"Social Media" - Do you know if you are being recruited as a pawn in the game of terror?

Ann Painter, Caleb Lowry, CJ Lay

 

 FBI Cyber-Crime Website

Cyber Terrorism has been on the rise in the last decade with all of the advancements in technology and the knowledge base is evolving with the use this outlet.  Even a basic computer virus could hold the key to a plan to another horrifying attack like 9/11 on US soil. With Domestic and International terrorisms on the rise one has to be aware of how you could be recruited or used as a pawn. The Boston Marathon Bombing is a recent example of this. Terrorist groups have put together a massive following with the use of the internet and social media, terrorists use chat rooms, you tube and Facebook to do their recruiting as well as use these social media tools to gain intelligence.  There has been a lot of recent media on the investigations into social media terrorism.

Recruiting Terrorists With Chat Rooms

Advances in cyber communication including chat rooms made it easier for terrorist groups to organize.  The first chat room was available in 1974 then publicly available chat threads in 1980.  Chat rooms were the popular route for recruiting prior to the outbreak of social sites and disposable emails addresses.  The recruits for these terrorist groups are groomed through the various websites and private chat rooms.  The private chat rooms in Paltalk has become a popular communications for tactical information and generate support amongst the different terrorist groups.  These chat rooms have both message and video capabilities. Paltalk has just been introduced with the rest of the world lately because of the investigation from the PRISM Company.  They were put on the watch list due to a large amount of traffic during the ongoing Syrian Civil war.  In my research, Paltalk kept popping up in most of my research with being investigated for terrorist activities and communications violations (Tsukayama, 2013). 

Chat rooms are tools for terrorists.  Younes Tsouli was an internet terrorist between 2003 and 2007.  Tsouli received a nickname of Irhabi 007 because of his savvy ways on the internet.  He started joining different internet forums for terrorists and posted instructional manuals for computer hacking.  After posting on these different chat room forums he was recruited by al-Qaeda leaders to work on their online operations.  He published bomb making manuals and suicide bombing operations for al-Qaeda on their forums.  Tsouli was caught in 2006 after he hacked into Arkansas state government website.  He was posting Al-Qaeda propaganda and beheading videos on the website (Weimann, 2011).    

Recruiting Terrorists With YouTube

The blue print of terrorism has changed tremendously from its original make-up.  With all of the advancements in technology this was bound to happen.  With the accessibility of the World Wide Web, terrorism has gone global in communication and has taken the front seat.  With the advancements in technology and the distribution of the news, it has leaded the Muslim community to be more aware of their battle with the world.  This flood of information has sparked an all-out feud with less than aware Muslim activists and who they would call “Infidels”.  With a higher number of terrorists coming from wealthy families in the Middle East, this advancement has made it easier to recruit poverty stricken candidates to join the fight. 

Terrorists have seen how successful the media and internet have been and have adopted these forms to aid in their endeavors.  The FBI has had many confirmations of Al-Qaida and other known associates of theirs using Facebook and YouTube to connect with each other.   It has been noted that terrorists have used the social network as a catalyst and recruitment element to build their numbers.  This was Osama Bin Laden’s key asset in his war agent the US campaign.  Numerous terrorist cells utilize YouTube for an abundance of recruiting assists and intimidation tactics.  YouTube on numerous occasions has been asked to remove these posts, but it is understood that by removing these video will futile; thus as access to other facets of social media would be used.  Affiliates understand by leaving these communications up, awareness to this behavior is more imperative.  So a viable question to this dilemma would be; “Does YouTube support Terrorists, or does YouTube support the War on Terrorism?” 

Recruiting Terrorists With FaceBook.

Cyber-terrorists hide their activities. In fact, cyber-terrorists use methods that are extremely difficult for law-laden Western counter terrorism experts to locate. If you add the vast array of social networking sites you have a very big problem with recruiting and the spread of terrorist information (Ayers, 2009). Facebook can be used by terrorist groups to expand networks and exchange real-time information, enabling operatives to organize and act quickly (304th Ml Bn OSINT Team, 2008). Terrorist groups spread messages by creating pages and establishing a good “like” base, this page spreads to other users and gains exposure. Organizations will also use Facebook to recruit the “lone-wolf” operative and then further use it to keep in contact with that operative.

There are dangers in liking Facebook pages. First, by liking pages on Facebook you allow the page to access your information (to include personal information found on your page) making it more likely to be hacked. Second, by liking a page you also run the risk of downloading a virus (malware, spyware, Trojan) from the content found within the page. Third, since you have liked their page they now have access to see other pages you have liked. A study by Cambridge (Kosinski, Stillwell, & Graepel, 2013) reviewed 58 thousand Facebook users’ profiles and with surprising accuracy was able to decipher personal details about the users from just the pages they liked. Terrorists could also review your likes to further compromise Facebook users. Terrorists could then use this information to make assumptions about you to lure you into their group and recruit you based off the information they deduced from your Facebook.

Social media has proven to be a successful tool for both terrorists and those who fight the war against terrorism.  This media outlet has taken the power of the freedom of speech to a new level.  We cannot stop the progression of the world’s technical evolution, but it is a must to stay one step ahead of the game.  Anyone can be targeted and sometimes we do not even know it is happening. Terrorists have put together a massive following with the use of the internet and social media, terrorists use chat rooms, you tube and Facebook to do their recruiting as well as use these social media tools to gain intelligence. We need to be aware of what is going on around us to include the digital realm as well. We are in the age of “connection” but not all the connections are good or positive ones.

References

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