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When Criminals and Terrorists Communicate In Real Time
theodp writes "CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen notes that the assault on the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi by armed gunmen 'was the first major terrorist attack in history in which the group that mounted the operation used Twitter to announce to the world it was responsible. The group then quickly tweeted what its rationale was for the attack and also gave operational details of the assault — all in real time.' During the massacre, a Twitter account purportedly used by the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab tweeted, 'Like it or loathe it! our mujahideen confirmed all executions were point blank range!' The group also wrote, '#Westgate: a 14-hour standoff relayed in 1400 rounds of bullets and 140 characters of vengeance and still ongoing. Good morning Kenya!' So, what's in store for our brave new world of Social Media? 'The next logical step,' fears Bergen, 'will be for terrorists to cover their deadly operations using their own real-time live video feeds linked to sites such as Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. If that happens, terrorist attacks will become a form of theater in which terrorists not only get to write the play but also act as the primary producers of the coverage of the event.'"
You're with us, or you're with the twitterists!
I think the Westgate attack has simply strengthened Kenya's resolve to sort out Somalia, and has turned even more people against the militants.
If they start doing live feeds and start "controlling" reporting of the events they'll just make even more people hate them and make people even more determined to defeat them.
Terrorism is about as effective as torture.
Aside from the question of who gets to act as producer, how is this different from using CNN to do the same thing?
cut the feeds, and fu... the press, and you get a lot less terorism
communicate in real-time faster than anybody else: it's called high-frequency trading.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
What is the news in this story? What deep insight into the problem of terrorism did Peter Bergen just provide? This is recycled old news with superficial and obvious interpretation. Why do we keep hearing from idiots that are being sold to us as experts?
Drama queens...
First we have fake girl nerds, now we have fake terrorist nerds.
GO AWAY YOU PEOPLE CAN'T BE NERDS GO PLAY WITH YOUR SAND.
If that happens, terrorist attacks will become a form of theater in which terrorists not only get to write the play but also act as the primary producers of the coverage of the event.
CNN and other news outlets are simply demanding to be in charge of the coverage themselves - the terrorists showing and explaining their own actions is a challenge to their oligopoly! Also, it makes it impossible for the US State Dept to go to the major media outlets and politely ask them to adjust the coverage to something more to the current administration's (whoever the current administration happens to be, this isn't Obama-specific) liking.
Major media outlets don't really hate massive disasters and horrific violence, because both of those drive up ratings. In fact, if there's nothing major going on, they'll do their best to take a relatively minor affair and describe it as a massive disaster, for precisely that purpose.
I am officially gone from
I am surprised it hasn't occurred already with other cam systems.
Me thinks, a conspiracy to commit murder this massive and this blatant, for reasons this nebulous, and with attitude this obnoxious, deserves punishment, that's harsher than an ordinary death penalty...
And not even for the actual murderers, whom I would allow to die in battle, but the jerks cheering them and goading them on — like this little twit behind the tweeter account. A simple needle or firing squad is not enough...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Wasn't there a terrorist attack elsewhere in Africa a few months ago where the people involved were tweeting about it?
May have been the same organization - I think it was an attack in Mogadishu?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
(@$$holes gaming the system to make a few more bucks) != (@$$holes trying to subjugate the entire western world under the banner of Islam)
Jihadists' menu of alternatives for non-believers of Islam:
1) Convert to Islam
2) Pay jizyah ("infidel tax")
3) Separate your head from the rest of your body and put it on camera to remind others why you should opt for 1) or 2).
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
The next time a terrorist does this, start up a twitter handle mocking them.
So, in the future, terrorists will sacrifice considerable amounts of operational secrecy because they are wannabe-mediagenic attention whores? Isn't this a terribly convenient development, for everyone except the wannabe-mediagenic attention whores who are currently paid by news channels to bloviate mindlessly on the minimal information available 24/7, without pause, until substantive information becomes available, which terrifies them and drives them back to celebrity gossip?
More likely they'll use a platform like Ustream if they want to put up live video.
It provides authorities information, and evidence, which can facilitate stopping them, or at least convicting them afterwards
Fortunately the ability to tweet about atrocities like these will soon be a thing of the past in the emerging surveillance state.
