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Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Internet Contains Worse of Humanity

The Internet contains the best products of humanity.

Unfortunately, the Internet also contains the worse products of humanity:

Child Pornography, Pedophilia Terror Racism, Hate speech and Holocaust

denial Crime-facilitating speech Cyber-bullying

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The Internet as Facilitator The Internet is a great socialization

tool. The anonymity factor plays a

significant role. The Internet helps people who

conspire to carry out vile actions to explore and try violent activities.

It brings together like-minded people and creates a forum for them to discuss and exchange ideas.

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Relevant Factors

History Culture Law Morality

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Terror

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September 11, 2001

September 11 and other terrorist operations were facilitated by the Internet.

September 11, 2001- M.G. Interview Al Qaeda gathered information from the Internet

about the US, learned the methods US dealt with terrorism, its soft spots, targets.

Al Qaeda adjusted their operations accordingly. Its activists refrained from using cell phones, as

they knew cell phones could be traced. Instead, they used prepaid phone cards.

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September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda used email to transmit messages between the

terrorists.  AL Qaeda activists were looking for American flight

schools on the Internet, while they were in Germany.  They made some of the flight reservations via the

Internet.  The terrorists used public libraries terminals for

communications and data. In addition, they used phone cards, and face-to-face

meetings in Spain.

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September 11, 2001 The operation was scheduled for the Fall of 2001. Mohammad Atta wanted it to be after Labor Day, as one

of the targets was the Congress which resumes its session after Labor Day.

They were looking for transatlantic flights, as they wanted the airplanes to be with maximal oil load.

They preferred Boeing airplanes over Airbus, as Atta believed they were easier to operate.

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September 11, 2001 They were looking for First Class seats for

20 passengers. At that time, Tuesday was the relatively

less busy day. Thus, September 11 became the day. It was a logistic decision, not symbolic.

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Charity Charity organizations in the USA were in the service of

the Hezbollah until they were closed down. Hezbollah is known for using charity organizations in the

USA. Al Qaeda did not use charity organizations for its

funding. No connections were found between NGOs and Al

Qaeda for the planning and execution of 9/11.

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E-jihad The term E-jihad refers to the way

information technology is applied by groups such as al-Qaeda in order to organize logistics for their campaigns, through the application of email and encrypted files, as well as a means for developing their own strategic intelligence.

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Al Qaeda Members of Al Qaeda are sending each other

thousands of messages in a password-protected section of agreed-upon websites

Sometimes they simply take over legitimate sites In the wake of September 11, Internet providers

shut down several sites associated with Dr. Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, mentor of bin Laden

Terror Videos

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Haganah (Defence) Haganah, http://haganah.org/, a US-based

pro-Zionist website run by Aaron Weisburd, tracks down jihadi sites and informs their ISPs that they are hosting a terrorist site, which usually ensures it is closed down immediately.

Haganah has shut down more than 700 jihadi sites

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Jihadi Net – P.M. Interview Young students talk in chat rooms about

jihadi issues. Many of them are Muslims. Their knowledge of Islam is limited. Those young people are emotionally-driven

by images from Iraq and Palestine. They become motivated and wish to

retaliate.

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Jihadi Net Generally speaking, they do not have

theological training. In the chat rooms, they converse about

Islam, jihad, Iraq, Israel-Palestine. The scope of this phenomenon is broad.

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jihadi websites Most jihadi websites have several sections. The most important and largest is usually the

religion section, which contains fatwas explaining who can be targeted legitimately.

Quranic references to jihad, the different ways jihad can be expressed, aspects of martyrdom, and online doctrinal consultations with religious sages.

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jihadi websites

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jihadi websites In the jihad section, would-be recruits are

encouraged to join the battle. Some general advice is given, e.g., the best

routes into Iraq, names and locations of sympathetic mosques in neighbouring countries.

Galleries of martyr portraits are accompanied by their last wills and testaments, often in the form of a video

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jihadi websites Most sites have IT section where contributors

are urged to share their knowledge and develop new ways of using cyberspace to further the cause of jihad.

