Terrorist and Rebel use of IT

Jorge Alberto Yang PaiDavid Vidri

IT uses:Internet

GPSEncryptionCell phones

IT use: The Internet

• The internet has opened many doors for a variety of stakeholders, such as:– Students: Education– Scientists: Investigation– Teachers: Teaching, learning– Business: Communication, transaction, cyber market– Terrorists: Ease of access, lack of regulations, vast

audiences, fast flow of data & communication, anonymity, etc.

Terrorism and the Internet: Ease of access

Ease of access is the fact that as large range of people can access an amount of information, even from the most remote location there is. Meaning that terrorists can hack almost anyone’s information/data an steal it or modify it so that it benefits their cause. So the internet can be a help to terrorists but terrorizing to society.

Terrorism and the Internet: Lack of Regulation

The lack of regulation is a very important factor in cyber terrorism, as it allows these people to access any/all data they need. And if they find themselves blocked by anything, within moments there is a new key to open more and more doors. Often within a company (or a group of data) once you’ve unlocked the first door the rest are protected less. There are countries that have little of none internet regulation, so which laws would you be breaking if the communication, virus, etc. is sent internationally.

Terrorism and the Internet: Vast Audiences (+ their ignorance)

A large percentage of the population of the world has access to the internet, meaning that if a virus is placed at a few locations, in no time it may have spread around the world infecting loads of computers that may contain important data. And worse a large majority of the people are highly ignorant in IT, meaning that they could easily be fooled into phishing, spyware, etc.

Terrorism and the Internet: Fast Flow of Data & Communication

• The internet is basically known as a communication source, that allows individuals to talk to each other across the world within seconds. Therefore it makes it easier for terrorists to plan and execute an operation. By this you cannot find a real clan of people planning as it is not really necessary, one can be even at the scene that they want to cause damage.

Terrorism and the Internet: Anonymity

Anonymity is the important factor in cyber terrorism as it is extremely difficult to find these persons as with the use of laptops they can change their location in a matter of minutes (even seconds) even though they have a single IP address. And if they are in a remote location to send a squad search they might have left the area long before they are reached. There are also cyber-coffees that stop you from knowing the exact person who used the computer at the time the virus (or others) was sent.

IT use: GPS

Rebels or terrorist can have easy access to GPS through internet or stealing the system, in the use of GPS they can locate places where they can target them and define a strategy to attack. Anyone can use signals from GPS satellites to launch nuclear weapons, which can be bought or stolen. A terrorist can launch a cruise type missile and guide it by a commercially available packaged.The use of GPS can guide missiles to target destruction which means that terrorist and rebels have the advantage of attacking the world without moving from their hideout which this complicates on their capture

IT use: Encryption

Encryption is a very powerful tool within the internet, and if most terrorist had the capability to use the software effectively we would all be in huge trouble. Encryption acts as an extremely secure password, which would take a very long time to decrypt. They could use the encryption methods to have a totally spy-proof communication from places far apart. With out the necessary none-use of keywords that could possibly alert the anti-terrorist systems. Words such as “Bomb”, “Osama Bin Laden”, “President”, etc.

IT use: Cell Phones

Cell phones are mechanisms used in the modern days for communication. Communication are linked between pairs of mobile phones or land line phone, therefore rebels and terrorism can communicate between their accomplices from different nation, which this automatically can cut down the need to travel from country to country if they are needed to communicate. Another advantage for the rebels and terrorist is that nowadays, modern cell phones have the ability to send and receive pictures and photographs which rebels and terrorists can use this method to send pictures to their accomplices and see who is their target and to who they are attacking.

IT use: Cell Phones

Rebels and terrorists have the ability to surveill people communication by interfering the phone signals. This can be very helpful for them because they would know about anything and future plans from the people. For instance if the rebels and terrorists decides to interfere with US communication, they would know what are they planning, where might they attack, who are they planning to arrest, hearing classified files etc. In more killing method, rebels and terrorists can use mobile phones to create a single personal bomb; they can replace the speaker of the phone with the detonator of the phone, so when the phones receives the signal of call and send electricity where the speaker normally is to produce the sound, instead of producing a sound it would explode affecting its surrounding.

IT use: Google Earth

Google earth is a type of program which shouldn’t be accessed from the internet for any user. This is because it is based on satellite photo shooting of the earth structure and country location. Therefore if rebels and terrorists have easy access to this program, they would know better about the earth structure and plan some sort of attack to a specific nation that can cause a vital damage. Other advantage for the rebels and terrorists is that they would know the exact location if they are planning on kidnap someone important, for instance the US president, the rebels and terrorists would see in what building is he located, plan some strategies to avoid eye contact from the guards and polices, see what transportation could be use and what road to take to go to the building and leave the building.