CNN is re-reporting a story from Die Zeit about a treasure-trove of al-Qaeda documents and manuals found encrypted in pornographic videos.  The encryption was done using a technique call steganography.

The videos were found in the possession of Maqsood Lodin, a 22 year old Austrian and suspected al-Qaeda member.  He was detained by authorities in Berlin as be returned from a trip to Pakistan.  The documents discussed plans to attack cruise ships as a distraction while Mumbai-style attacks were initiated in Europe.  Training manuals were also found.

The information was encrypted in the frames of the videos using steganography.  This technique manipulates the least significant bit of the pixels making up digital images to store hidden information.  Changes to the picture are so subtle they are impossible to detect visually, but if someone knows the information is there and has the necessary software and passwords, they can extract the encoded information.  For example, this image

is a reproduction of one that encodes the scripts of five major plays of Shakespeare.  You can see the demo for yourself by running S-Tools.

Since a video is basically a series of digital images like this, steganography can be applied to its frames to hide huge quantities of information. A 20 minute video at 30 frames per second can hold 36,000 times as much information as is stored in the above picture.

This is not the first time there have been reports about al-Qaeda using the technique.

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Indonesian Islamist extremist supporters ar Rahmah posted a story today (2-13) on their website and Facebook page about the hacker group Anonymous’ plans for a cyber-attack on Israel. The story (here) links to the Anonymous YouTube video announcing their plans.

While ar Rahmah undoubtedly supports the effort, the article quotes the video as a declaration of a “Crusade” (perang salib) against Israel. The Crusade narrative is the second most frequently invoked among Islamist extremists to describe western actions in Muslim lands, so it is somewhat surprising to see ar Rahmah’s emphasis of the term (although the Crusades targeted Jews as well as Muslims). The most frequently invoked narrative is Nakba (“catastrophe”), which refers to Palestine.

In this case, it appears that for ar Rahmah, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. In the video, Anonymous criticizes Israel for its perceived hypocrisy, claiming to be democratic while “carelessly trampling the liberties of the masses.” While Islamist extremists have no pretensions to support democracy – rule by anything other than clerically mandated sharia is forbidden in their eyes – they have no problems jumping on the criticism of Israel if that’s one of Anonymous’s points. Anonymous’ recent cyber-attacks on the CIA and state of Alabama likely bolsters ar Rahmah’s opinion of the group.

On Facebook, ar Rahmah’s posting of the story had 135 “likes,” 14 “shares,” and eight comments as of Monday afternoon (CST). This isn’t a lot of reaction to the story, but that’s understandable due to ar Rahmah’s limited appeal to Indonesian Muslims. The original YouTube video posted by Anonymous, however, has over 120,000 views and counting, and over 2000 likes and 1000 dislikes. I perused some of the over 7000 comments, and found most of them to be anti-Semitic and anti-Israel ranting, conspiracy theorizing, and some in defense of Israel or against the bigotry.

I suppose a common hatred of Israel and Jews makes for some strange bedfellows, and I shouldn’t find it surprising that groups such as ar Rahmah support this effort by Anonymous. I wonder, however, if and when Anonymous will turn its sights toward Islamist extremists, who have become increasingly sophisticated in their abilities to spread their agenda via the internet. Perhaps that’s just a matter of time.

Related posts:

1. Extremists Stoking Religious Violence in Indonesia by Chris Lundry Violence between Muslims and Christians broke out...
2. Yes, Extremists are Paying Attention by Chris Lundry Last year, my colleagues Steven Corman, Jeffrey...
3. Another Bombing in Indonesia, Another Struggle over Framing by Chris Lundry On Sunday, September 25, a lone suicide...

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Since November of 2006, the State Department has taken its public diplomacy efforts into the online arena of Arabic, Urdu, and Persian discussion boards. Heading this effort is the Digital Outreach Team (DOT). According to DOT member Muath Alsufy, the initiative began after the realization that “there was a lot of misinformation about the US, mainly foreign policies, and there was a void… no source on these forums and blogs that would identify this misinformation and somehow correct it.” Thus, the DOT’s mission to correct these misperceptions was born. Research and analysis for this post, however, suggests that DOT efforts could actually be producing negative results.

At the outset, the DOT’s efforts were met with mixed opinions. A 2007 New York Times story cited a number of positive reflections by analysts, including that “they had been surprised by the positive response, with people seemingly eager to engage [on the forums].” It also said that the DOT’s work “helps to counter one source of radicalization — the sense that Washington is too arrogant to listen to the grievances of ordinary Arabs.”