This might sound like a great idea at first, but remember what happened to Howard Beale. I'm warning you, terrorists: you can go on killing people, but DO NOT fuck with primal forces of nature.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This will work the first time, maybe. After that, the feeds will be shut off quickly.
I could see real-time terrorists being fed a honeytrap version of social media, tailored for them, with certain... inaccuracies for their enjoyment. THAT would be a sensible employment of the NSA's computer power.
I'm not seeing a downside to this. It's not like they are getting good PR out of it. Anything that gets information out of the control of the main stream media, and lets people make up their own minds is a good thing. It's OK for us to listen to their message, and condemn them when we decide that it is evil on our own. We don't need CNN to do that for us.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
What the fuck it the point of this fluff piece? First time in history? This ass hat seems to forget the number of times past terrorists have grabbed a bullhorn, microphone, or TV camera crew to get their message out.
Peter Bergen and CNN need to just SFTU with their opinions and interpretations and just report FACTS, NEWS! This story is not a fact and it is not news!
Criminals have communicated in real time for ages. Whether in person, by telephone, by telegraph, by radio, by television, by megaphone, or by right of the office they hold.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
How does promoting terrorism fit into Twitter's TOS?
Couldn't they just stop letting these idiots send their stuff out? From the sounds of it, they know the accounts.
Sure, they'd probably just create a new account, but I'd think they'd have to let people know what it is.
I'm sure Twitter can yank your account for far less than telling the world in detail how you're killing innocent people -- because, let's face it, the people they're attacking have NOTHING to do with what they're upset about.
By their stupid logic, anybody else who is pissed off at Muslim extremists should be able to just blow up a mosque and say it's in retaliation for this shit and call it fair game.
Both Mohammed and Allah are assholes if this is what your religion teaches.
Wow - I wonder if there will be an advertising outlet where folks can advertise anything they like. Cigarettes, alcohol, weapons?
I can see the live video feed from these folks becoming a revenue stream for their cause?
Do you want to know more?
True terrorism (as opposed to guerilla actions conveniently labeled as terrorism) has always been theater. How else are masses of people going to get terrorized?
Can be used for good and evil. Its just the nature of humanity.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
One side is callem them terrorists, some other side is calling them freedom fighters.
With freedom of the media you might be able to see both sides from your armchair.
By the way, youtube is a bad example for politcal video's. Youtube takes down objectionable material, and adds advertisements to others. I think liveleak might be a better example.
I believe that most of the 3rd world do not listen to CNN or do they listen to president speeches. Rhetoric and rebuttle is a problem as I am certain that societies that fully understood the arguments would be disgusted by their leaders ignorance. Unfortunately it is the masses, the lowest common denominator, the idiocracy, the mob, that feed the irrational organized terrorism and they have little desire to get educated when confronted with the breadline and minimum wage.
So what does this mean...?
Terrorists will use twitter and other forms of social media. Obtain universal damnation and subsequent richeous retaliation will just feed the flames. Not much will change.
Seriously. Good. I hope they do more of this. If they keep going it will backfire on them faster than a semtex shockwave through the bodies of apostates in the sears tower (hey there NSA: stop reading, start leaking).
I know these guys, some of them, are scholarly and study terrorism. They read books by IRA members, and all that good stuff. They didn't learn some big lessons.
The single biggest lesson the US military learned in Viet Nam was this: Civilians hate real war. Nothing has so turned people against war and against supporting it like seeing the real true brutality of it all over their TV screens and front page.
The US military learned that, which is why, by the time the gulf war happened, reporters were being shuttled around to get to the scene right after the bodies were moved, and real brutality over.
Also.... one disagreement I have with the article is that this is such a huge change, or will change terrorism. It has ALWAYS been a media stunt. Terror attacks are not serious existential threats, they are media grabs. This is just taking it to its next logical step.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"If that happens, terrorist attacks will become a form of theater in which terrorists not only get to write the play but also act as the primary producers of the coverage of the event."
As opposed to:
"If that happens, military intervention will become a form of theater in which governments not only get to write the play but also act as the primary producers of the coverage of the event."
The CNN coverage of the Iraq invasions could be seen as the same thing as in Nairobi - it just depends on what side you stand on.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
.."NSA needs more power".
