Thursday, August 04, 2005

Terrorism Online

Neil Doyle, an author who studies the way terrorists use the internet, says they've developed an effective propaganda machine that can't easily be stopped. Among other uses, they post gruesome videos celebrating terrorist attacks. "Quite often these films come out within hours of the attacks taking place," Doyle says. "And yeah, they hot foot it back to upload the video to the Internet, and it gets beamed and broadcasted to essentially millions of people around the world." One suspect in the recent London bombings is running a "virtual online Jihad training camp. And it's a complete indoctrination course. And you can effectively become a terrorist by distance learning." Shutting down the sites is almost impossible because as soon as it gets taken down, it pops up again at a new location. "it almost becomes a matter of whacking the mole or chasing our own tail if we pursue that as our principal method," says internet security expert Michael Vatis.

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