Counter-terrorism and Online surveillance

The Internet enables global terrorism in several ways. It is an organizational tool and provides a basis for planning, command, control, and communication among the concerned groups with little hierarchy or infrastructure. It is a tool for gathering intelligence, giving access to a broad range of material on potential targets, from maps to satellites and aerial images. One of its most valuable uses is for propaganda, to send across the messages, images, and ideas that motivate these groups. Terrorist groups can use e-mail, websites, and chatrooms for fundraising by soliciting donations from supporters and by engaging in cybercrime (mainly the theft of financial data such as credit card numbers or fraud).

The internet is being used by terrorist organizations for many things these are some of the noteworthy tasks that these organizations use the internet for.

·        Propaganda distribution

·        Recruitment

·        Incitement

·        Radicalization

·        Training

·        Financing

·        Planning

·        Preparatory secret communication

·        Execution

·        Cyberattacks

Due to all this activity by terrorist organizations, the authorities need to maintain strict surveillance over cyberspace.

A significant amount of knowledge about the functioning, activities and sometimes the targets of terrorist organizations is derived from websites, chat rooms and other Internet communications. Further, increased Internet use for terrorist activities also provides a corresponding increase in the availability of digital data which can be gathered and analysed for counter-terrorism purposes. intelligence, Law enforcement and other authorities are developing increasingly sophisticated tools to proactively detect, prevent and deter terrorist activity involving the use of the Internet. The use of traditional investigative means, such as dedicated translation resources for the swift identification of potential threats, is also growing.

Online forums provide a chance to present opposing viewpoints or to engage in constructive debate, which may have the effect of discouraging potential supporters. Counter-narratives with a good factual base can be conveyed through images, videos and online discussion forums, Successful messages can show empathy with the cardinal issues that contribute towards radicalization, such as social and political conditions, and highlight alternatives to violent means of achieving the desired outcomes. Strategic communications that provide counter-narratives to terrorist propaganda may also be distributed through the Internet, in multiple languages, to reach a broad, geographically diverse audience.

There are various techniques and technologies that authorities use to gather information on terrorist organizations online. Below are some technologies and tactics that are noteworthy.

Content matching technology: "video and Image matching uses hashing technology to reduce an input of any length into a fixed string of text a so-called hash which is popularly called a digital fingerprint."[1] The short version of the input is compared to other files to find duplicates and stop them from being shared. This technology can be used to help identify identical harmful content, such as extremist, terrorist, or pornographic content, in real-time at a high scale. While Content matching technologies allow the recognition of unknown or “first-generation” harmful content, hashing technology enables the recognition of already-identified content so that when the same material is shared multiple times through various platforms it can be processed and removed at a faster rate. this technology complements the functionalities of Artificial intelligence in online surveillance and can be combined to permit for more efficient content moderation. "PhotoDNA is an example of this technology that was initially developed to identify child sexual abuse material and is now more widely used on other illegal content." "In December 2016, Facebook,  Microsoft and Twitter, Google announced plans to tackle terrorist content such as terrorist recruitment videos and violent terrorist imagery using PhotoDNA."[2] This content matching also uses some key features to identify the content by maintaining a repository of items that need to be looked at, by matching images with the organization's flags and symbols to filter the content with more ease. Most of us have encountered this technology as this technique was used very popularly by social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram in this pandemic to stop the mis or disinformation spread about Covid-19, and Covid vaccines, by tagging all the content that has any mention of Covid, be it the president of the country or just a meme page posting content.[3]

Open-source intelligence and social media intelligence:

"Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is the method of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting publicly available data." "OSINT sources can vary from the Internet (online publications, blogs, and other social media websites), media (print newspapers, television, etc.), public government data, professional and academic publications, commercial data or what is sometimes called “grey literature” (technical reports, patents, newsletters, etc.)."[4] OSINT tools help to analyze, navigate, and visualize data, differing from searching for specific keywords to interactions of accounts. Social media intelligence (SOCMINT) is a subcategory of OSINT that focuses on intelligence gathering from social media. In this case, SOCMINT tools allow organizations to analyze conversations, respond to social signals and incorporate social data points into meaningful trends and analyses.

Online surveillance can go to a whole new level with the introduction of Artificial intelligence into the game. There are already a lot of software is being used by authorities to flag organizations that are posting extremist propaganda content. Artificial intelligence is not a leap far beyond them but it has its advantages with Machine learning and deep learning. With the ability of machine learning and deep learning the AI can look for new patterns which humans cannot because humans can only remember and process so much data at a time. All the aspects AI can contribute to the process of counter-terrorism requires much deeper study into the technology, but these are some of the important aspects which are explained briefly.

