Terrorism and the Internet: New Media—New Threat?

‘Terrorists use the Internet just like everybody else’ –Richard Clarke – former White House cyber security chief1 THIS article is centrally concerned with what Resnick describes as ‘Political uses of the Net’, the employment of the Internet by ordinary citizens, political activists, organised interests, governments and others to achieve political goals which has little or nothing to do with the Internet per se.2 Specifically, the focus here is on the use(s) made of the Internet by terrorist groups based primarily (though not exclusively) on the United Kingdom’s experience. What are terrorist groups attempting to do by gaining a foothold in cyberspace? A small number of researchers have addressed this question in the past 5 years.3 Probably the best known of these analyses is Gabriel Weimann’s report for the US Institute of Peace entitled www.terrorism.net: How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet (2004). Weimann identifies eight major ways in which, he says, terrorists currently use the Internet. These are psychological warfare, publicity and propaganda, data mining, fund raising, recruitment and mobilization, networking, information sharing and planning and coordination.4 Having considered Weimann’s categorisation in conjunction with those suggested by Cohen, Furnell and Warren and Thomas,5 the analysis below relies upon what have been determined to be the five core terrorist uses of the Net: information provision, financing, networking, recruitment and information gathering. Each of these is explained and analysed in more detail below.