Key questions

• 1. Is hacking infrastructure or digital denial of service best described as terrorism, and how best is it possible to define cyber terrorism in relation to and in distinction from digital hacktivism?

• 2. How far have digital networks and terrorist networks mirrored one another?

• 3. In what ways, and with what limitations, can digital networks enable terrorists?

• 4. Is the internet an unregulated space for terrorist propaganda and hate speech, and to what extent does such content radicalize and/or incite real violence?

• 5. Have digital affordances been enacted symmetrically, or asymmetrically in conflicts between states and violent non-state political actors?

Links to affordances

Regarding cyber terrorism, the question of access has shifted over time, from delivering physical harm (such as in detonating a bomb or crashing an aeroplane by remote online access) to the delivery of money, propaganda and communications. The capacity to conceal content and to evade authorities exists across global networks, but terrorist networks, and those uploading hate speech in remote jurisdictions, are not as immune from authorities as was imagined 20 years ago. The dark web is not as dark as it was imagined once to be: virtual proxy networks (VPNs) and TORs increase privacy, and can even be combined; garlic routers add even more security. However, entry and exit point vulnerabilities mean such systems are not inviolable. Simplistic accounts of online radicalization, or the idea that Facebook incited the Arab Spring, are misleading, even if incitement to violence online has inspired a small number of lone-wolf actions. The association between digital networks and empowered small actors, allowing them to take on powerful states through asymmetrical (terrorist) tactics, has been replaced in more recent years with a return to inter-state conflict, now by digital means.

Synopsis

In an information society, can jaw-jaw really be a form of war-war? Certainly, the ground has been sown for a clash of liberties: when the right of expression confronts the right to security. This chapter applies Wall's transformation test (see Chapter 1) to the themes of so-called cyber terrorism and hate speech online. Has the digital made a difference? Clearly, digital networks can be used to distribute propaganda by those advocating politically motivated violence, and to spread hate speech; but do such affordances actually translate into the increased violence some seek to achieve?