In a previous post on this blog, Steve Corman defended the DOT against David Axe of Danger Room labeling the State surfers as “trolls.” Matt Armstrong, however, gave “no applause” to the team for misunderstanding both the audience and the nature of online discourse, criticizing the fundamental approach.

That criticism may be valid. Recent research produced by Brendan Nyhan of the University of Michigan and Jason Reifler of Georgia State casts serious doubt on the effectiveness of efforts to correct political misperceptions based on either false or unsubstantiated beliefs. Their study involved subjects reading mock news articles that included misleading claims and also corrections, a format very similar to the way forum users read information.

Contrary to what we might assume, “results indicate[d] that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological group.” In fact, they found “several instances of a ‘backfire effect’ in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.” While the experiment does not exactly mimic the environment and conditions in which the DOT tries to correct misinformation, it does call into question the premise on which it is based.

Having now reached its fourth birthday, researchers are taking a closer look at the effectiveness of the DOT program. Two recent examples are of particular interest. Lina Khatib of Stanford University is currently leading a project asking whether or not the DOT is a “useful complement to more traditional forms of public diplomacy.” While Khatib and her team have not yet published any findings, her presentation at Georgetown University in March painted a less than rosy picture. Some of the problems are predictable, such as forum users accusing DOT staffers of being traitors or conspirators.

In addition to that, Khatib reportedly two more interesting challenges. First, teams of forum users have organized to oppose DOT members’ posting activities, composing about half of the negative feedback on their posts. Second, Khatib argues that “in many instances the logic and rationale of the responses backfires as they address conspiracy theories with either ridicule or belittling the critics,” therefore undercutting the outreach effort.  Lastly, Khatib describes the lack of consistency between posted statements and policy realities as a major undermining factor.

The second example is found in a recent report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Released on October 19^th, it states that over their nine-week observation period of the DOT in action on Palestinian forums, the “State Department’s efforts to influence the online discussions were largely ineffective.” FDD suggests that while this may be the case because of the team’s relatively small staff, the most limiting factor, in their opinion, is that the DOT identifies themselves as State Department employees. “To be effective, the outreach team must not advertise its presence.”

While this call for the DOT to “go dark” is at odds with principles of public diplomacy, it reflects one of the biggest challenges that the DOT faces: credibility. Even on general interest forums, such as Aljazeera Talk, DOT posters face consistent insults and accusations. In addition to that, threads started by the DOT appear to act as magnets for insults and accusations against the United States and its policies.

During a 2008 NBC Nightly News story on the DOT, Marc Lynch commented that he thought it was “worthwhile, as long as you don’t have too high expectations.” While not appearing overly optimistic, Lynch seems to affirm that there is some intrinsic value to the program despite its limitations. During the same segment, NBC correspondent Mara Schiavocampo further downplays the mixed expectations for success, suggesting that “when you’re fighting the war of ideas, showing up is half the battle.”  Seconds later Brent Blaschke, Director of the DOT, affirms that statement saying, “We can’t guarantee that by going online and engaging we’re gonna change—influence anybody, but I can guarantee you if we’re not there we won’t influence a single soul.”

This leads to a fundamental question that seems to be missing from the discussion: What if the DOT’s online efforts are actually harming the image of the United States by creating even more unfavorable discourse? As already noted, forum users with opposing viewpoints are making a concerted effort to post “counter-arguments” to any DOT posts. These replies often include personal insults and attacks, tempting the DOT poster (acting as a representative of the US) to respond in kind. In one example a DOT member repeatedly told forum user that he should think twice and form better arguments before hitting the “reply” button.

More significant than exchanging personal insults, however, is creating the appearance of a win for the anti-American posters. While it is impossible to judge how these online exchanges affect readers’ opinions, it seems difficult to believe that American posters are more skilled at navigating the narrative terrain than the opposing side. And success requires a dialogue. It appears that in many cases, the challenges of users against the United States go unanswered. Though this is likely because of the DOT’s small size vis-à-vis the entire Arabic forum and blogosphere, it gives the impression of acquiescence.

One clear example of failure to respond can be found here on al-Saha, a general Arabic-language discussion site. A DOT staffer started a thread about the United States’ true intentions in Afghanistan and includes a video of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Negative comments appear within minutes, including a personal attack against Secretary Clinton and her ability to control “a country like Afghanistan and Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban.” More significantly, the last comment declares  that “America’s goal in Afghanistan is to kill Muslim civilians and the establishment of a true Islamic state.” No response to this or any other comments on the thread was made.

