August 6, 2007
Game Technology Used For Evil
It appears that now terrorists have discovered a sure-fire way of training for missions on-line in order to successfully practice their Islam.
From NEWS.com.au:
THE bomb hit the ABC’s headquarters, destroying everything except one digital transmission tower. The force of the blast left Aunty’s site a cratered mess.
Just weeks before, a group of terrorists flew a helicopter into the Nissan building, creating an inferno that left two dead. Then a group of armed militants forced their way into an American Apparel clothing store and shot several customers before planting a bomb outside a Reebok store.
This terror campaign, which has been waged during the past six months, has left a trail of dead and injured, and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars’ damage. The terrorists belong to a militant group bent on overthrowing the government. But they will never be arrested or charged for their crimes because they have committed them away from the reach of the world’s law enforcement agencies, in the virtual world known as Second Life.
Sounds like just another evening on-line for the average advanced adolescent virtual reality game enthusiast, right? Unfortunately, this isn’t the case — this is a summary of terrorists using an on-line game that is purportedly so representative of real life that it makes a perfect training ground not only for the mounting of terror campaigns, but also practice in the manipulation of public perception and other factors of infiltrating a society under false and malevolent pretenses.
Terrorist organisations al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah traditionally sent potential jihadists to train in military camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia. But due to increased surveillance and intelligence-gathering, they are swapping some military training to online camps to evade detection and avoid prosecution.
Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda, says it is a new phenomena that, until now, has not been openly discussed outside the intelligence community.
But he says security agencies are extremely concerned about what home-grown terrorists are up to in cyberspace. He believes the dismantling and disruption of military training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan after September 11 forced terrorists to turn to the virtual world.
“They are rehearsing their operations in Second Life because they don’t have the opportunity to rehearse in the real world,” Gunaratna says. “And unless governments improve their technical capabilities on a par with the terrorists’ access to globalisation tools like the internet and Second Life, they will not be able to monitor what is happening in the terrorist world.”
And they tell me how great the advance of technology is for us. Young people today will often gawk at you like you’re nuts when you tell them how well people got by back in the mid 1960s, when there was no Internet, only a few TV programs were in color, people relaxing at home played games on boards, ponderous telephone directories and yellow pages saw use in every household… And no text messaging, videocam bearing, e-mail accessing, razor-thin, shirt pocket-sized digital wireless phones enabling instant global communication? No way, dude!
Those were the days when corporate security departments didn’t yet have to sweat out the legal and social ramifications of allowing/not allowing employees access to the company database with their own palm devices, the days before hackers threatened the security of both corporations’ proprietary information and John Q. Citizen’s personal finances, before spammers and before…
…Islam realized that said advance of technology is great for terrorism, as well.
What is distressing here, as regards the above linked and quoted article and what it infers, which is quite accurate, is that those charged with our national security are not committing enough resources to preventing acts of terror against not only the U.S., but western countries as a whole.
If every scheme the enemy uses for financing, acquiring weapons, inserting personnel into target countries, training for, prepping and carrying out terrorist missions has already been in effect for some time before our intelligence community stumbles upon it and then relays it into the quagmire of bureaucrats, bean counters, PC politicos and lawyers (to determine how doing anything effective about it will play at the ACLU and CAIR), we’re positively screwed. Self-seeking politicians, PC burdened intelligence, security and law enforcement whips, liberal politicians, lawyers and judges, bureaucrats and bean counters are as much our enemies as…well, the enemy.
The fact that the intelligence community often takes its time about sharing valuable information with the enforcement folks isn’t very reassuring, either. Granted, there are occasions upon which they have to play their proverbial cards close to their chests because actions taken could expose and endanger assets in the field or methods of keeping track of terrorist activities (there-by usurping one role of the New York Times), but this cyber-situation hardly seems such a phenomenon.
This causes me to question the calibre of security decision-makers our tax money is paying for.
It hardly seems unrealistic that they would pay a staff of highly creative, larceny-minded, egomaniacal, mischievous hackers to do nothing but anticipate the enemy on all matters Internet, and determine ways of taking instant action of a close surveillance, disruptive or more decisive covert nature, and in the former two cases worry about the liberal outcry later — the longer we allow these “peaceful” followers of Mohammed the Pedophile to train for “missions”, the more likely we are to experience resultant applied Islam in its consistant form of death and destruction.
