- Mar 22, 2004
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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1083404949403
Hamas expected to boost online activities
By LAUREN GELFOND
Breaking news on hamasonline.com boasts "Hamas reservoir of leaders enormous." But the leaders are not named.
The assassinations of the two top Hamas leaders may have driven Hamas honchos into hiding, but living underground is not as tricky as it used to
be.
Phantom terror groups on the run from surveillance, capture or assassination-attempts are more and more finding a cheap and safe launch pad for their ideology and operations on the Web, according to a new study by US Institute of peace in Washington, DC.
"Any organization that goes underground will use the Internet as its channel of communication. It's the most efficient for anonymity," the study's author, Prof. Gabriel Weimann, a senior research fellow at USIP on sabbatical from Haifa University, told the Jerusalem Post.
Current official and unofficial Hamas sites vow revenge against Israel and the US, beam photos of suicide bombers as martyrs, and brag of injuring
Israelis in attacks. A site for children illustrates in cartoons and games killing the Zionist enemies.
Hamas has long relied on the Internet for recruitment, fundraising, and even bomb-making lessons. But in the wake of the assassinations, Weimann is expecting Hamas to rev-up its Web activities.
"The assassinations will drive Hamas to become a very different organization, changing its tactics and structure. Today, post-modern terror
groups are a collection of loosely knit cells linked in a very weak way and the Internet is one way to inter-communicate and protect. The deeper
underground they go the more non-conventional media will be used," he said.
"[Hamas] is more likely to use the Internet for control and command now as al-Qaida has done," said Yael Shahar, a researcher at the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in
Herziliya (ICT). "Al-Qaida takes over people's sites ? they know their own sites are compromised ? for recruiting, fundraising, sending out IPs or URLs in closed communiqu s. Members can log on for a day or so until the owner
catches on."
Hamas may now also rely more on steganography -- hiding messages in audio or image files, she said.
Weimann, who has spent seven years analyzing Internet images, symbols, texts, strategies and rhetoric of terror groups, charges that law
enforcement, media and policymakers exaggerate and over-focus on cyberterror and under-focus on terrorists' routine Internet use.
His report, "How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet," details the widest uses, from fundraising, recruitment, and press relations, to data mining, psychological warfare and coordination of actions.
Hamas posts material in English, French, German, Russian, Hebrew, Turkish, Farsi, Urdu, Malay and Arabic. Its Arabic-language sites -- including
material for inciting children, according the Weimann -- use more religious language and arguments and more images and justifications of violence.
"When appealing to Europeans they talk less about violence and more about human rights, international law, appealing more to liberal thinking and democratic values," he said.
"Hamas and Hizbullah are [Internet] pioneers among terrorists. Al-Qaida is a new comer. Now Iraq insurgents are having their own websites."
It was the globalization and free trafficking of ideas and information spread by the Internet that allowed Al-Qaida to learn Hamas Internet
techniques and Hamas to study Al-Qaida's ideology, according to ICT senior researcher col. (res.) Yoni Fighel.
"It's worrying that Hamas is promoting the idioms and methodology and thoughts of school of Bin Laden. They don't just borrow literature ? they
cut and paste," he said.
But Fighel isn't worried that Hamas will hide in the nooks and crannies of the Internet. "A faceless leader can not survive and I believe the leader will surface," he said. "The old fashioned way is still popular: mosques, spies, hideouts where you put messages. Most operations that are highly sensitive are not done through the Web. Hamas is still more personal than al-Qaida."
Weimann may be the only expert to every day download and archive Internet material that otherwise would be lost as pages and addresses change, sometimes daily. But with his warnings there is a caveat.
"Terrorists are using and abusing the weaknesses of democracies ? one is the Internet. They take a liberal, open, free medium and turn it into a
mechanism to promote violence. But we shouldn't overreact because we could pay an extra price for terrorism ? hurting democracy," he said. "In Israel there is no debate, but there should be.
At lectures [in the US] I find the FBI, CIA ask a lot of questions. Homeland Security is open to it -- not to give up on protecting the Internet, but to minimize damage [to civil liberties.]"
Last week Swedish Internet provider Telia Sonera closed down a Hamas site, following public pressure. But says Weimann. "It doesn't matter, they will move somewhere else."
Hamas uses the shelter of countries where there is less Internet regulation and more sympathy, experts say. Weimann and groups like Anti-Defamation League promote enforcing regulations, diverting violence to cyber-debate, and passing information to law officials and site providers, stopping short of backing censorship.
"It's within the rights of a Hamas supporter to put up a pro-Hamas message giving the organization moral support. But it could violate the company's rules of service," said Brian Marcus, ADL director of Internet monitoring.
"We have a strong feeling to freedom of speech, however a company has the right to determine who they will and won't do business with. Most companies when you inform them someone is breaking those rules will close the site."
