Written assignment 3
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As technologies improve, terrorist groups and their association device new ways to expand their operations through the internet. Some of the activities that they accomplish through media platforms and electronic advancements are recruiting members, incitement, advertisement, sourcing fund, and making preparations for attacks. Through videos and audio recordings, they make threats to spread fear or take responsibility for successful attacks. Moreover, with increased skill in software use, terrorists can communicate in codes or through hidden channels. The Stormfront organization, the Imperial Klans of America, and the Black Riders Liberation Party are examples of websites of organized hate crime terrorism. Adversaries use such sites for the purposes discussed below.
Publicity
Among the main uses of social media platforms by terrorists is seeking followers and supporters. They make posts and correspondences explaining their ideology, mission, objectives, and goals. They also explain their previous operations and their impact on their agendas. The public appearance of the terror cells is necessary to prove their existence and their bravery in their course. Similarly, the platforms on the internet provide interactions to the masses, thus increasing the target audience for their recruitment and funding. (Conway, Jarvis, & Lehane, 2017).
Enlistment
As the media platforms are used to create awareness and publicity for the terrorist groups and ideas, other people interested in the ideas began following. These followers are the target recruitment of terrorists. According to the trends in terrorism, the interdependence of terrorist groups increased with the emergence of internet communication sites. The major difference between social media sites and the use of conventional calls and texts is the ease of hiding from the authorities. Terrorists disguise their identities in the sites to avoid trace by the counterterrorism units. Through private web pages and the dark web, terrorists organize recruitment of new members across the globe, especially now that terrorist agendas spread across the universe.
Financing
The current changes in the banking and accounting industry allow access to finances through banking applications and websites belonging to different financial institutions. Similarly, paying bills and buying goods is achievable through the internet. Consequently, it has made it quicker and easier for terrorists to send and receive funds without suspicion. In many of the reports on terrorism, there are several mentions of shell companies used to transmit money. The scheme behind them is that until there is a cause of suspicion, it appears as if the company is running a business entity. Moreover, it translates that a sympathizer of terrorists in a different continent can support them through the contribution of funds. Additionally, ransomware is a malware targeted at the exchange of ransom. International cash transfers such as Western Union and Paypal give room for unsuspected cash transfers. (Conway, Jarvis, & Lehane, 2017).
Preparation and execution
As mentioned earlier, the internet offers platforms for terrorists to share their activities and agenda. With the ease in the interaction of people from different geographical locations, terrorists plan for the attacks online. An observation made to the business world indicates that the evolution in technology allows global expansion of corporations since monitoring and evaluation can be done telegraphically. Business meetings, audit sessions, annual stakeholder meetings, and inquiries are made through teleconferences and video calls. Education institutions also offer courses through online platforms. The same case applies to the terror cells. They use online communication forums to make plans and follow up on the progress of their activities.
Remote control of technologies is useful in monitoring devices while away from their location. In the past, the extremists have relied on suicide bombers to execute bombings. However, the improvement of technology in the remote triggering of devices allows attackers to leave devices in the target attack area and leave then trigger the explosion after they are at a safe distance. Other devices used have timers that allow them to escape before the bomb goes off. Moreover, access to a wide range of global professionals in different fields provides opportunities for diverse methods of attacks. The use of bio-weapons is a common trend.
Radicalization
Enrollment, radicalization, and impelling to terrorism might be seen as focuses along a continuum (Conway, Jarvis, & Lehane, 2017). Radicalization alludes essentially to the cycle of inculcation that regularly goes with the change of volunteers into people resolved to act with brutality dependent on fanatic philosophies. The cycle of radicalization includes the utilization of publicity, regardless of whether imparted face to face or through the internet. The period and the adequacy of the purposeful publicity and other powerful methods utilized fluctuate contingent upon singular conditions and connections.
In institutions of learning, the introduction of a course concept aims at expanding the mind of the learner regarding the applications of the course. Similarly, the introduction of the ideology of terrorism and crime through the internet and other technologies creates curiosity among new populations. The continuous publicity of the activities and agendas attract interested parties who may have never been involved if they did not have the exposure. Terrorism gives the oppressed the ideology to react to their oppressors through radical ways such as violence. The spread of propaganda misappropriates information, which influences the radicalization of followers.
Cyberattacks
Cybercrimes diversify and increase as innovations and inventions in technology continue. Previously discussed in ways of sourcing funds, ransomware is a common attack among terrorists over the internet. Considerably, it is an easy way of attack that has a minimal risk because one can execute from any location as long as they have internet access. The malicious attacks affect the software applications of the target institution or agency for access to intelligence or as a means for negotiation. Other forms of cyber crimes are hacking into important amenities such as hospitals and traffic controls, spreading propaganda about a target group, and the use of online games as scamming schemes.
Use of websites for intelligence insight
As per United States public law, open-source knowledge is delivered from freely accessible data that is gathered, broke down, and scattered in an ideal way. Moreover, it tends to a particular insight prerequisite. Intelligence agencies and departments use open-source tracking to investigate likely weaknesses in benevolent organizations so they can be remediated (Williams, & Blum, 2018). Several possible weaknesses include accessible back doors on applications, recovery of deleted data, restructuring destroyed data storage or recording devices, and tracing of data prints over different websites.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) started as a little social equality law office. Today, SPLC is globally known for its resistance instruction programs, its lawful triumphs against racial oppressors, and its track of scorn gatherings (Phadke, Lloyd, Hawdon, Samory, & Mitra, 2018). Since its commencement, SPLC has attempted to make the country’s Constitutional beliefs a reality. The SPLC legitimate office battles all types of separation and attempts to secure society’s most weak individuals, dealing with creative cases that a couple of legal advisors are happy to take. The SPLC Intelligence Project screens inciteful gatherings and tracks fanatic movement throughout the United States.
The Anti-Defamation League was established in 1913 to stop the slander of the Jewish public and to tie down equity and reasonable treatment to all. Today it is the world’s driving association fighting the enemy of Semitism, uncovering disdain gatherings, preparing law authorization on scorn wrongdoings, creating against predisposition training programs for understudies, countering digital disdain, and perseveringly seeking after equal rights for all. An innovator in the improvement of materials, projects, and administrations, ADL constructs scaffolds of correspondence, comprehension, and regard, bringing out its main goal through an organization of 26 workplaces over the United States and a satellite office in Israel (League, 2018).
Gathering Intel through open-source intelligence requires an updated system that is keen to identify new weaknesses and accesses to the hidden communications done by terrorists. Significantly, the programs used should ensure that the analysis is fast to act on urgent matters in preventing an impending attack. However, caution is paramount while investigating sources to avoid falling prey to the terrorists’ malware and cyber attacks. Additionally, the proper analysis should be done before declaring a threat to avoid mistaken identity cases.
References
Conway, M., Jarvis, L., & Lehane, O. (Eds.). (, 2017). Terrorists’ Use of the Internet: Assessment and Response (Vol. 136). Ios Press.
League, A. D. (2018). ADL. Nd). Murder and extremism in the United States in.
Phadke, S., Lloyd, J., Hawdon, J., Samory, M., & Mitra, T. (2018, October). Framing hate with hate frames: Designing the codebook in Companion of the 2018 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (pp. 201-204).
Williams, H. J., & Blum, I. (2018). Defining second-generation open-source intelligence (OSINT) for the defense enterprise. RAND Corporation Santa Monica United States.