The bulletin boards or chat rooms are by far the most popular forums on jihadi websites.

Visitors can add comments or reply to ongoing conversations and debates.

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jihadi websites Many jihadi sites have a women’s section. Wives and mothers are urged to support

their men in jihad and help them in the psychological battle against what one site described as that disease –

the weakness which loves life and hates death.

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Use of Internet by Terrorists Providing Information (English, Arabic,

other languages, according to the audience);

Seeking Legitimacy; Propaganda and Indoctrination – use of

cameras, chat rooms; Psychological warfare – videos to evoke

fear; violence; Socialization, networking and motivation -

use chatrooms to create virtual community, and motivate people to take violent actions against the West;

Seeking support;11:24:53 PM 25

Use of Internet by Terrorists Spreading tactics – the first beheading in

Iraq showed on the Internet motivated copy-cat actions in other countries. Beheading is not part of the culture and tradition in Thailand. The Internet facilitated this knowledge and idea.

Instructions and online manuals; spreading tactics;

Planning of activities and coordination; Training how to build bombs – significant but

not as the uses of propaganda and motivation.

Fund raising and Money laundering;11:24:53 PM 26

Use of Internet by Terrorists Facilitation – like us, terrorists use the

Internet to organize their travel, to communicate, to find information;

Most fund raising is done person to person – going to an individual and ask for money. Some Internet sites were used to raise money, but this is not a prevalent phenomenon;

Recruitment – a growing phenomenon; Cyber-terrorism

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On March 23, 1996, the Terrorist's Handbook was posted on the Web, including instructions on how to make a powerful bomb.

The same bomb was used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Robert Litt, of the U.S. Justice Department's Criminal Division, observed that only hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, someone posted on the Internet directions -- including a diagram -- explaining how to construct a bomb of the type that was used in that tragic act of terrorism. 

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No doubt that some of the bomb cases were inspired by the Internet.

The criminals and terrorists took the recipes from the Internet.

But the US is willing to pay this price. It is a free speech issue.

“The government should not tell us what to do. We cherish freedom in this country and wish to retain it to the maximum”.

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Pipe bombs are fairly easy to make, but you can also make them out of cars, trucks, stink bombs, mail, fuel-air, laser guided, fertilizer, molotov, dust, flour, pipe, M-80, you name it. You can make bombs out of all sorts of things, but I'm not going to tell you how. In fact, I haven't got a clue how, but that doesn't stop people from stopping by to ask. I used to have "bomb making instructions" as the title of my home page (even though I have no idea how to make bombs and never distributed such information). I just love salting search engines with titilating drivel. It was always interesting to crawl through the web log files looking for how many people followed links from search engines looking for bomb making information. There are sometimes a few government and news sites in the logs. More recently, I found entries for people from the following

Source: http://www.swcp.com/~mccurley/bomb_making.html

ABORTIONISTS: the baby butchers

Lawson Akpalonu (CA) Ben Graber (FL) Norman M. Neches (DC)

Edward Allred (CA) William Graham (LA) James Newhall (OR)

Kevin W. Alexander (DC) Marshall Grandy (TX) Richard S. Newman (DC)

Eduardo Aquino (TX) Richard P. Green (DC) Mark Nichols (OR)

Gostal Arcelin (FL) Thomas H. Gresinger (VA) Mario Ochoa (TX)

(SEND US MORE NAMES!) David A. Grimes (SEND US MORE NAMES!)

Carl L. Armstrong (OH) Jay M. Grodin (MD, VA) Soo-Young Oh (MD)

Ali Azima (FL) David Gunn (Fl) Tati I. Okereke (NY)

(SEND US MORE NAMES!) R.V. Guggemheim (OR) (SEND US MORE NAMES!)