I definitely recommend reading the entire linked article.
http://hardastarboard.mu.nu/wp-trackback.php?p=719
August 7th, 2007 at 9:19 am
There has been a fear that Al Qaeda and their cronies would use cyber-terrorism as a means of getting around the strength and success of the military against them. It looks as if it may have begun.
It still boils down to one simple fact that the left will not accept. The only way to stop these Islamo lunatics whether on the web, the Middle east, Middle America or wherever they may be is to kill them before they either kill or destroy us, period. That is why we fight and that is why we will prevail!
August 7th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Ken –
I believe, given our political left’s multiculturalist, PC agendas and their fanaticism for helping bring America down in defeat in the War On Terror, that it will be necessary, if we are to successfully defend this country against terrorism beyond 2008, both next year’s Presidential and Congressional elections need to result in a strong Republican POTUS and a new Republican majority on the Hill.
I’m confident that Congress’ terrible performance and resultant rock bottom ratings by the American people, on the Democrats’ watch, will make the latter a reality, and that given the dubious Presidential offerings coming from the left side of the aisle, the same will apply to the Chief Executive’s office.
What we must hope for is that Republicans in Congress learned something from last November’s election and that more voters keep an eye on what they’re up to.
August 7th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I agree Seth. Democrats have proven and as you said the poll numbers are showing that the American people understand that Dems do not have a clue and that they cannot lead.
The problem in your election scenerio is that while the run for the White House has strong possibilities for the GOP much of the House and Senate consists of RINOS rather tna conservatives which is what I beleive will be needed for the GOP to take back the majority. Otherwise when voters go to the polls they will ask themselves, ” what difference does it make who I put in Congress since neither party does any good.”
The run for the White House has several conservatives with more considering. The Dems have nothing to offer. The Hildabeast is to polarizing. A recent Gallop poll shows that 56% of likely voters can’t stand her. The numbers who don’t trust Obamas lack of experience is about the same, so I don’t think they can win the White House.
Over the next several months Republicans in Congress though are going to have to start showing that they deserve another chance by standing for conservative principles and making strong stances on border security, limiting government and cutting taxes and possibly adopting the Fair Tax. If they grap hold of these three issues they will win the Congress by a land slide because the Dems will continue to do nothing but attack Bush and the war.
August 7th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
hiya Seth!..cyber terror..oh my..one more nail in the dhimmi coffin!
time to get quite serious with our spying abilities if ya ask me.
great find and read..thanks.:)
August 8th, 2007 at 2:14 am
Ken –
That is, indeed, a flaw. However, I believe there is a chance it can be corrected if we voters continue to jump on our senators and representatives whenever they seem to have problems remembering who elected them, and never failing to mention, in our calls, faxes, emails and letters, the reason we took such a big hit in 2006.
We really need to “help” them establish more conservative voting records between now and November 2008. It’s sort of like being an employer who has to look over the shoulder of a problem employee and constantly tell him how to do his job, with the only incentive offerable being that of keeping his job.
It sucks, but it looks like that’s our only option.
Angel –
Methinks the “powers-that-be” are shirking in their duties. They should hire qualified cyber-folks to do nothing but anticipate this sort of thing and work to devise suitable countermeasures.
I’ve even read recently of complaints by local law enforcement agencies’ counterterrorist units that federal agencies are not sharing important intelligence with them (as was part of the deal when these units were set up), thereby making it difficult for them to do the security work for which they were created.
Too much of Homeland Security’s product is pure posturing or the creation of policies that are never implemented. DHS is, in many ways, a fire hose that does not have the requisite amount of water pressure, yet the bureaucracies involved soak up tax money like sponges.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Exellent and shocking (although not surprising) post, Seth. It also goes along with the video I posted regarding some American websites sponsoring terrorists, doesn’t it? Yep, it does indeed look as though cyber-terrorism is on the march. It will only get worse unless - as you say - the powers that be hire qualified folks to work against this. We need the best hackers going in and shutting these people down! Freedom of speech does not apply to terrorists, does it???
August 9th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Gayle –
Thanks.
I thought the same thing about our posts going together when I watched the video.
There’s a mindset in gov’t, I think, that prevents protective agencies from recruiting the best hackers because many if not most have mastered their craft by breaking laws.
In a situation such as that we face today, potential recruiters need to think “War of 1812. Jean La Fitte.”
There are undoubtedly scores of super-hackers out there who have no more interest in living under Sharia law than we do.