Missing a rebuttal on one thread is likely of small significance. But if this style of posting without follow-up is a trend, it could become hugely detrimental to the DOT’s mission. Through my examination of the communication patterns of the DOT on a few Arabic-language sites, I found mostly discouraging evidence. This is based partly on threads like the one mentioned above. Even in threads where DOT staff responded, however, their voice was outnumbered by many more negative responses from forum users. The fact that those negative responses often included personal attacks and sensational photos of civilian casualties makes the hill that the DOT must climb even steeper.

Unfortunately, I cannot currently draw any hard, overall conclusions as to whether or not the DOT is succeeding in its mission. Such a definitive statement would require sophisticated research and tracking of the posts, comments, and dialogues generated by the DOT and other forum users. Perhaps Lina Khatib and her team have such a study forthcoming.

Regardless, it seems clear that the assumption that “any action is good action” must not be made. Given the real chance that, despite good intentions, DOT operations could actually be doing more harm than good, a serious and thorough review of their strategies, tactics, and results is needed.

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I ran across an interesting research article in the most recent issue of the Journal of Communication entitled “‘Carrying online participation offline’–Mobilization by radical online groups and politically dissimilar offline ties.”*

The study looks at neo-Nazis and radical environmentalists (NN/RE) in the West, but because it potentially sheds some light on similar practices by online Muslim extremists, some of the findings deserve comment here.

One notable thing about the study is that it is based on a survey of actual participants in NN/RE Internet forums. The author sampled 517 e-mail and PM addresses form participants in 19 forums, and got usable responses from about 62% of them. That’s a surprising response rate. I don’t know about you, but if I were a neo-Nazi or radical environmentalist I wouldn’t be too keen to answer surveys about my participation in activities supporting my movement.

One question the study addresses is whether participation in the online groups has any effect on support and promotion of the movement in question. Results suggest that the answer is yes because the participation factor was “significant” (science-speak for “greater than expected by chance”). However the effects were very small, with level of participation in the group accounting for 4% of the variation in support for the movement, and 3.4% of the variation in promotion of the movement.

A flaw of the study, in my view, is that all the respondents were participants in a online group. Without a non-participant group for comparison the study can’t conclusively answer the question of how much participation increases mobilization.

More interesting are the study’s findings about the influence of offline relationships on the participants’ engagement. Specifically it asks whether family and friends influence political engagement and/or moderate the mobilizing influence of the online groups. The study classified a participant’s “core ties” (people they are very close to, such as family member) into three categories, those having high, moderate, and low similarity to their own political views. For participants with either the high- and low-similarity core ties, movement support, movement participation and online participation were attenuated.

The author repeated this analysis for “significant ties” (people, such as friends, to whom participants are close but not as close as with core ties). Here there were similar but smaller effects for movement support and online participation, but not movement promotion.  So what we might call “lesser” ties do not have as much of an effect as core ties.

These findings suggest that lots of interpersonal communication with close others reduces the tendency to put radical ideas into practice, if the close others are either radical or anti-radical. If they are more of a mixed bag then they tend not to have this effect. This is interesting because we would normally assume that a radical whose network of close relationships is also radical would perhaps be the most dangerous.  But this seems not to be the case, at least in this samlple.

If the study’s findings generalize, then radicals are perhaps most likely to mobilize as a result of online participation when they are in a social milieu that contains a lot of political diversity.  This would seem more likely if a radical is located in an urban environment. Could this help explain the tendency for radical Islamists to operate in large urban areas of Europe and the U.S.?

* by Magdalena Wojcieszak.  Journal of Communication, Vol. 59 (2009), pages 564-586.

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Hi there.  Long time, no blog.  That’s in part because I was attending a conference entitled Strategic Communication for Combating Terrorism sponsored by the NATO Center of Excellence for Defense Against Terrorism in Ankara, Turkey.  The workshop featured 15 experts on strategic communication, including fellow blogger Matt Armstrong of MountainRunner.

Considering that we did not coordinate our subject matter in advance, there was a remarkable amount of  convergence among the presentations.  I summarize six main themes here for your reading enjoyment, as a way of documenting the current thinking on the main problems of strategic communication against terrorism.

