This question reflects our popular taste for hyperbole in all things cyber. The Internet is as helpful to terrorists as it is to other mortals. This does not mean it is itself creating radicals or terrorists.
Not every change is as instantly transformational as its advocates proclaim. The automobile may have replaced the horse-drawn carriage, but places to go remained about the same as the transition unfolded. Similarly, the Internet appears more tool of convenience than secret weapon. Dr. Abe Wagner*, a former government official tasked with exploring some arcane aspects of the terrorist threat, observed that Al Qaeda et al showed little interest in exploiting the Internet beyond the role of power user. They were not recruiting great IT talent, nor putting a premium on developing it from within. Why then assume they have cultivated extraordinary, Internet-based psychological warfare and brainwashing capabilities for a recruiting drive? Surely Madison Avenue ad agencies, PBS pledge drives, and military recruiters would be light years ahead of them by now, if such online dividends were within easy grasp.
A more likely reality is roughly akin to the migration from posting letters to using e-mail. The Internet is a tool. So is the telephone. So is the daily news. Anyone may use them to pursue an agenda, including terrorists in search of acolytes. But not every tool is necessarily a weapon. As Bill Gates mused in his book, The Road Ahead, an infusion of technology tends to accelerate the discovery of successes and flaws, without necessarily magnifying one or diminishing the other.
I suspect what we are witnessing in Sageman (who, in Leaderless Jihad, claims that the Internet is producing a fundamental change) is an impetuous exuberance that is defining as transformational a cyber phenomenon that, in reality, has been largely catalytic — so far. What will mark an actual transformation is a shift in frequencies from mere chatter to actual cases. Until we see cyber recruiting and related attacks taking place with a robust frequency to match their hype, the specter of the Internet as the driving force for radicalization will remain more chimera than danger.
-- Nick Catrantzos
* Abraham Wagner, JD, Ph D., is engaged in the private practice of law and is Adjunct Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and was Visiting Professor of International Relations at the University of Southern California. He is also engaged as a consultant on national security and intelligence matters to the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, serving on the Defense Science Board and other advisory panels. Following 9/11 he was the Chairman of a special task force in the Department of Defense looking at technology responses to evolving terrorist threats.
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Nick Catrantzos + Tom Goff
- All Secure
- NICK CATRANTZOS is the lead author of the All Secure website and is the emeritus security director for a large public organization. He has also managed security aspects of corporate takeovers, response to international hostage situations, and finding and keeping secrets. He has been board certified in security management, licensed as a private investigator, and certified as an incident commander. He worked as a case officer for a discreet branch of public service. He protected stealth technology at Lockheed and, later, as a consulting security director for both Kroll and Control Risks, he assisted executives with workplace violence cases and with protecting VIPs and critical assets globally in volatile areas. Nick's partner, TOM GOFF, was a captain in the Military Police Corps, U.S. Army Reserve and has a law degree from the University of California at Davis. He is a former reporter for Fortune Magazine, was senior editor at New York Magazine and Esquire, and has provided crisis and communications counsel to senior executives at Fortune 500 companies, including Lockheed, ARCO, Microsoft, Nissan, and Sony Pictures.