By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director

9 February 2009: According to the most recent reliable statistics, there are over two billion web sites and approximately 28 billion images spread across the Internet. Thousands more sites and are created and tens of thousands more images are posted every day. Of the two billion web sites, several thousand involve some form of terrorist activity pertaining to terrorism, either directly or indirectly. According to federal sources recently interviewed by the Northeast Intelligence Network, about five thousand sites, mostly Arabic language Islamic terrorist sites, are under constant surveillance of some form. Additional Internet locations, not typical web sites but file sharing sites, host various other files, from images to audio and video files.

Since the establishment of the Northeast Intelligence Network in early 2002, we have identified, located and monitored a majority of those Arabic language sites that promote, facilitate or act as communication portals to advance Islamic terrorism. Most of those sites now require a password to access and in many cases, the permission of the site owner (or forum administrator) to join in an effort to prevent infiltration by counter-terrorist investigators. The natural barriers created by language and those created by operational security measures are usually sufficient to keep amateur prying eyes out of their virtual classrooms and playgrounds. The initial frenzy of Internet research into such terrorist sites following the 9/11 attacks also resulted in diluting the integrity and importance of the information culled from these sites.

In the past, counter-terrorism authorities have downplayed the role of Internet web sites, chat rooms and forums in terms of the intelligence value they provide. After all, it is reasoned, no bona-fide terrorist would publish their operational plans on a web site or write about their plans in the plain view of a chat room. How then, could terrorists use the internet for their vital communication and operational planning?

A Washington Post article dated September 19, 2001 raised the question of how Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 terrorists might have used the internet to advance the planning of the 9/11 attacks. That article touched on both cryptography and steganography, the latter which involves hiding a file within another file, such as hiding a secret message within a picture, audio or video file that cannot be readily seen without further analysis. According to that 2001 article, federal authorities indeed “had found evidence that bin Laden’s group embedded secret missives in mundane e-mails and on Web sites,” thus verifying the use of steganography.

The Northeast Intelligence Network has previously addressed the issue of steganography as it applies to terrorist communications. In the al Qaeda publication known as “Camp al Battar,” a series of military-style publications previously posted on various Arabic language Internet forums, investigators from the Northeast Intelligence Network cited several references to the use of steganography as a method of communication. In issue 11 released in June 2004, for example, the terrorist author talks about using steganography as an alternative to cellular or satellite telephones to deliver important messages, as the electronic devices are likely being monitored by authorities.

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