Author: Michael Yoshida

IS: Your Grandpa’s al-Qa‘ida This Ain’t

It is of no doubt that IS is the most advanced and effective terrorist organization that the world has ever seen. It is the very best at recognizing these previously discussed technological paradigm shifts, adjusting their narratives accordingly and taking advantage of the situation. Geography is of no consequence; their objective is world wide, global domination.

Al-Qa‘ida was a discreet structure and element; they tried to migrate their philosophies to others, but the organization was almost contained and the United States government was able to make a lot of progress against them. IS represents the very worst in development. IS is a phenomenon that has snowballed in terms of resonance and appeal. And they have been very successful at generated a lot of resonance and appeal in states such as Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Nigeria, Yemen, Libya, South Asia and Egypt.

In the United States it is apparent that IS is targeting its propaganda machine at the emotional needs of young Americans, regardless of their social or economic backgrounds. They implore people to engage and speak with the youth of America about their hopes, dreams, religious questions, etc. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey elaborated on the novelty of IS social media use:

Your grandfather’s al Qaeda, if you wanted to get propaganda, you had to go find it. Find where Inspire magazine was and read it. If you want to talk to a terrorist, you had to send an email into Inspire magazine and hope that Anwar al Awlaki would email you back. Now all that’s in your pocket. All that propaganda is in your pocket, and the terrorist is in your pocket. You can have direct communication with a terrorist in Syria all day and night, and so the effect of that – especially on troubled minds and kids – it works! It’s buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. It’s the constant feed, the constant touching, so it’s very, very different and much more effective at radicalizing that your grandfather’s al Qaeda model.

Director Comey is touching upon what is categorized in this paper as the bio-digital evolution. As discussed, the youth and population in general experiencing the preliminary effects of how increased technological capabilities and continuous access to the Internet are affecting everyday lives. Reducing the schism between human biology and our technological machinery, between our physical reality and the networked virtual reality. As this divide becomes smaller and smaller, and in some instances has begun to intersect and overlap, people are able to exchange more information faster, not just with machines, but also with other people; this is a bio-digital, integration evolution. And Islamic extremists around the world are recognizing these paradigm shifts, adjusting their narratives accordingly and taking advantage of new opportunities.

Al-Qa‘ida Loves the Internet

Since the Internet gained a substantial, international users base in the 1990s, Islamic extremists have frequently exploited the networked infrastructure.

Due to his privileged family heritage, élite education and Arab cultural upbringing, it is no surprise that from the beginning usāmah bin lādin (UBL) was cognizant of the power of public relations and the media. Al-Qa‘ida from its beginning, knew the value of computers, using them to store data, provided coded instructions, create false documents, obtain information, and setup Websites.

Al-Qa‘ida was the first of its kind with the protean ability to transform itself from a physical to a virtual organization. It meticulously planned events that would cause mass casualties and has a global reach. It is safe to say that al-Qa‘ida loves the Internet. Before 9/11, instant messaging and emails allowed al-Qa‘ida to give and receive operational information for surveillance and attacks when phone or even person-to-person contact seemed too hazardous. In late 2001 a treasure trove of evidence emerged when Alan Cullison of the Wall Street Journal was able to purchase 2 computers used by UBL. Both of UBL’s computers contained diverse sets of communications between al-Qa‘ida members. Although the saved emails that Mr. Cullison was able to access did not look like they were communicating about any operations against the United States, they could have coded instructions for future operations worldwide. Al-Qa‘ida’s secrecy concerns led the organization to utilize heavily coded language, concealing coded messages and information within other nonsecret text, this technique is called steganography. Cullison notes:

As Al Qaeda established itself in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and began managing international operations of ever increasing complexity and audacity, the group focused on ensuring the secrecy of its communications. It discouraged the use of email and telephone and recommended faxes and couriers. The electronic files reflect the global nature of the work being done; much of the correspondence was neatly filed by country name. Messages were usually encrypted and often couched in language mimicking that of a multinational corporation; thus Osama Bin Laden was sometimes “the contractor,” acts of terrorism became “trade,” Mullah Omar and the Taliban became the “Omar Brothers Company,” the security services of the United States and Great Britain became “foreign competitors,” and so on. Especially sensitive messages were encoded with simple but reliable cryptographic system that had been used by both Allied and Axis powers during World War II.