Fuck THAT.
Swat teams would love it if they had a real time camera on each target. It would be best if they strap it to their head so the swat can sneak up and shoot them in the back.
Anti-terrorist organizations can use the same live technology to show terrorirsts getting captured / killed.
Twitter should be able to better control removal of such content, idk if that encroaches on the 1st amendment though.
I am deeply hurt by your baseless argument and demand a full-out war to be fought to solve this dispute.
Between Armenia and Zimbabwe.
Anyone who has watched Network knows how this will pan out. Still a disturbingly prescient film.
There's nothing like laughing at someone's earnest attempts at political theory or correcting their grammar to belittle their attempts at being taken seriously.
It'll be hard to uStream that attack when you pay for your data by the minute.
"Ahmed, I thought we were on an unlimited plan?"
"We are, Rachman, but we're getting throttled!"
"And why is our username AllahsAngels?"
"If that happens, terrorist attacks will become a form of theater in which terrorists not only get to write the play but also act as the primary producers of the coverage of the event."
Oh, you mean like the US Government is doing?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
A non-American example of sensationalism for a change. I understand this sort of media attention is standard in the US.
Anyway, there's been (very graphic) video letters for ages. Now it's real-time. It's become more even seductive to become engrossed -- like the near-real-time footage of "9/11" going 'round the world. One might even speculate that if it hadn't been so intensively televised then cooler heads might have prevailed and with less retalliation war rhetoric, less actual retalliation wars aren't inconceivable.
But what doesn't change, is that terrorism seeks to strike and instill terror, and if you don't let it, it cannot succeed. A lesson we need to learn very quickly indeed or we won't be able to reign in the vicious circle already spiraling towards complete loss of control.
Finally something Google Glass will actually be good for:(
Surely it is not the money, ideology and indoctrination from your ally Saudi-Arabia which fuels terrorism. Can't be.
"House of Saud, house of Bush" - that's all communist propaganda. Shhhhhuurely.
I wonder who will be the first to buy ads on the live terrorism channel. In the 80's, a friend of mine wrote a short story about a future in which anyone could have their own television channel, with real-time viewer tracking. Money would pour in real time into their bank accounts in proportion to how many viewers their channel had. Then somebody had the idea to do a live murder spree and police chase on their channel, which made them very rich, very quickly. So, yeah, we're getting close.
Takes responsibility for your lunch
You could argue that the US introduced non-stop realtime war porn during the first gulf war. I'm kind of surprised that it's taken this long for other entities to catch up to the propaganda possibilities of doing the same, particularly given how cheap it's become.
If terrorists had some presence on social media, could well-educated users debate them and make them less extremist?
Just pointing out these are Muslims killing non-Muslims. Allah would be proud.
Conservative, mod down for violating
This will throw one more awkward issue into operational planning for terrorists:
"Does this burqua make me look fat?"
Kenya’s National Intelligence Agency (NIS), widely accused by politicians of failing to pick up chatter about the attack, has insisted it did warn the police and officials inside the President’s office before the Westgate siege, but its warnings went unheeded, The Star reported.
According to the same report, a pregnant policewoman avoided Westgate after her brother, who works for Kenyan intelligence, warned her of a terror attack. “She has told police that her brother who is a NIS officer warned her not to visit Westgate that Saturday because she would not be able to run,” a senior officer was quoted as saying.
SOURCE:
Gladio, Gladio, Gladio.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
There's no shortage of schmucks. Seems like every one you kill inspires another three.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I always thought that terrorists and criminals communicating in real time happened during the Pentagon's congressional briefings.
I got here through a series of tubes
wrap them up in pigskin and hang them upside down before letting packs of wild dogs tear them apart. Post that video feed live to all the major news sites, do it early, and do it often. The only thing these mouthbreathers understand is 13th century level violence, so give them what they desire.
September 27, 2013
Hersh On The Osama Raid
What does Seymour Hersh know that we do not know?
Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media
Posted by b on September 27, 2013 at 11:30 AM | Permalink
Comments
That's great, SH, but at this rate the world will have an intelligent and honest discussion about the false flag attacks of 9/11 in say about 2065.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Sep 27, 2013 11:48:12 AM | 1
Here's what I believe, have believed since 2003: we got Bin Laden at Tora Bora. But that was too quick and we needed him to hang around for a while to justify our continued GWOT (global war on terror). The U.S. would put out tapes, reputedly produced by Bin Laden whenever the Bush Admin needed a little "spice" to keep people focused. Obama comes along and decides to "kill" Bin Laden as he is no longer useful; at leaast he can get a boost in the ratings - one last gift the Bin Laden legacy could provide before putting that story to bed. Seriously, where was the body? Where are the photos of the body? We had no problem showing photos of a hanged Saddam, or a tortured Qaddafi, but we wanted to show Bin Laden some respect and dump him in the ocean?? Puhlease...
Posted by: skuppers | Sep 27, 2013 12:01:18 PM | 2
great article on hersh. thanks!
Posted by: james | Sep 27, 2013 12:43:12 PM | 3
Watch for Hersh's sudden and mysterious demise.Hope he prints it quick.
And of course there was some kind of scam,as this whole WOT is a scam.
Posted by: dahoit | Sep 27, 2013 12:43:24 PM | 4
@2
Every level/incident of America's War on Terror has been found to have been based up whole-cloth lies and fabrications - every one - yet we are told to believe that The Event that got everything rolling is the God's honest truth and the mainstream parameters of our discourse are strictly modeled according to said tenet. Humanity can slowly keep peeling the onion for years and years - all the while ever newer layers of incidents/lies accrete and the criminals peacefully die off in their beds - or it can take a huge leap forward and start framing the entire War on Terror - including/beginning with 9/11 - as the largest act of aggressive war since 1939.
Posted by: JSorrentine | Sep 27, 2013 12:45:44 PM | 5
Think about it;From no air defense to tails 1 half? mile away from fuselage,to the twin towers falling exactly? on their footprint,to miraculous passports,to dancing Israelis,24 hr picts of alleged perps,building seven,airline futures,radio screwups,command center screw ups,wreckage shipped to China,the zero in charge,wh
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
A Priest (Or the Pope, depending on your personal views.): 'I do not condone paedophilia, but it's kind of hard for me to keep my message clear when God keeps dropping little boys on my lap.' :-)
The reason this is news is because the journalist just now realizes he himself has been disintermediated.
Who needs a news site if the people in the news are directly communicating with the reader?
The basic unit of direct democracy is the lynch mob.
"When the CIA and Al Quada communicate in real time"
When Criminals and Terrorists Communicate In Real Time: Yeah... It's what happens when *YOU* use any form of telecommunications. Welcome to the new world order.
14-hour standoff relayed in 1400 rounds of bullets and 140 characters of vengeance
The vengeance was delivered using ... ,1400 rounds of bullets , ... , 65 gallons of ink and 200 liters of beer. Somebody has read his Asterix and Cleopatra well.
Will sing a different tune when they are on the receiving end of terror.
getting-CNN-TOPOGRAM-to-jabber-about-you-isn't-enough-anymore dept
It's been awhile, but where are those pesky pedantics!?
--Niscenus. Figuring out password later
Things got hard on Harlan after Bill Gates took over as Satan.
--Flip "the Bird" Farley
Nothing new here, the IRA regularly called Scotland yard to claim responsibility just prior to their attacks, they even had a system of secret code words to prove who was talking. There's no point to an attack if the terrorist tries to hide responsibility, and a claim of responsibility after the attack can be disputed. Like the animals who hacked a solider to death in a busy London street and then started talking to CCTV cameras about 'why', these people want the whole world to know who they are, and why they are pissed. There will be people in Kenyan who sympathised with the 'cause' (at least before the attack), unsurprising if the operation started leaking with so many people involved.
Terror doesn't work, and probably never will, it simply makes the vast majority who survive more determined to kill you. By that I mean, who off the top of their head can remember the stated reason for the murder above? - Most of us don't care, they have gone so far past the point of 'reasonable', we simply dismiss the message as the ramblings of a madman and demand they be removed from OUR society. That's why the mall attack is big news in the western world, we can relate to the situation because nothing says "OUR society" like a giant shopping mall does.. A 'terrorist' attack that wipes out an entire mud-brick town in nearby Sudan or Mali will be uniformly ignored by the MSM.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.