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Any intervention in the violent acts of terrorist groups requires accurate differentiation among the groups themselves, which has largely been overlooked in their study beyond qualitative work. To explore the notion of terrorist group differentiation, the online communication of six violent groups were collected: Al-Nusrah Front, al-Qa’ida Central, al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula, Hamas, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and Taliban. All six groups embedded their ideology in digitised documents that were shared through multiple online social networks and media platforms in attempts to influence individuals to identify with their beliefs. The way these groups constructed social roles for their supporters in their ideology was proposed as a novel way to differentiate them and key term extraction was used to find important terms referenced in their communication. Experimental classification was devised to find the highest-ranking roles capable of prediction. Role terms produced high accuracy scores across experiments differentiating the groups (95%CI: 95–98%), with varying inter-group and intra-ideological differences emerging from authority-, religion-, closeness-, and conflict-based social roles. This suggests these constructs possess strong predictive potential to separate terrorist groups through nuanced expressions observed in their communication behaviour and advances our understanding of how these groups deploy harmful ideology.

The Arab Spring raised high expectations for political freedom, especially for situations in which the rapid development of ICT intersects with political oppression and rebellion, as was the case in Mali, West Africa. In 2012 the country’s northern part fell into the hands of ‘rebels’ and jihadists were on the rise. This article tries to understand the development of political agency in relation to the unprecedented access to new ICT of the Fulani nomads and urbanites in the Mopti region (Hayre), who engage increasingly with new actors and networks present in the war zone: ‘rebels’ and jihadists; the diaspora from that region; and the journalistic and academic communities who visit the region. We argue that political agency is emerging in the relation between (newly appearing) information networks in both the on- and off-line worlds. These networked societies are embedded in cultural and social historical specificities of the Sudan-Sahel zone in conflict.

Popular music research has explored digital technologies’ potential for democratizing music consumption, distribution, and production. This article, however, focuses on the anti-democratic implications of digitalization for popular music by exploring discussions of music in 1,173 posts in 6 Alt-Right forums, from 2010–2018. It demonstrates that, first, owing to algorithmic architecture, interpretations of musical politics are mutually reinforcing in these spaces. Second, a large degree of musical “omnivorousness” in these forums is both a feature of contemporary far-right strategy and a consequence of digitalization. Third, by articulating “reactionary democratic” principles through music criticism, these movements more easily evade regulation.

This thesis examined the three core themes: the role of education in cyber security, the role of technology in cyber security, and the role of policy in cyber security, the areas in which the papers are published. The associated works are published in referred journals, peer reviewed book chapters, and conference proceedings. Research can be found in the following outlets: 1. Security Solutions for Hyperconnectivity and the Internet of Things; 2. Developing Next-Generation Countermeasures for Homeland Security Threat Prevention; 3. New Threats and Countermeasures in Digital Crime and Cyber Terrorism; 4. Internatoinal Journal of Business Continuity and Risk Management; 4. Handbook of Research on 3-D Virtual Environments and Hypermedia for Ubiquitous Learning; 6. Information Security in Diverse Computing Environments; 7. Technology, Innovation, and Enterprise Transformation; 8. Journal of Information Systems Technology and Planning; 9. Encylopedia of Information Science and Technology. The shortcomings and gaps in cyber security research is the research focus on hyperconnectivity of people and technology to include the policies that provide the standards for security hardened systems. Prior research on cyber and homeland security reviewed the three core themes separately rather than jointly. This study examined the research gaps within cyber security as it relates to core t hemes in an effort to develop stronger policies, education programs, and hardened technologies for cyber security use. This work illustrates how cyber security can be broken into these three core areas and used together to address issues such as developing training environments for teaching real cyber security events. It will further show the correlations between technologies and policies for system Certification & Accreditation (C & A). Finally, it will offer insights on  how cybersecurity can be used to maintain security for international and national security. The overall results of the study provide guidance on how to create an ubiquitous learning (U-Learning) environment to teach cyber security concepts, craft policies that affect computing, and examines the effects on national and international security. The overall research has been improving the role of cyber security in education, technology, and policy.

The monograph focuses on public support for insurgency and terrorism and how it can be influenced. It is organised around the testing and refinement of conceptual models that seek to integrate much of what is known from relevant social science about public support.

Why would a terrorist choose to utilize the Internet rather than the usual methods of assassination, hostage taking, and guerrilla warfare? Conway (2006) identified five major reasons why extremist groups used the Internet: virtual community building, information provision, recruitment, financing, and risk mitigation. Terrorist and extremist organizations can use the Internet to increase their visibility and provide information about the group along with its goals without posing an increased risk to the members. It also allows them to easily ask for, and accept, donations through anonymous financial services such as Dark Coins. These benefits allow these groups to promote awareness of their cause, to convey their message to, and perhaps foster sympathy from a much larger pool of potential supporters and converts (Weimann 2010). Finally, the Internet also provides asynchronous services with global access, with the sender and recipient located at any place, at any time, without the need to link up at a specific time (Wagner 2005). In short, unlike the real world, cyberspace is borderless without limitation, and this makes identification, verification, and attribution a challenge.