A sample of what Mr. Cullison is describing can be found in an email communication sent on February 1, 1999 from Ayman al-Zawahiri, at that time UBL’s chief deputy, to al-Qa‘ida cell members in Yemen:

I would like to clarify the following with relation to the birthday [probably an unspecified attack]:

a) Don’t think of showering as it may harm your health.

b) We can’t make a hotel reservation for you, but they usually don’t mind making reservations for guests. Those who wish to make a reservation should go to Quwedar [a famous pastry shop in Cairo].

c) I suggest that each of you takes a recipient to Quwedar to buy sweets, then make the hotel reservation. It is easy. After you check in, walk to Nur. After you attend the birthday go from Quwedar to Bushra St., where you should buy movie tickets to Za’bolla movie theater.

d) The birthday will be in the third month. How do you want to celebrate it in the seventh? Do you want us to change the boy’s birth date? There are guests awaiting the real date to get back to their work.

e) I don’t have any gravel [probably ammunition or bomb-making material].

Al-Qa‘ida used encrypted messaging. The coded language that al-Qa‘ida used, mimicked that of a multinational corporation (MNC), which is interesting because they also physically acted like an MNC. An example of this is when al-Qa‘ida affiliates actually physically went to South East Asia, like an international corporation for recruitment and discussions. This is the old way of doing “business”.

Exponential Technological Advancement & Paradigm Shifts: Increasing Empowerment Given to the Nodes “fi sabilillah”

In 1965, the then director of research and development at Fairchild Semiconductor, Dr. Gordon Moore, hypothesized that the number of components (transistors, resistors, diodes or capacitors) in a dense integrated circuit would double approximately every two years, equating to an exponential growth in digital and technological capabilities. In the three decades since 1970 the power of microprocessors has increased by a factor of 7,000. “Moore’s Law” is of course, not a natural or physical law, it is just one of many other projections for technological advancement. And as technology advances, becoming smaller, more powerful and easier to use, the more seamlessly integrated it is into our everyday lives. The entire concept of a user interface is changing; it is becoming ubiquitous.

The same year Dr. Moore published his projections; the Control Data Corporation (CDC) delivered what is generally thought to be the world’s first supercomputer, the CDC 6600, to the European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. This and many of the other supercomputers sold after were primary used to perform nuclear study analyses. The CDC 6600 was about the size of a large room, had performance of up to 3 megaFLOPS and was not connected to the Internet because the Internet did not exist yet. Today, most people carry around a smartphone, which is about the size of a wallet, has performance of up to 115.2 gigaFLOPS and is connected to the Internet, a global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link billions of devices worldwide.

Currently high-powered computers and the Internet are easily accessible by nearly half the world’s population. And by 2020, Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt projects that everyone in the world will be connected to the Internet. Furthermore, in January 2015, at the end of a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Dr. Schmidt predicted the end of the Internet:

I will answer very simply that the Internet will disappear. There will be so many IP (Internet Protocol) addresses… so many devices sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you won’t even sense it. It will be part of your presence all the time. A highly personalized, highly interactive and very, very interesting world emerges.

A fascinating, bold new world with technologically advanced security concerns.

We are now experiencing the preliminary effects of how increased technological capabilities and continuous access to the Internet are affecting our everyday lives. The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) is reducing the schism between human biology and our technological machinery, between our physical reality and the networked virtual reality. As this divide becomes smaller and smaller, and in some instances has begun to intersect and overlap, we are able to exchange more information faster, not just with our machines, but also with other people; this is a bio-digital, integration evolution. We are becoming part of the IoT and Islamic extremists around the world are recognizing these paradigm shifts, adjusting their narratives accordingly and taking advantage of new opportunities. However an interesting additional point is that potential recruits and people curious about Islamism do not have to search for new content and information about these groups.

