Download - Foreign Military Studies Office - U.S. Army

With no filter or censor, the Internet can advance the most bizarre
insurgent principles with little chance of being caught. The net can energize
sympathy for a cause, operate as a psychological weapon that can enter a home
anonymously, and can even invite guests to an insurgent gift shop to purchase
or download emblems and slogans. Web postings are used to vindicate
insurgent actions based on the logic of “no other choice than to act” or to
“delegitimize the enemy” and can offer nonviolent solutions. In other words,
the Internet can offer a kinder face for the insurgent, or it can offer harsh reality
(beheading of an individual) for those who choose to support the “infidels.”
Potential and Actual Insurgent Tactics on the Internet
Insurgent techniques have evolved and now include Cyber Age
adaptations from their Industrial Age counterparts. This applies to both tactics
and planning for an insurgency operation.
An example of a Cyber Age adaptation is the “dead drop.” A dead drop
is a method used to exchange secrets between two groups or among people who
do not actually meet. In the past, an insurgent dead drop may have been a huge
rock under which they placed the message or code. Another insurgent, aware of
the rock’s location, would then retrieve the message. In the Cyber Age, an
insurgent can visit a cybercafé, write a draft message, put it in a file, sign off,
and depart the premises. Because the draft was never sent, the Internet service
provider (ISP) does not retain a copy. Later, even from another location
thousands of miles away, another insurgent with knowledge of the same
prearranged password and username can obtain access to the file, read the draft
letter, and then erase it. 102 Thus the message is exchanged via a high-tech dead
drop.
Al Qaeda computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, arrested in
Pakistan on 12 July 2004, had been creating websites and secret email codes to
enable al Qaeda operatives to communicate with one another. He was arrested
in a remote area of Pakistan far from the other al Qaeda hideouts. 103 Khan
allegedly told interrogators that al Qaeda used websites and email addresses in
Turkey, Nigeria, and tribal areas of Pakistan—that is, in the country of a NATO
member, on another continent, and in a region where computer connections
should be sparse, thus demonstrating the reach of an insurgent’s net. Files were
deleted after being read, and email addresses were used only two or three
102 “Cyberspace Gives Al Qaeda Refuge,” Jihad Watch, 16 August 2004 at
http://www.jihadwatch.org.
103 “Al Qaeda Computer Whiz Was Top Terror Planner: Security Official,”
Channelnewsasia.com, 4 August 2004.
53