Information Warfare: November 14, 2003

Archives

There are hundreds of pro-al Qaeda web sites out there, not all of them visible (the URLs for these are not passed around freely and some of the sites are only "live" for a few hours a week.) But there are many public sites, and U.S. intelligence officials have been trying to prevent anti-al Qaeda hackers from knocking these web pages down. The reason is simple; the al Qaeda web sites are a good source of intelligence information. Some have probably already been "bugged" by CIA or NSA (National Security Agency) hackers. The messages posted to those sites provide a good source of information on what al Qaeda supporters think, and a well "bugged" (via special monitoring software) site can lead to the location of al Qaeda members or supporters. Al Qaeda knows this sort of thing is going on, but there's not much they can do to stop it. The United States has much better hacking resources than al Qaeda, but the Internet is so useful for terrorists to keep in touch with each other that they use it despite the risks. And the risks are real, with several instances of al Qaeda members being run to ground because of their Internet use. 

 

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close