Terror minds look for techie brainpower

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Terror minds look for techie brainpower

The nexus between technology and terrorism is growing to alarming proportions. Why would techies be attractive recruits for terrorist outfits and vice versa?

Pratima Harigunani

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

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PUNE, INDIA: The last few months saw a string of bomb threats entangling the nation across Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad etc. Investigations have followed. So have some arrests.

And apart from the cues that cops have increasingly started spotting across the technology foyer via cyber café seated plotting, hacking feats and online steering of the dastardly acts, there is another incidence of technology strains that have surfaced.

Among some major suspect-based arrests made in connection to terrorist crimes, we see tech experts like an information-technology literate activist of a much-talked-about group, who was operating from Mumbai and was reportedly deft at explosives.

A paper on International Terrorism Monitor, at South Asia Analysis also cites tech-related names among the major arrests done by the Gujarat police. An explosive expert who holds a diploma in electronic engineering and a young computer engineer are part of the list.

Scroll across to London, and we see that just a few days back, a man described by prosecutors as a terrorism "Mr Fix-it" who recruited young people to al Qaeda's ideology over the Internet, was jailed for 12 years while one of his accomplices received a 10-year term.

As per a news report, Blackfriars Crown Court found that one of the alleged persons had excellent IT skills, and used the Internet to circulate terrorism material including technical documents on how to make napalm and homemade explosives. He also used Internet chat rooms to lure vulnerable people and then incited them to fight.

The possibility is not novel. The potential of IT experts and their contribution to terrorist acts neither. In fact, in a research piece titled 'Engineering and Terrorism: Their Interrelationships' Dr. Michael C. Clarke, Managing Director, M.E.T.T.S. Pty. Ltd., Consulting Engineers, Brisbane has observed in detail the interplay between technology, engineering and terrorism.

The relevance of technology, project management and engineers' contribution to terrorism post the 9-11 black day has been talked about here. So has the possibility and potential getting leveraged already?

What makes a techie attractive for terrorists?

A tech expert brings a lot to the table in a terrorist lair. Apart from the obvious IT and engineering competence related to executing terrorist events in a world of technology, handling equipments, planning creative ways of formulating and executing threats etc. there are other advantages too that terrorists may find relevant.

Techies are lateral and different thinking tanks, excellent strategic planners, good field operatives, thorough network and system experts, meticulous organizers, and safely reticent by nature.

In fact, an Oxford study, 'Engineers of Jihad', found terrorists in Islamic countries were more likely to be engineers than members of other professions. The study argued that an 'engineering mindset', coupled with harsh socioeconomic conditions in certain Islamic countries, could lead to participation in terrorism.

Though the study created a lot of debate denying such an hypothesis, it was also argued by many that engineers are over represented in terrorism, citing that the major Afghanistan-based terrorist empire responsible for 9/11 too had a significant number of the group's top leadership had engineering backgrounds.

Such groups are said to be increasingly recruiting engineers, scientists, chemists, people with medical degrees and people with technical background.

As Dr. Clarke observes in the paper, "Engineers with their understanding of technology, risk management and project management will be a serious threat, since they will be looking to analytically and efficiently use the reverse of what an engineer is trained to do (that being to change the physical world to the betterment of mankind) to destroy what has been created."

According to him, "In particularly they will use risk management tools, such as consequence analysis to select targets, plan their projects and maximize the physical and psychological harm of their actions."

Techies could be formidable plug-ins as the back-end accomplices and field-perpetrators for any such act.

Their role cannot be shrugged away. They fit well, bring the exact capabilities and could be the ripe pool of talent terrorist outfits could be attracted to. After all, such outfits too have graduated to more of well-oiled, sophisticated, professionally run organizations and like any other organization would consider good talent in the spotlight.

Omendra Bharat, an IITian himself and state president, Bharat Punarnirman Dal, a novel political group with a lineage of IIT pass outs doesn't find the idea surprising at all.

"Look back at Indian mythology, and good talent was reaped as much by the Asuras as by the Devas. And could be across the globe. Afghanistan for example, is full of good technicians. And if one per cent of the world is part of such a network, we can't rule away the role of a country with one-sixth of the world's population too. I don't know of any direct contribution or instances, but the possibility is definitely there."

But the nexus is not that direct yet. In Bharat's perspective, more than direct connections terrorists could be leveraging tech-talent more in an indirect fashion. Some consultancies could be the piece in the chain, supplying the tech part of the job, he says.

Sudam Choure, advisor to the Pune cyber cell and director, Maha Infotech dovetails this opinion that the techie talent is being reaped more indirectly than directly. But religion, mindset are equal and even at times more important considerations than the qualification for such terrorist groups.

"These groups are finding different sources of manpower and are coming up with a strange focus of not just destruction but throwing new challenges to law-enforcement agencies," he observes.

What can make terrorism attractive for a techie?

Aren't techies well paid already? Isn't their work satisfying enough? Isn't the risk and the ethical dimension of indulging on the black side, too much of a stake? Why would then a techie be interested in a terrorist organization? Money, ideology or sheer thrill, what attracts him?

