"How long before the World experiences a "Cyber 9/11?""
How long before the world experiences a "Cyber 9/11?"
As other more astute writers on WUFYS have pointed out, it doesn't take a genius to see where Weinmann wants to lead the U.S. and much of the world: Into a land where our thoughts and conversations are monitored 24/7. And those that don't meet secret guidelines for "political correctness" and thought control will be banished from the Web--like WUYFYS and What Really Happened. Or, tossed in prison, like Ernest Zundel.
Not if, but when this "Cyber 9/11" takes place, it will be used as an excuse to stomp on civil liberties and wage more wars for Empire and Israel, just like the WTC 9/11 attacks have been used.
"Terror" on the Internet by Haifa University professor Gabriel Weimann
Weimann is not only a professor at Haifa University, he is also a "fellow" at a place called the United States Institute of Peace (USIP)--which is funded by the U.S. Congress. USIP also receives gifts and contributions from private agencies, organizations, corporations, or other legal entities, except they fail to say who those agencies, etc. are.
USIP proclaims that their is mission to help prevent, manage and resolve violent international conflicts.
To that end, they pay "fellows" like Weinmann to write policy papers, stating USIP's dogma, such as "The Theater of Terror" and a book on Ernest Zundel.
Some other "fellows" at USIP have been: Daniel Benjamin; Jacob Berkovitch: Avner and Raymond Cohen; Shmuel Eisenstadt; Lily Feldman; Shlomo Gazit; Moshe Ma'oz; Donald Rothchid; Robert Rothstein and Mark Katz........... and on and on. Here's a complete list of these fellows.
Weinmann is good at finding non-existent threats and propping up the current state mandated boogieman, aL-Qaeda.
However, he says time and again thru his articles things such as: it is important to keep in mind that to date there are no documented examples of terrorists using the Internet to launch an attack.
But that doesn't stop Weinmann from promoting goverment monitoring and censorhip of the web, like his following comments from the Christian Science Monitor.
Modify the Patriot Act to allow Internet monitoring similar to the way passengers are screened for airline travel.
(Like the screening now done in the U.S. by the thugs at the TSA?
Where people are held up for hours on end for no apparent reason? Yeah, that would work just fine on the 'Net. Connection speeds would go back to prehistoric times of around 8,000 kbps, while others would be kicked off the web.)
Many of the large ones now, he says, have requirements - no violence or pornography. They could monitor for the promotion of terror as well.
Form an international collaborative of Western countries, the ones that have more stable, advanced Internet services. They could better monitor or prevent these sites from running terror material.
(Wonder if "Israel" is one of these Western countries he speaks of that will be trusted to "monitor" the web?)
Weinmann is all in favor of government spying on people thru the Carnivore , AKA DCS 1000 and Magic Lanternprograms.
"Magic Lantern" is particularly invasive, as it is a "keylogging software that is a combination computer worm/trojan horse. It installs itself on the target computer and allows for keystroke capturing."
As other more astute writers on WUFYS have pointed out, it doesn't take a genius to see where Weinmann wants to lead the U.S. and much of the world: Into a land where our thoughts and conversations are monitored 24/7. And those that don't meet secret guidelines for "political correctness" and thought control will be banished from the Web--like WUYFYS and What Really Happened Or, tossed in prison, like Ernest Zundel.
Not if, but when this "Cyber 9/11" takes place, it will be used as an excuse to stomp on civil liberties and wage more wars for Empire and Israel, just like the WTC 9/11 attacks have been used.
From USIP's web site:
Gabriel Weimann is a prominent and prolific analyst of international terrorism and the mass media, and professor of communications at the University of Haifa, Israel. Since 1997, he has led a large research project that has catalogued and tracked hundreds of web sites used by terrorist organizations and their affiliates to recruit and mobilize supporters, to raise funds, and to plan and coordinate attacks. His publications include five books—among them The Theater of Terror: The Mass Media and International Terrorism, Communicating Unreality: Mass Media and Reconstruction of Realities, and Hate on Trial: The Zundel Case—and more than 100 book chapters and articles on conflict, terrorism, the mass media information technologies, and the Internet.
Cyberterrorism: Fact vs. Fiction
Cyberwar and cyberterrorism have been especially appealing to the media and the popular imagination because they combine two prime sources of fear—fear of technology and fear of terrorist violence. While there is some cause for concern about cyberterrorism, it is important to keep in mind that to date there are no documented examples of terrorists using the Internet to launch an attack (such as using a computer to disrupt power grids or take over the control of a plane). In contrast, Weimann presented several examples of more typical uses of the Internet by terrorists such as a web site run by Hezbollah with downloadable games for children and two distinct Tamil Tigers (LTTE) web sites tailored to a local and an international audience.
And yet, despite all the gloomy predictions of a cyber-generated doomsday, no single instance of real cyberterrorism has been recorded.
Amid all the dire warnings and alarming statistics that the subject of cyberterrorism generates, it is important to remember one simple statistic: so far, there has been no recorded instance of a terrorist cyberattack on U.S. public facilities, transportation systems, nuclear power plants, power grids, or other key components of the national infrastructure. Cyberattacks are common, but they have not been conducted by terrorists and they have not sought to inflict the kind of damage that would qualify them as cyberterrorism.
Source: USIP
How to Fight a 'Virtual' War Against Terrorism
According to Weimann, understanding terrorists' activities on the Internet is only the beginning of the problem; the challenge remains to balance the effort to control these activities with the need to preserve civil liberties. Several government counterterrorist measures have been implemented since the attacks of September 11, 2001. These include the use of "sniffers" such as Carnivore and Magic Lantern which can search for certain information or keywords. In addition, there have been efforts to remove material from web sites or even remove entire web sites. These and other countermeasures force officials and citizens to ask hard questions about what price they are willing to pay, and what opportunities are being lost, in the cyberwar against terrorism.
Realistically, the best approach to preventing abuse of the Internet by terrorists will require both the acceptance of some vulnerabilities and some constraints on civil liberties. Weimann's recommendations for such an "optimal compromise" include:
Modifying the Patriot Act, especially to increase the transparency of Internet security measures;
Applying the "social responsibility" model to the Internet (e.g., self-policing by ISPs);
Encouraging international collaboration (to the maximal extent possible);
Creating education and counterterrorism sites;
Promoting peaceful uses of the Internet for conflict management and resolution (such as explored in the Institute's Virtual Diplomacy Initiative).
In closing, Weimann warned that efforts to fight the war against terrorism both off- and online, should not overshadow or take away from the potential benefits of the Internet to the international community. "Once we only look at the Internet as a battlefield, where they fight us and we have to minimize access," Weimann stressed, "we may miss the opportunity to look at the Internet as a peaceful place, as an arena where nonviolent exchange can take place and even the peaceful resolution of conflict."
For more information on this topic see Weimann's March and May 2004 Special Reports: www.terror.net: How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet."
