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Gabriel Weimann

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Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenges Hardcover – March 1, 2006

by Gabriel Weimann (Author)

4.5 8 ratings

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Terrorists fight their wars in cyberspace as well as on the ground. However, while politicians and the media have hotly debated the dangers of terrorists sabotaging the Internet, surprisingly little is known about terrorists actual use of the Internet.

In this timely and eye-opening volume, Gabriel Weimann reveals that terrorist organizations and their supporters maintain hundreds of websites, taking advantage of the unregulated, anonymous, and accessible nature of the Internet to target an array of messages to diverse audiences. Drawing on a seven-year study of the World Wide Web, the author examines how modern terrorist organizations exploit the Internet to raise funds, recruit members, plan and launch attacks, and publicize their chilling results. Weimann also investigates the effectiveness of counterterrorism measures and warns that this cyberwar may cost us dearly in terms of civil rights.

Illustrated with numerous examples taken from terrorist websites, Terror on the Internet offers the definitive introduction to this emerging and dynamic arena. Weimann lays bare the challenges we collectively face in confronting the growing and increasingly sophisticated terrorist presence on the Net. A publication of the United States Institute of Peace, distributed by Potomac Books, Inc.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Describes how terrorist organizations use the Internet to coordinate group action and publicize their ideology and their successes.

Assesses the cyberterrorist threat we face.

Suggests how to balance the competing concerns for cyber security and civil liberties.

About the Author

Gabriel Weimann is a professor of communications at the University of Haifa, Israel, and a former senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. A prolific analyst of terrorism and the mass media, his publications include five books, among them Communicating Unreality: Mass Media and Reconstruction of Realities and The Theater of Terror: The Mass Media and International Terrorism. He lives in Israel.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ United States Institute of Peace Press; 1st edition (March 1, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 325 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1929223714
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1929223718
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.45 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,559,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,074 in Privacy & Online Safety
- #4,952 in Terrorism (Books)
- #9,085 in Internet & Telecommunications

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John Matlock

A Very Frightening Book

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2006

I had heard that the various terrorist organizations around the world were using the Internet as a communications medium. But until I saw this book I never realized just how widespread that use is. The book says that they have identified some 4,300 web sites belonging to terrorist organizations. It further says that to keep the sites up they change URLs and hosting companies every few days. That would make sense as keeping it up very long would attract counter terrorist organizations pretty rapidly. The book does not give the URLs of very many sites, but if they change frequently, it wouldn't make sense to list expired URLs.

There seem to be three main uses of the Internet:

o to distribute information. The old days of publishing phamplets and the like are replaced by web sites that can be moved around from country to country with the speed of light. The new URLs could well be posted on the site. If you have a site hosted in Tahiti and run it for three days, then you shift it to Kenya it would be hard to track. The information on the site could be anything from a video of Osama to instructions on how to make a bomb.

o Research for Targets. I suspect a lot of companies, organizations and the like have their disaster plans on the net, a map on how to get to them, all kinds of stuff useful to a terrorist.

o Inter organization communications. If I am travelling I often go to a public library somewhere to check my e-mail. So do they.

Then there is the risk of cyber-terrorism. Beyond the normal malicious hackers, there's the opportunity for terrorists to do the same sort of thing with viruses and worms. This appears to be a potential use rather than a real one -- so far.

This is a frightening book. It clearly shows the result of a lot of research, and discusses things that the terrorists know but that the rest of us need to know.

6 people found this helpful

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E. Jacobs

Terror on the Internet

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2006

Verified Purchase

Good book to get a clear picture of how terrorists now use the Internet as a central part of their operations. Weimann is a well-respected scholar who cleary has his finger on the pulse of modern terrorism.

3 people found this helpful

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The Spinozanator

Hezbollah has 500 sites, 250 originating in the US

Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2006

Terrorist websites have increased from several hundred a few years ago to over 5,000 at this time - and that only counts those documented by strict criteria. Hezbollah has cartoon websites targeting children that depict beheadings and advocate all the atrocities committed by adult terrorists. Al Queda and others have websites targeting women. Throughout the web, messages from various organizations glorify suicide attacks.

These websites are used for recruitment, distribution of literature, manuals, instructions, fund-raising, car-bombs, use of missiles - any needs of the organization. A jihad on-line encyclopedia is available, and participants may come and go with anonymity.

Chat rooms contain debates between members of different organizations - which certainly open the door for counterterrorism efforts. These sites are monitored by government agencies from many countries.

All methods of censoring these sites run the risk of damaging our civil liberties, although this is not a problem for some countries.

The author covers the material well and ends with a caveat and a recommendation. Caveat - that this is a psychological war over minds and hearts. Recommendation - that we be proactive by producing anti-terrorism websites. Most young people participating on terrorism websites never see another version of life and truth.

One person found this helpful

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Billy-Bob Garcia

Fear mongering and calls for government intervention

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2006

Mr. Weimann from Israel wants American government control over access to certain Internet websites so that terrorists won't be able to communicate; or perhaps the real reason is to block Moslem news and propaganda so that we will be exposed only to Israeli-slanted news and propaganda. That way the US can continue to support Israeli efforts at ethnic cleansing from all the land which they say God promised them. Still not convinced? Mr. Weimann is a fellow at the ironically-named United States Institute for Peace, a neocon thinktank.

2 people found this helpful

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W Boudville

not for physical sabotage

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2006

Weimann's book is a good antidote to those oft-hysterical screeds on cyberterrorism. These might proclaim that nefarious scoundrels could launch attacks across the Internet, to disable power plants or chemical refineries. While not impossible, the technical obstacles are vast. Such fears are really warmed-over Y2K hysteria, transferred to terrorism after the Y2K bust and the events of September 2001.

Instead, Weimann points to more prosaic uses of the Internet by terrorists. [Sorry to disappoint some potential readers.] These mundanities involve communication between cell members, propaganda and fund raising. The first two are shown to be far easier than in the pre-Web era. Anonymous email accounts and an increasingly deep global reach of cybercafes and other Internet access points give what can be effectively anonymous communication. This reach of the Internet is true in developed countries and in the major cities of developing countries. Terrorists can operate in both, as is already known.

The use of a website to spread a terrorist message, to enemies and supporters, is also amply documented in the book. Far safer and more effective to those groups than having a smarmy member pass out flyers in bad neighbourhoods.

One conclusion is that for purely pragmatic reasons, terrorists have little incentive to attack the Internet itself. It's simply too useful to them.

8 people found this helpful

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Michael Wise

Scary, well-written study, very important

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2006

This is a scary book about the ways terrorists are using the Internet. It is very interesting, well documented, well-written (easy for people like me who are not sophisticated Internet users) and very alarming. The author knows well the dark sides of the Net and guides the readers to the darkest virtual streets modern terrorists take when using the cyberspace. The book is loaded with examples from various terrorist groups (all are now on the Net) and relates the findings to the framework of communication studies and psychological warfare. What to do about it? Well, read the book's last chapters...

I highly recommend this book though it left me troubled and scared.

Michael Wise

5 people found this helpful

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