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Researcher Says Social Networks Link Terrorists
An anonymous reader writes "At the International Conference on Cyber Security 2009 in New York, Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator and private consultant for Global Terror Alert, claimed that a new breed of terrorists are using online forums to recruit people who align themselves with the mission of Al Qaeda, creating global networks of would-be terrorists."
Just another article stating FUD. Nothing to see here, move along. Might as well also get rid of online forums, USENET, and telephones.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
I've heard that terrorists also speak to people to recruit new members!
We should stop right now the use of language.
How many stories like this do we have to read? When will the internets finally be recognised as a medium rather than an entity?
As soon as government agencies begin to properly recognise this fact, they will be able to operate within the medium, making use of its strengths and weaknesses, instead of fearing it the whole damned time. Did it never occur that social networking sites offer an excellent means of infiltrating "would-be terrorist" networks? Anonymity works both ways.
Just my 0.02.
Meta will eat itself
So the jist of this article is several semi-permanent chatrooms have been identified where proto-terrorists gather to recruit and discuss strategy, and they want to take these down??!!!
That's perverse. Why on earth would you want to take out honeypots that your foes are kind enough to set up for you?
This is just the government looking for a new way to view the people's email in any way they can. They will keep making new stories and attach the work "terrorist" to it, so that they can get a free pass to peek inside the area. First it was phones (obviously), and now they do warrantless wiretaps (and get away with it). Then it was laptops, now they can confiscate your laptop at the border for about as long as they want to. Now it's social sites... Anyone see a trend here? Now before I finish I will say that the government does need some of these options under certain circumstances, but not a free pass to view whatever they want, whenever they want.
Obviously the number one method for recruiting, arming, and gathering terrorists is good old green backs! Money the number one tool for terrorism; guess we need to ban that shit too.