“In the new historical landscape” of networks, we “find shining paths, dark abysses, and muddled breakthroughs into the new society emerging from current crises.” (Castells, vol. 2). “The Internet has become a forum for terrorist groups and individual terrorists both to spread their messages of hate and violence and to communicate with one another and with sympathizers.”
(Terrorism Update), http://www.adl.org/terror/focus/16_focus_a.asp
“The flexible connections of these criminal activities in international networks constitute an essential feature of the new global economy…of the Information Age.” (Castells, vol.3) The web is designed with such a user-friendly technology that it has become an operative ground for terrorists.
At the Centre for Defence Information (CDI) we can investigate on terrorist networks operating by making the World Wide Web their mating grounds.
(TerroristNetworks),http://www.cdi.org/program/issue/index.cfm?StartRow=41&ListRows=10&Orderby=DateLastUpdated&ProgramID=39&issueID=56___##0##___ The lurking dangers come from cyber-criminals who are able to operate safely amid the huge crowd of internet users. “Strategists and policymakers in Washington and elsewhere have begun to discern the dark side of the network phenomenon - especially in the wake of the "attack on America" perpetrated apparently by Osama bin Laden's terror network. But they still have much work to do to begin harnessing the bright side, by formulating strategies that will enable state and civil-society actors to work together better.”(Robert Paterson, 2003).
The deep dynamic guiding Patterson’s analysis is that the information revolution favours the rise of the network forms of organisation. “The network appears to be the next major form of organisation- long after tribes, hierarchies and markets- to come into its own to redefine societies, and in so doing, the nature of conflict and cooperation.” Discussing further in Castells’ line of argument about nodes Patterson speculates that because every node of the networking system connects so readily, the implications are that more conflicts can be waged by pervasive ‘networks’. The heck of it is that ‘whoever masters the network forms stands to gain the advantage.’
‘Electronic democracy’, ‘network corporations’, ‘global civil society’ and even ‘network-centric warfare’ are logical outcomes of networks but the dark side of networking system has to do with “malcontents, ne’er-do-wells, and clever opportunists, all eager to take advantage of new ways to manoeuvre, exploit, and dominate”(Patterson) within the virtual dimensions of networks. New risks and dangers resulting from networking systems are sure to generate threats to our precious freedom and privacy.
(Robert Paterson, 2003), http://radio.weblogs.com/0107127/stories/2002/09/10/networksAndNetwar.html
The connectivity of additional and unlimited nodes is so amazingly possible within the Internet that it becomes so convenient for terrorists worldwide to modify their structures and strategies to operate with stronger moves on existing networks and related communication technologies. The danger seems to crop up because of the fact that once any information is clipped on the net it belongs to the user or reader who can in turn manipulate or use it for his own ends.