Combating Enemies Oline

The Jawa Report has an excerpt of an article from the Heritage Foundation about state and non-state agents using the internet against the US and the West. Here's a little interesting info from the article....

Al-Qaeda and other transnational terrorist net­works rely heavily on the Internet to communicate with dispersed operatives. The organization's mes­sages appear on approximately 6,000 Web sites.[14] As-Sahab Institute, al-Qaeda's media component, has released a slew of videos--about one every three days since the beginning of 2007--featuring Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders. Observers have been impressed by both the quan­tity of these releases and the institute's use of the lat­est commercial computer software and hardware in producing and distributing them.[15]

....

The Internet offers terrorists certain advantages over more traditional means of communication and operation:

Easy access,
Little government control,
Potentially enormous domestic and foreign audiences,
Anonymous communications,
Rapid information exchanges,
Low cost,
Multimedia platforms, and
The ability to influence other mass media that rely on the Internet for stories.[16]
The Internet also gives terrorists tremendous operational flexibility. When extremist Web sites have been identified, hacked, or shut down by Inter­net service providers (ISPs), the terrorists have turned to chat rooms and message boards for com­munication. Their Web sites commonly disappear from and return to the Web. Al-Qaeda operatives post their messages and videos on Islamist forums.[17]