Countering terrorist and violent extremist narratives: While taking down violent extremist and terrorist content from the Internet or social media can, to a certain degree, be effective in preventing the spread of harmful narratives, Moreover, it is important to observe that content removal does not contribute in any way to addressing the root causes of terrorism and leaves vulnerable individuals at risk. Beyond just identifying vulnerable individuals, artificial intelligence can play an even more proactive role in countering terrorism online. AI can be used to analyze users’ behaviour and direct them to certain content conducive to countering terrorist narratives.

Identify red flags of radicalization: AI can identify individuals at risk of radicalization in online communities to facilitate appropriate investigation and intervention, which, as already noted, is an increasingly pertinent phenomenon online. It is also one that is impossible to detect using traditional methods of law enforcement. For this, the software look for similar traits which were identified in the previously radicalized member's profiles and considers the inputs that have been presented manually by the operators of the software. It can also be helpful to recognize specific behavioural patterns of individuals, such as consuming or searching for terrorist and violent extremist content which fits radicalization indicators.

Managing heavy data analysis demands: Whether it is to counter terrorism online or offline, AI can undoubtedly play a significant part in enhancing the capabilities of national authorities to process large quantities of data effectively and, in doing so, to optimize the required amount of human and financial resources allocated for any specific situation. More specifically, Artificial Intelligence can be used to extract required information, triage, and filter data to help prioritize the analysis of vast sets of data that may identify crucial investigative leads and help save lives.

Predictive analytics for terrorist activities:

"Predictive analytics compile a variety of statistical techniques from data mining, predictive modelling, and machine learning that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unknown events. " Given the unpredictability of human behaviour and the current state of technological development, the application of algorithms to predict behaviour at an individual level is likely to remain of very limited value. But it can still be used to analyze large quantities of data to draw predictions on the activities which doesn’t hold a lot of personal human connection to them.

counter-terrorism researchers need to tailor their recommendations to the corporate policymakers inside tech companies. Terrorists' use of the Internet has secured an entirely new class of private actors to the forefront of the fight. Social media companies, both individually and in concert with one another, have The terrorist or not using the dark web or deep web for their benefit, they are using the regulated internet without getting caught or removed for a long time, the same sites and applications which most of use daily. ( Facebook, Whatsapp, Telegram etc)

There are multiple arguments are in play when it comes to regulating cyberspace, one is that the government should take strict measures to make the social media giants comply with the need of the hour to better surveil cyberspace, and the other argument is that the social media applications should develop their internal operations to prevent the spread of the propaganda of the terrorist organizations, and other harmful content.

some social media platforms developed strong operations to stop terrorists from abusing their platforms. Like some of the counter-terrorism programs, these tactics are not perfect, but they represent a remarkable new component of the societal response to terrorist violence. "In the first nine months of 2018, Facebook removed 14.3 million pieces of content related to the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and their affiliates, only 41,000 of which were flagged by external sources, primarily regular users." [5] "The overwhelming majority of the content removed came as a result of Facebook’s voluntary internal efforts." Regardless of the future regulations, these efforts are likely to stand critical.[6]

There are a lot of barriers to effective online surveillance to counter terrorist activities online. There are privacy issues that are leading to protests by the public and facing resistance from large social media organizations which are citing it will compromise the privacy of the users. Developing countries like India don’t have a good infrastructure at hand to properly surveil cyberspace, even the most developed countries like the USA are not fully successful in this medium. India needs to invest in good infrastructure for the authorities and work with private players in cyberspace to regulate it properly.

India is also working towards better surveillance of the online platforms when it comes to the big social media platform to reduce the reach of criminal organizations or individuals, and identify them to take necessary actions and to punish them. The New IT guidelines passed by the government empowers the authorities to identify the source of specific messages. “The Information Technology (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021’ were notified on February 25, giving social media platforms three months to comply. The rules state that intermediary providing messaging services will “enable the identification of the first originator of the information on its computer resource” following a judicial order passed by a court of competent jurisdiction or an order passed under section 69 by the Competent Authority as per the Information Technology Act.”[7]

Notes

[1] Countering Terrorism Online With Artificial Intelligence An Overview for Law Enforcement and Counter-Terrorism Agencies in South Asia and South-East Asia A Joint Report by UNICRI and UNCCT

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid

[5] Fishman, Brian “Crossroads: Counter-terrorism and the Internet”,  The Strategist, Texas national security review , volume 2, issue 2, February 2019, Print ISSN 2576-1021 Online ISSN 2575-1153

[6] Ibid

[7]https://mib.gov.in/sites/default/files/IT%28Intermediary%20Guidelines%20and%20Digital%20Media%20Ethics%20Code%29%20Rules%2C%202021%20English.pdf

Pic Courtesy-Shahadat Rahman at unsplash.com

(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of CESCUBE.)