Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
from ouko joachim omolo
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
LIKONI-MOMBASA
MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 2011
TAKE-2
Our take one on the danger of online services looked at how your personal information could be hacked online. Today is exactly 13 years since the terrorists attacked the American embassy in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam Tanzania. I am reporting from Likoni-Mombasa where I am for special assignment.
Likoni is one of the insecure regions in the coast-it is where in 1997, many people were killed and hundred others displaced during the Moi dictatorial regime that saw many innocent Kenyans killed since 1991.The Mombasa-Likoni clashes were believed to have been started by the governing party Kanu. In Tanzania, 11 people died and 85 were injured.
Just like some experts online could hack your personal information online, terrorists increasingly are using the Internet as a means of communication both with each other and the rest of the world. By now, nearly everyone has seen at least some images from propaganda videos published on terrorist sites and rebroadcast on the world’s news networks.
One fact remains that the Internet is a powerful tool for terrorists, who use online message boards and chat rooms to share information, coordinate attacks, spread propaganda and raise funds. Terrorist websites can also serve as virtual training grounds, offering tutorials on building bombs, firing surface-to-air missiles.
Another fact is that terrorists have developed sophisticated encryption tools and creative techniques that make the Internet an efficient and relatively secure means of correspondence. These include steganography, a technique used to hide messages in graphic files, and “dead dropping”: transmitting information through saved email drafts in an online email account accessible to anyone with the password.
Terrorists attacking British bases in Basra for example were using aerial footage displayed by the Google Earth internet tool to pinpoint their attacks. The satellite photographs showed in detail the buildings inside the bases and vulnerable areas such as tented accommodation, lavatory blocks and where lightly armoured Land Rovers were parked.
Google Earth allows users to zoom in on almost any location in the world to such close range that cars can be recognised. The site even provides latitude and longitude co-ordinates for buildings.
It explains why shortly before the Norway attack, in which at least 87 people died, Anders Behring Breivik, posted a manifesto on the Internet that includes his lengthy operational diary.
According to the document he was a lone wolf attacker who conducted his assault specifically against the Labor Party’s current and future leadership. Breivik targeted the Labor Party because of his belief that the party is Marxist-oriented and is responsible for encouraging multiculturalism, Muslim immigration into Norway and, acting with other similar European governments, the coming destruction of European culture.
Anders Behring Breivik sent his manifesto to recipients he addressed as “West European patriots” shortly before carrying out his double terrorist attack in Norway on July 22, and requested them to distribute the document to others. The Czech server ekonom.cz obtained a list of the email addresses from the Belgian far-right MP, Tanguy Veys — one of the few people who has admitted receiving the manifesto from Breivik.
Breivik’s manifesto also includes digressions on George Orwell, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, and William James. Toward the end of his manifesto, Breivik argues that “democratic change” is an illusion and that the only answer is “armed resistance.” He predicts that “more moderate” political efforts will be “persecuted” and that attempts at “peaceful reform will be crushed,” leaving violence as the only alternative.
These technological tools terrorists use can help turn the tables on unknown plotters because they are designed to focus on the how. Even though they will likely never replace human observation and experience, but they can serve as valuable aids to human perception.
It explains why an Indian Court has been called to ban Google Earth amid suggestions the online satellite imaging was used to help plan the terror attacks that killed more than 170 people in Mumbai.
Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a company acquired by Google in 2004. It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photogrpphy and GIS globe.
Google Earth can also be used to view areas subjected to widespread disasters if Google supplies up-to-date images. For example after the January 12 20 10 Haiti earthquake images were made available.
Google Earth can also function as a “hub” of knowledge, pertaining to your location. By enabling certain options, one can see the location of gas stations, restaurants, museums, and other public establishments in their area. Google Earth can also dot the map with links to images, You Tube videos, and Wikipedia articles relevant to the area being viewed.
Yet there is no way we can do away with online services given that they have become one of the most significant global transformations in the world within multiple spheres: the social, the cultural, and the economical.
In today’s flat world messages are sent and received via email in a fraction of a second, search engines fetch unbounded resources, businesses use outsourcing and off-shoring services from distant countries.
Yet still, since the inception of the Internet to public mass consumption in 1994, it gradually turned into a facilitator of traditional forms of terror, the militant ones, those shedding blood, of guns, bombs and suicide attacks, with hundredths of innocent civilians dead for no reason.
People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya
Tel 254-20-4441372
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org