"How Jihadists Use the Internet"

From here:

Quote:

Jihadists have been on the internet a long time, and they probably know how to use it better than you do. Since the early years of the world wide web, radical Islamist groups used it for a number of different jihad-y means, from recruitment and financing to propaganda and communication. But how has this changed over the past decade, and in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations of NSA spying, what does the future hold for jihadists and the internet? "Jihadists are no different than others in using emerging software, web applications and sites," said Adam Raisman from SITE, an intelligence group that monitors jihadist behavior on the web. They used the internet to communicate "long before 9/11" according to Adam. However, the world of Islamic extremism didn't get its own dot-com boom until late 2001, when al Qaeda's first official website was launched—a static, not very impressive platform for making press announcements, mostly in Arabic, and with very little video content. And trying to cultivate a brand identity by plastering their black flag logo all over the site meant that it was easy to identify and ended up being constantly shut down, until eventually it didn't resurface again. But what that initial online presence spawned was a surge of jihadist-themed forums and social networks. They weren't al Qaeda branded in the same way as the original website, but sympathetic to the cause—fan pages for Mohamed Atta and others fighting the jihadist fight, pooling like-minded people together to share ideologies.

They are ideologically opposed to modernity, yet seem keen to use its technological products. Interesting...

via JREF Forum http://ift.tt/1oxQYF9