Engagement

The strongest theme had to do with engagement.  Speakers stressed the importance of increased engagement with strategically important audiences and communication channels.  The four aspects of this theme were:

• The need to view strategic communication as a two way process of communication.  This contradicts the traditional view that communication is a one-way process of transmission and highlights the importance of strategic listening and dialog, and resonates with our white paper on 21st century strategic communication.
• The importance of personal contact between NATO personnel and target audiences and populations, so as to better understand their views, interpretations, and culture.
• The need for NATO communicators to improve familiarity and engagement with the New Media.
• The critical factor of engagement with policy formulation, treating policy as an aspect of strategic communication rather than the traditional system that treats strategic communication as a way to “sell” policy that is often unpopular with strategic audiences.

Media Landscape

Many speakers addressed the radical changes in the media landscape over the last decade that have changed the role of the traditional media and created many new types of media. These changes represent an increase in the overall importance of the media and a growing need for engagement with the full spectrum of media channels. Adapting to the new landscape is critical to the success of NATO strategic communication efforts.

New media has been a hot topic in strategic communication for some time.  Next week I will be speaking at a conference entitled Legitimising the Discourses of Radicalisation:  Political Violence in the New Media Ecology sponsored by the University of Warwick International Security Initiative.  I will endeavor to post a report on the discussion there.

Complexity

Numerous speakers noted the revolutionary increase in the complexity of 21st Century strategic communication systems due to factors like globalization and the burgeoning media landscape already mentioned.  These changes not only make the strategic communication system more complicated but provide opponents with the ability to adopt more complex and agile organizational forms.

Control

In the past best strategic communication practices were concerned with control of messages.  But new realities create a system with levels of uncertainty that make control impossible (another theme in the white paper linked above).  Treating 21st century systems as simple and controllable when they are not leads to negative outcomes and strategic communication failures.  This presents a significant challenge for NATO communicators because their practices and systems were developed in the last century, when control-based communication was more practical, and are proving slow to change.

Narrative

Many speakers discussed the growing importance of narrative in strategic communication, which forms an important basis for interpretation of action by strategically important audiences.  NATO nations are doing a poor job of making their narratives clear, and are taking actions that contradict their narratives, thus undermining their credibility.  At the same time they must do a better job of understanding and countering the narratives of their opponents.

Narrative appears to be an ascending topic in strategic communication.  On my UK trip next week I will also be attending a conference devoted to the subject in London called Reframing the Nation: Media Publics and Strategic Narratives, sponsored by the Open University.

Organizational Inertia

Inertia in the command systems of NATO and its member nations inhibits the change mandated by the five foregoing themes.  While there is widespread agreement among theorists and operators that strategic communication practices must evolve to meet new challenges, political and organizational structures of the status quo work against these changes, keeping the alliance in an underperforming posture that reproduces outdated practices.  This is perhaps the keystone problem in NATO strategic communication, because it inhibits adaptation to the new realities discussed at the workshop.

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By Pauline Hope Cheong

Two related white papers have generated fresh buzz about Internet radicalization in recent weeks.  These papers are in substantial disagreement about the basic issue of how much of a force the Internet is in causing radicalization.  This is a sign that the process is not yet well-enough understood, and that we need a broader view of the effects of new media on radicalization.

One report, Countering Internet Radicalization in Southeast Asia, is a joint effort of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies and Australian Strategic Policy Institute (RSIS-ASPI).  The other, Countering Online Radicalization, is published by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR).

Both articles acknowledge the role of the Internet in ideological warfare resulting in violence. Here are excerpts from both reports that illustrate what they have in common  (italics, mine):

Recent examples from Europe, including the cases of Younis Tsouli (a.k.a. ‘irhabi007’) and Ifran Rafa, show that the internet can be the main way some individuals become radicalised without external contact. Both men spent hundreds of hours downloading videos, posting email messages and chatting on web forums. As a result of those activities, and without any prior involvement with extremist groups, both Tsouli and Rafa concluded that they wanted to participate in a terrorist attack. They were joined by others online to create a ‘virtual’ terrorist cell… (RSIS-ASPI)

Labelled ‘Britain’s youngest terrorist’ by the press, Munshi collected instructions for making napalm, high explosives and suicide vests, and was a member of a British group of ‘online jihadists’ who regularly shared extremist videos and spent hours discussing their plans to travel to Pakistan and die as ‘martyrs’. Much of Munshi’s extremist activism took place online, but his radicalisation had been initiated in the ‘real world’. Through a common friend, Munshi had met Aabid Khan at Dewsbury central mosque. Khan had attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and served as a recruiter for the Islamist militant movement ….As with Khan, whose real world contacts informed his online activities, Munshi’s radicalisation too was a combination of face-to-face interaction and virtual consolidation. (ICSR)

So both papers highlight the personal actions of young European Muslims in radicalization.