In a number of cases, individuals joining the jihad and taking up arms were indoctrinated via legacy data; meaning much value is still being extracted by potential extremists from old content that could be extremely difficult, if not impossible to deleted from the Internet. For instance, videos of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a United States unmanned aerial system (drone) strike in 2011, are extremely common amongst the new generations of recruits to both IS and al-Qa‘ida. With a blog, a Facebook page, the al-Qa‘ida magazine Inspire and many YouTube videos, Anwar al-Awlaki was described by Saudi news station Al Arabiya as the “bin Laden of the Internet.” Now we see one of the great issues: once digital content is created on the Internet, it is nearly impossible to delete.

The Internet never forgets. At first, some tried manipulating the Web results on their own, by doing things like manually deleting photos from Flickr, revising Facebook pages and asking bloggers to remove offending posts. But like a metastasized cancer, the incriminating data had embedded itself in to the nether reaches of cyberspace, etching into archives, algorithms and a web of hyperlinks.

“Technology gives us power, but it does not and cannot tell us how to use that power. Thanks to technology, we can instantly communicate across the world, but it still doesn’t help us know what to say.”

 ~ Jonathan Sacks

As technology continues to advance at an exponential rate and becomes more and more part of our physical lives, terrorists will seek to exploit this interconnectedness to spread their extremist ideologies, recruit, raise money, perform illegal activities, etc. We are seeing only the very beginnings of this phenomenon globally as many nation states are under attack by individuals that are identifying with sub-national groups, empowering the nodes and calling the principles of Westphalia sovereignty into question.

Below is a map highlighting the worldwide attacks inspired or directed by IS:

Obviously, the Westphalia definition of sovereignty is of little concern to an Islamic extremist ideology whose goal is world domination. And as technology continues to accelerate and become ubiquitous, even sub-national group networked affiliation will not be required. The individuals will be inspired on their own, through their own access and use of the Internet. This trend is now evidenced by increased lone wolf attacks.

“If you think technology can solve your security problems, then you don’t understand the problems and you don’t understand the technology.”

~ Bruce Schneier

On December 2, 2015, 14 people were killed and 24 injured during a Christmas party at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The perpetrators were an American born, United States citizen of Pakistani-descent, Syed Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani wife Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in the city of Redlands. Since there are currently no known links to any terrorist cell, this attack appears to have been an Islamic extremist (i.e. Islamist) inspired, lone wolf terrorist attack, which was crowdsourced through the Internet. This was the third deadliest terrorist attack on United States soil since September 11, 2001.

Two weeks later, the San Bernardino attack influenced the shut down of the entire Los Angeles school district when they received a bomb threat that had been emailed to the two largest school districts in the US: New York and Los Angeles. New York chose not to respond mostly because of the lack of proximity of the San Bernardino event. It is important to note however that this threat could have been a physical world penetration test, meant to gauge the emergency action protocols for both districts in order to help plan for future terrorist plots.

Since the Internet gained almost global usage in the 1990s, Islamists have exploited its networks. Islamist propaganda and recruitment attempts are pervasive on the Internet, both via indexed and non-indexed sources. This allows Islamists to easily and effectively spread their violent extremist ideology worldwide, to potentially every node/person on the global network. With the ability to access the Internet, Islamic extremists are able to utilize all of the social media tools that allow people to create, share or exchange information, ideas and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks. However the Internet is not just used for publicizing their extremist narratives or indoctrinating new jihadists. Islamic terrorists from all areas of the world use the Internet as a median to gather intelligence, coordinate logistics, conduct reconnaissance (“footprinting” when gathering information about computer systems), mapping targeted locations, flight training, improvised explosive devise (IED) assembly training and the list goes on and on. The Internet is also used to train, fundraise and recruit.

The so-called Islamic State (IS) and al-Qa‘ida are increasingly using the Internet and social media as a platform to broaden their audience and to indoctrinate/convert more people to their extremist ideologies.