblocks on the information highway. Easier said than done.
Now you might tweet a silly message or fb a pic of yourself in a ‘eat your hearts out’ scenario to upset everyone by generating envy for whatever wonderful event is occurring in your life but what that offers is a common bond you have with the terrorist. He uses exactly the same global platforms to send out his ‘kill’ message. Could be your message. Yes, it is that scary.
Jean-Paul Laborde, UN assistant secretary general and head of its counter-terrorism committee has placed on record his mind searing revelations that unless Google, Twitter and Microsoft as well as other search engines do not join the counter-terrorism movement the army of militants will grow exponentially.
The direct and dramatic collision course between social media and society’s mayhem is now inevitable. These extremists have enough geeks to fully exploit the ether. No wonder the Daesh have almost 30,000 foreign militants fighting in war-ravaged Syria and neighboring Iraq currently.
Laborde has finally articulated the unspoken. Social platforms are anti-social and deadly. In warning that the risk of attacks in these nations was increasing he indicated that this could be a worldwide threat sans frontiers.
The number of recruitments is open-ended. It could reach 100,000 even more over the next year. The statement given by the Dhaka killers that they were inspired by a Mumbai-based preacher Zakir Naik and his teachings underscore how intimidating the real time messaging is and the potential it has for creating a global network. In comparison the logistics for co-ordinating the landings in Normandy on D-Day would have been a thousand times more complex.
The report also suggests that these hired helps are now returning to their own countries and cannot be discounted as a threat. They are not only going back to Europe but to all of their countries of origin, like Tunisia and Morocco,” he told reporters in Geneva. “As a result attacks launched by foreign fighters returning to their home countries are likely to increase in ferocity, in retaliation for international military action that is putting them on the back foot,” Laborde warned.
What the world needs to do is speed up its exchange of data. The problem lies in these platforms being unable to differentiate between helping and invading user privacy. Once the floodgates open they cannot be selective to specific nations and will have to respond to queries about ‘persons of interest’ from ever intelligence agency and government in the world. The error factor would be so high that Joe Bloggs and is nobody on the street buddy would come under scrutiny. But Laborde is emphatic. There is no other way. “If we don’t catch up, we will continue to see a growing number of terrorist acts.” Logically you and I add our bit to the databases. What we write innocently to friends and family as private opinion is out there for all to see and share.
We make huge mistakes. We befriend folks we do not know. We ignore odd messages as SPAM. They stay on our sites. We allow access to ‘prize won’ feeds. Over a period we literally create a cyber-file on ourselves leaving our Iphones, tablets and computers vulnerable to hacking by elements that mean to generate harm.
This is what the US Institute of Peace says: Terrorist organizations and their supporters maintain hundreds of websites, exploiting the unregulated, anonymous, and easily accessible nature of the Internet to target an array of messages to a variety of audiences. USIP identifies no fewer than eight different ways in which terrorists are using the Internet to advance their cause, ranging from psychological warfare to recruitment, networking to fundraising. The controllers of these search engines are seemingly helpless. While they might concede giving police agencies data after the fact they are finding it impossible to deal with millions of ‘suspects’ most of whom are clueless about terrorism but would be on the ‘watch’ list.
The eight categories that are most exploited by hundreds of militant groups all of whom are adept at working the net are propaganda, publicity, appeal for recruitment and funding, social injustice, data mining, psycho-warfare and networking as well as sharing information of movements and plans.
The world still has the mental image of a guy and an AK 47 atop a hill. That imagery is obsolete. The problem is becoming urban. The Institute report says: Most terrorist sites emphasize two issues: the restrictions placed on freedom of expression and the plight of comrades who are now political prisoners. Their sites are aimed at inciting passion. You and I act as unknowing conduits when we share shock shots and messages without thinking, pass on gory photographs, befriend total strangers, start up chats on murky sites, respond to blandishments and often carelessly display hostile comments. This is the dilemma of the future. Is media the unwitting channel for making terrorism more effective?
Is each one of us on the editorial staff, a potential 6.2 billion people forwarding information that could be dangerous beyond words? The answer is yes. Is there a solution? At the moment, no. Much like the confessional social platforms are duty-bound to protect the individual. It is a client/lawyer privilege situation.
What we can do is get a little more careful with our conversations. Make our own roadblocks on the information highway. Easier said than done.