Hamas expected to boost online activities
By LAUREN GELFOND
Breaking news on hamasonline.com boasts "Hamas reservoir of leaders enormous." But the leaders are not named.
The assassinations of the two top Hamas leaders may have driven Hamas honchos into hiding, but living underground is not as tricky as it used to
be.
Phantom terror groups on the run from surveillance, capture or assassination-attempts are more and more finding a cheap and safe launch pad for their ideology and operations on the Web, according to a new study by US Institute of peace in Washington, DC.
"Any organization that goes underground will use the Internet as its channel of communication. It's the most efficient for anonymity," the study's author, Prof. Gabriel Weimann, a senior research fellow at USIP on sabbatical from Haifa University, told the Jerusalem Post.
Current official and unofficial Hamas sites vow revenge against Israel and the US, beam photos of suicide bombers as martyrs, and brag of injuring
Israelis in attacks. A site for children illustrates in cartoons and games killing the Zionist enemies.
Hamas has long relied on the Internet for recruitment, fundraising, and even bomb-making lessons. But in the wake of the assassinations, Weimann is expecting Hamas to rev-up its Web activities.
"The assassinations will drive Hamas to become a very different organization, changing its tactics and structure. Today, post-modern terror
groups are a collection of loosely knit cells linked in a very weak way and the Internet is one way to inter-communicate and protect. The deeper
underground they go the more non-conventional media will be used," he said.
"[Hamas] is more likely to use the Internet for control and command now as al-Qaida has done," said Yael Shahar, a researcher at the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism at the Interdisciplinary Center in
Herziliya (ICT). "Al-Qaida takes over people's sites ? they know their own sites are compromised ? for recruiting, fundraising, sending out IPs or URLs in closed communiqu s. Members can log on for a day or so until the owner
catches on."
Hamas may now also rely more on steganography -- hiding messages in audio or image files, she said.
Weimann, who has spent seven years analyzing Internet images, symbols, texts, strategies and rhetoric of terror groups, charges that law
enforcement, media and policymakers exaggerate and over-focus on cyberterror and under-focus on terrorists' routine Internet use.
His report, "How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet," details the widest uses, from fundraising, recruitment, and press relations, to data mining, psychological warfare and coordination of actions.
Hamas posts material in English, French, German, Russian, Hebrew, Turkish, Farsi, Urdu, Malay and Arabic. Its Arabic-language sites -- including
material for inciting children, according the Weimann -- use more religious language and arguments and more images and justifications of violence.
"When appealing to Europeans they talk less about violence and more about human rights, international law, appealing more to liberal thinking and democratic values," he said.
"Hamas and Hizbullah are [Internet] pioneers among terrorists. Al-Qaida is a new comer. Now Iraq insurgents are having their own websites."
It was the globalization and free trafficking of ideas and information spread by the Internet that allowed Al-Qaida to learn Hamas Internet
techniques and Hamas to study Al-Qaida's ideology, according to ICT senior researcher col. (res.) Yoni Fighel.
"It's worrying that Hamas is promoting the idioms and methodology and thoughts of school of Bin Laden. They don't just borrow literature ? they
cut and paste," he said.
But Fighel isn't worried that Hamas will hide in the nooks and crannies of the Internet. "A faceless leader can not survive and I believe the leader will surface," he said. "The old fashioned way is still popular: mosques, spies, hideouts where you put messages. Most operations that are highly sensitive are not done through the Web. Hamas is still more personal than al-Qaida."
Weimann may be the only expert to every day download and archive Internet material that otherwise would be lost as pages and addresses change, sometimes daily. But with his warnings there is a caveat.
"Terrorists are using and abusing the weaknesses of democracies ? one is the Internet. They take a liberal, open, free medium and turn it into a
mechanism to promote violence. But we shouldn't overreact because we could pay an extra price for terrorism ? hurting democracy," he said. "In Israel there is no debate, but there should be.
At lectures [in the US] I find the FBI, CIA ask a lot of questions. Homeland Security is open to it -- not to give up on protecting the Internet, but to minimize damage [to civil liberties.]"
Last week Swedish Internet provider Telia Sonera closed down a Hamas site, following public pressure. But says Weimann. "It doesn't matter, they will move somewhere else."
Hamas uses the shelter of countries where there is less Internet regulation and more sympathy, experts say. Weimann and groups like Anti-Defamation League promote enforcing regulations, diverting violence to cyber-debate, and passing information to law officials and site providers, stopping short of backing censorship.
"It's within the rights of a Hamas supporter to put up a pro-Hamas message giving the organization moral support. But it could violate the company's rules of service," said Brian Marcus, ADL director of Internet monitoring.
"We have a strong feeling to freedom of speech, however a company has the right to determine who they will and won't do business with. Most companies when you inform them someone is breaking those rules will close the site."
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