In Dr.Clarke's paper, he points out that as per its definition of terrorism, the combination of a technology, project planning and a socio/political cause includes two key areas in which engineers excel.

"Engineers that come from societies that are in themselves under threat from internal and external influences, and where alternate (and legal) means of expression are either banned or methodically suppressed will have the third terrorism necessity, a socio/political cause, and will be recruited by (or be found offering their services to) terrorist organizations."

As Bhat views it, a talented person won't necessarily stop at one place or level. "Techies are going in different directions. It ranges from MBA, Medical to anything worth trying," he says citing his case where he chose a political intervention instead of the normal track.

But it is not necessary that a techie is contributing to such events with a destructive mindset. "Look at the inventor of Atom Bomb, he never designed it for human decimation. Similarly, a techie's constructive skills and output could be twisted and used the other way round by a terrorist."

Gaurav Roy, an IT professional who is working as a technical lead in a Pune-based firm feels that it must be indoctrination based on some philosophy that might be luring techies to such outfits.

"They are also humans and terrorist organizations hire based on some philosophy and keep trying to convert people to their philosophy. This can also affect educated people."

He admits that while money could be an additional attraction, philosophy is the prime mover. "Huji, the Bangladeshi group supposedly mainly operates as a hired hand. And the payments to terrorists are huge."

Examples are galore. From Osama bin Laden, a student of engineering himself to the 9/11 kamikaze pilot Mohammed Atta, the alleged mastermind of that plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and their all-but-forgotten predecessor, the chief plotter of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing at New York City, Ramzi Yousef.

The Oxford scholars, put together educational biographies for some 300 known members of violent Islamist groups from 30 countries, and concluded that a majority of these Islamist terrorists were not just highly educated, but a startling number of them are engineers with nearly half having studied engineering.

A summary of their research in Foreign Policy magazine remarked that "across the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the share of engineers in violent Islamist groups was found to be at least nine times greater than what one might expect, given their proportion of the working male population.

There are many interesting points in the study as reported some time back. One of them is that engineers consider themselves problem solvers, and when the world seems to present a problem, they look to engineering-type solutions to solve it.

Surveys in Canada, Egypt, and the US have proved over the years that engineers tend to be more devout, and more politically conservative, than the rest of the population.

But cyber expert Choure opines that in India particularly the probability is high on the immature, young breed of techies that the league of sophisticated pros.

"The thrill and money is a possible factor. They don't really understand the dangerous implications of their inputs which while, are good enough for the terrorist groups, they are, however, negative for the country and themselves," he observes.

"Moreover, once they stain their hands in such an environment, there is hardly any U-turn. They can't change tracks and would probably continue in this line till they are fully-blown criminals."

Brainpower seems to be becoming the new horsepower of the Satans. And with this the menace and its evil potential has only increased. The other side of the tech knife is surely not that glorious a sight anymore.

Get your Act together

Terrorism has no doubt got a digital face now and we can see people from different ideologies as well as methodologies harnessing the power of Internet and technology for executing terrorist designs, feels Pavan Duggal, Cyber law expert and advocate specializing in cyber law at the Supreme Court.

"The use of microprocessors in the recent blasts have only confirmed our worst fears and terrorists today are using technology and Internet to a broader extent."
The problem is that the Indian IT Act is completely silent on cyber laws, he points out. So we need a three-pronged approach to tackle the menace.

First, make the laws more stringent, be it IT Act amendments, or changes to IPC or terrorism related laws.

"A minimum punishment of ten years and a fine up to some crores of rupees should be put in. The government too needs to recognize the changing horizons of cyber-terrorism and realise that cyber-terrorism is taking centre-stage. We need a national policy on cyber-terror and how are we going to deal with it. We need to come up with strong provisions."

Second important area to work on is the implementation of the laws and third is to have a uniform approach in dealing with such areas.

The message is that the knife's other edge has turned sharp but if that is possible why can't we make the other edge as lethal. It's time we really act.

©CyberMedia News

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Mohan kumar said on 8/28/2008 6:16:28 PM:
I appriciate author.... and knowledge shared with us

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Kunal said on 8/28/2008 10:33:47 AM:
Policies making and their implementation is a governmental task. There is always a big gap between the desired policies and actual policies that are in existence. This, naturally, affects the Nation at large but its consequences are mostly borne by the citizens of that Nation. Although there are many policy lapses in India but the most glaring among them are those pertaining to Information and Communication Technology (ICT). According to Mr. Praveen Dalal, the Leading Techno-Legal ICT, Cyber Law, Cyber Security and Cyber Forensics Specialist of India, “India is ignoring the importance of cyber security and cyber forensics. The ICT Trends in India-2006, ICT Trends in India-2007, Cyber Security Trends by PTLB-2007, etc are examples of faulty ICT/E-governance strategies and policies of India. Further, Cyber Forensics Trends in India-2008 are also not conducive for the growth of legal enablement of ICT systems in India. The obvious result is that law enforcement, lawyers, judges, etc find it difficult to deal with issues involving ICT. The position is worst when it comes to investigation of cyber crimes committed through Wireless Networks. We cannot blame law enforcement, prosecution and judiciary in this regard as there is in an absence of proper legislative and policy support in India”.

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