Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORK SERVICES
Online social network services used by terrorists are the latest growing trend; more and 
more supporters of terrorism appreciate the freedom to exchange or comment on any 
terrorist action without restriction from any forum administrator as described above.
The increasing number of terrorist sympathizers using Social Network services 
has already revealed that the terrorist community is not so united and supportive as 
it seemed to be. There are several disagreements about claims of attacks, or even the 
purpose of an attack; for instance, the dissention between the Islamic Army of Iraq 
who claimed that Syrian 
Jabhat al-Nusra
is one of its affiliated groups, whilst 
Jabhat 
al-Nusra
rejects this affiliation and claims that the Syrian conflict has nothing to do 
with Iraq is an example among many.
The increase in the number of terrorist accounts on Twitter raises the issue of 
identification of individuals or groups, for instance, several Twitter accounts claimed 
to be the official media entity of the Somali terrorist organization; 
al-Shabab
, how-
ever it is difficult to determine who is genuine and who are impersonators. This is 
posing a serious issue about who to monitor for intelligence services.

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Particular case: Lone wolf
In early 2012, several posts on the “Ansar al Mujahideen” forum discussed about 
the possibility of developing a Jihadi Social Network website (
Levine, 2012
). This 
“website” would replicate the mainstream services and functionalities offered by 
Facebook or Google 
+
in a hope to increase the number of sympathizers and as a 
consequence the terrorist community emulate in publishing more postings.
The initial idea does not cover the following issues: the amount of work required 
to develop and maintain such a website; hosting such a service; or the control over 
users’ identity accessing this platform.
The emergence of an independent trustable Social Network service with no intru-
sion from Government Agencies or Law Enforcement is in reality unlikely to happen 
and quite difficult to materialize.