Fritz Bailey (CA) Tom Gunter (CA) Kathleen A. Olson

Carlos Baldocedas (IL) Moshe Hacamovitch (TX) G.W. Orr (NE)

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Shutting Down Websites

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Arguments for and against Shutting Down Websites Against Shutting Down: Free

expression Futility – mirror sites, different servers Source of information for security officers Difficult to track down sites, hence there

is interest to keep them viable For Shutting Sites: facilitate criminal

activity; Scope of audience: An American server

cannot be equated to a server in Yemen11:24:54 PM 33

Shutting Down Websites

From discussions with security experts I gather this is not the preferred option.

They would like to keep an eye open on such sites

“We shut down a website on an American server and they might reopen the same site on a Chinese server. Then it might be more difficult for us to track it.

I want to watch certain people, how they use the Internet”.

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FBI Strategy

“Our general approach is to look at people.

We receive information about individuals who might risk security and follow their actions, including on the Internet.

We examine the sites they surf. Typically we do not monitor the Net.

We go after people who we suspect, not websites. If the bad people go to sites, we follow them”.

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The official American stance is: “We do not monitor”.

The problem of monitoring is perhaps less daunting than it might first appear. 

Weisburd’s latest count of members of jihadi forums: 50,000 members

about 10% are the "active minority" who are of concern, that's 5,000.

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estimated 1,000 such individuals in Europe.

Divide that 1,000 by all the countries in Europe, and the problem is manageable.

It is possible to identify and investigate each one of  these people.

Whether we accurately assess the degree to which they pose a threat is another matter.

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US Strategy

Internet providers are -- generally speaking -- helpful and cooperative.

They don’t want to have terrorist contents on their servers.

But they do not see it as their responsibility to monitor their server for such content.

The communication between US security agencies and them is sensitive.

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US Strategy

The security agency’s recommendation might be conceived as pressure.

They had some issues over the interpretation of their requests.

They said “Think it over” and the providers were alarmed by the fact that the security agency approached them and considered such approach as “pressure”.

“It is a delicate issue.”11:24:55 PM 39

Internet providers should have integrity teams, instructing providers to take off inappropriate content.

There should be, for example, internal mechanisms against posting bomb recipes, against vile video clips like beheadings.

The US government is unlikely to impose liability on them.

There should be awareness, and discussions about moral responsibility.

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The careful terrorists use encryption when they exchange images

Without the key, it is very difficult to decode the image

Encryption is the best friend of all people involved in illegal activities: Child-pornographers, terrorists and criminals.

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There is no form of encryption that cannot be cracked by someone, somewhere, given enough time and hardware

However,  decrypting what you need to decrypt, when you need to decrypt it, may not be possible.

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Remedies

EducationDenying LegitimacyISPs ResponsibilityReaders’ awareness and responsibility

Exposing of hatred that might lead to terror

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Remedies

We need to better understand the Internet’s social networking.

My Space. Facebook, Yahoo! Groups. Geocities.

What are the implications of these tools on terrorism?

People tend to say on the Internet things they do not usually say or write via other communication means in public.

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Remedies

International cooperation between governments as well as between governments and Internet Service Providers.

Business Ban Legislation and Precedents Monitoring Websites Removing Harmful Content CleaNet

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Remedies

Introducing a different rationale:

Instead of free highway, social responsibility

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The Threats of the Internet

Global solution for

global problem

Intelligence

Business ban

Individual/ISPs

Who’s

Responsible

?

FromFrom Alberto Ríos/Alberto Ríos/In Us This In Us This DayDaySometimes, we are brutal and dark green.We are the fishhook thorns on the wild cactus.But sometimes as well, we are the sky itself, That great blue living room filled with endless

spaceIn every direction there is to see.  We are,As things turn out, the answer and the

problem both.Every day we must choose our suit of clothes.

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On the occasion of the Inauguration of On the occasion of the Inauguration of Janet NapolitanoJanet NapolitanoGovernor of the State of Arizona Governor of the State of Arizona January 2003 January 2003

We are in a border time,

The border between countries, between centuries,

The border between yesterday and tomorrow,

What we have been and what we are going to be…

We should not try to predict the future—

Instead, let us make it, and let us make it our own.

Governor 11:24:56 PM 49

Thank you

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