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This exploratory study examines the narrative space of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Specifically, we developed a methodology to gather, archive, and analyze ISIL’s online presence in social media. Our sample was drawn from transient websites (N = 8308) collected between August 2015 and October 2015. From this pool, we coded a random sample of 100 English-only articles for violent, pragmatic, and ideological themes. Exploratory factor analyses revealed two constructs: violence and ideological rationality. Our findings offer insight into the messaging and organizational dynamics of ISIL. We conclude with implications and future directions.

Terrorists and violent extremists are manipulators seeking to exploit stress factors in our societies. The Covid-19 pandemic, its ensuing lockdown measures, as well as the spread of related mis- and disinformation online, thus represented an almost ideal opportunity for malevolent actors to exploit. Far-right violent extremists, in particular, quickly jumped on the opportunity offered by the Covid-19 crisis to anchor their hateful ideas into the mainstream and recruit new members. Whilst manifesting itself mostly online, this exploitation was not limited to the online sphere. It materialised in real world events as violent extremists blended themselves into anti-lockdown protests and as terrorists’ plans were eventually thwarted. Whilst the tech sector promptly responded to the wave of mis- and disinformation, the rapid changes in content moderation policy bear important consequences for the future of content moderation and freedom of expression online. Indeed, the global tech sector, especially social media and content-hosting platforms, was particularly quick to respond to the spread of Covid-19 disinformation and conspiracy theories. In this insight piece, Tech Against Terrorism analyses how far-right violent extremists exploited the instability caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and what the tech sector’s response means for online freedom of expression and platforms’ accountability.

Les terroristes et les extrémistes sont avant tout des manipulateurs qui cherchent à exploiter les facteurs de stress présents dans nos sociétés.La pandémie de Covid-19, les mesures de confinement qui en ont découlé ainsi que la propagation de la mésinformation et de la désinformation en ligne qui y sont liées sont donc des conditions idéales à exploiter pour certains acteurs malveillants. Les partisans de l’ultradroite, en particulier, ont rapidement saisi l’occasion offerte par la crise du Covid-19 pour ancrer leurs idées dans le débat public et recruter de nouveaux membres. Bien qu’elle se manifeste principalement en ligne, cette exploitation ne s’est pas limitée à la sphère virtuelle et s’est matérialisée dans des événements réels, par exemple lorsque des extrémistes violents se sont mêlés aux protestations contre le confinement et les restrictions sanitaires et que des plans d’attaques terroristes ont été contrecarrés. Alors que le secteur technologique a rapidement réagi à la vague de désinformation, les changements rapidement apportés aux politiques de modération des contenus en ligne ont déjà des conséquences importantes pour l’avenir de la modération de contenus et de la liberté d’expression en ligne. En effet, le secteur technologique mondial, notamment les réseaux sociaux et les plateformes d’hébergement de contenus, a réagi particulièrement rapidement à la propagation des théories de désinformation et de conspiration liées au Covid-19. Dans cette note, Tech Against Terrorism analyse comment les partisans de l’ultradroite ont exploité l’instabilité causée par la pandémie de Covid-19, et ce que la réponse du secteur technologique signifie pour la liberté d’expression en ligne et la responsabilité des plateformes.

Terrorism research has begun to focus on the issue of radicalization, or the acceptance of ideological belief systems that lead toward violence. There has been particular attention paid to the role of the Internet in the exposure to and promotion of radical ideas. There is, however, minimal work that attempts to model the ways that messages are spread or how individual participation in radical on-line communities operates. In this paper, we present a stochastic linear system to represent the evolution of contribution to a sample of 126 threads in an on-line forum where individuals discuss radical belief systems. To estimate or predict the time-varying contributions of agents for given onlineforum data, each agent’s contribution has been modeled as a state variable. We then use the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to identify the model parameters including the adjacency matrix of the graph constructed among participating agents along with measurement and system uncertainty levels in online-postings. Our approach reveals the identified dynamical influences among agents in the time-varying shaping of the contribution in a datadriven fashion. We use the real-world data from online-postings to demonstrate the usefulness of our approach, and its application toward on-line radicalization.

In this paper we argue that understanding terrorism within the new cyber environment of the twenty-first century is paramount for the intelligence services in the dawn of the 21st century. We believe that the intelligence services will have to confront this new trend in terrorism tactics in years to come whether they are fully prepared or not. This new type of threat will be one of the principal questions for intelligence services in the 21st Century.

The technological age has forced the U.S. to engage a new set of national security challenges. Several potential adversaries have cyberspace capabilities comparable to those of the U.S., and are constantly conducting surveillance, gathering technical information, and mapping critical nodes that could be exploited in future conflicts. How can the U.S. government best defend against future cyber attacks? Recent policy documents set out a strategy for securing all of cyberspace, which experts argue is impossible to implement, but also unnecessary. This thesis seeks to move the discussion beyond this stalemate by undertaking an analysis of the vulnerability of cyberspace to terrorist attacks. The first analysis examines the Code Red Worm and the Slammer Worm. These two worms were selected because they were highly destructive and spread faster than normal worms, making them well suited for assessing the existing security of computers and networks. The next analysis examines a staged cyber attack on critical infrastructure, entitled Attack Aurora. In the staged Aurora attack, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Idaho lab hacked into a replica of a power plant’s control system. This attack is the most recent staged attack and facilitates an analysis of vulnerabilities of critical infrastructures to cyberterrorism.