On the other hand they disagree about how much of a role the Net plays in this process. In the RSIS-ASPI report, the Internet is conceived to be a culpable force and cyberspace is the central context of radicalization.  For them, “auto-radicalization” poses a significant threat:

The internet has contributed to radicalization, will probably grow in regional significance, and might become the dominant factor in radicalization in the region.

But the ICSR report sees online activities as a less malignant complement to face-to-face encounters in extremist activism.  It concludes that the Internet is not and will not be the principal driver of hate crimes and terrorist attacks:

[S]elf radicalization and self-recruitment via the Internet with little or no relation to the outside world rarely happens, and there is no reason to suppose that this situation will change in the future.

Disagreement in the two reports reflects uncertainty about the role of the Internet.  It is envisaged as the main culprit in one approach, and as an accomplice in another.  The difference is important, because which view we accept has real implications for policy.

Clearly it is still difficult to pinpoint exactly when radicalization occurs and  what sources contribute the most to the conversion process.   The link between  personal uptake of online propaganda and violent action is tough to establish because we still have too narrow a view of how any why technology supports radicalization.

Broadening our view of technology and its effects could improve our ability to draw the link.   For example, here are three aspects of techno-radicalization not addressed in the current reports that seem crucial to understanding the process:

• Speed and intensity of radical messages and messaging.  Both papers mention the capabilities of the internet for anonymity and asynchronous communication, but they downplay the diffusion of online messages over time and and the importance of “viral” messaging systems.  Both reports cite political communication research on the “echo chamber” effect of the internet, which speeds amplification of messages.  But other concepts exist that deal with other aspects of message intensification.  For example, research on hyperpersonal communication online that stresses that computer-mediated communication speeds up development of social intimacy between users.  Any evaluation of the Internet’s impact as a radicalization tool needs to consider the various ways mediated communication intensifies communication relationships.  We must also keep in mind that online radicalization is usually backed up by face-to-face encounters.
• The evolving communication ecology.  Both reports focus on the Internet and offer policy recommendations involving the government, Internet service providers, and Internet users to varying degrees.  But they are silent on recommendations regarding the related aspects of the mediated and interpersonal communication landscape.   This is important because our conception of what constitutes “the Internet” is continuously evolving as various smaller media applications like Twitter are connected to the web via multiple mobile devices. Radicalization can also be catalyzed via the creative appropriation of online materials from older media, and vice versa. For example, the conversion of religious podcasts to cassettes or compact discs by Internet users for dissemination to their social networks adds new scope to religious webs of faith and the appraisal of online radicalization.
• Incidental communication, virtual worlds, and identity.  Both reports focus primarily on the recent proliferation of extremist websites and their migration to popular social networking media like YouTube and Facebook. Yet the attention placed on internet users’ direct consumption of messages–downloads, page views and messaging, etc.–overlooks extremists’ growing use of virtual worlds like Second Life, where communication can be more incidental.  Though some dismiss this threat, recent research on online religion shows how virtual worlds can support religious collaboration and the growth of religious identity and community.  This flags another potentially important aspect of online radicalization.

In short, disagreement about the role of the Internet in radicalization is a sign that we don’t yet have a complete understanding of everything that it entails.  A good response is to broaden our view of how technology affects communication, what counts as “the Internet,” and how it can grow identities that sympathize with extremist ideologies.

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Today the Washington Post reports that AQ Web Forums were “abruptly” taken down.  Abruptly?  Well not if abruptly means suddenly, as in it just happened.  This story has been circulating in the blogs for months, and it’s more like there have been a few waves of take-downs.  It even blipped-up elsewhere in the MSM one month ago.

Will at Jihadica reported on a wave of take downs on June 10th, then another on September 21st, then yet another on October 27.  CBS scooped WaPo on it a month ago, re-reporting a story in the Hindustan Times.  It said the spooks were blaming it on e-vigilantes Aaron Weisburd and Rusty Shakleford.  They deny it.  Marisa at Making Sense of Jihad is skeptical of the alleged gubmint explanation too.  To add further to the confusion, Will reports that some of the forum operators are blaming it on Shia groups who are supposedly retaliating for hacks of their sites.

Well, how intriguing!  Let me add my own $0.02 on this.  To start with, I have been told that the gubmint doesn’t want these sites taken down because they are useful source of intel.  This make sense, too, because if they did want the sites taken down they would have done it a long time ago and it would be child’s-play for them.  So unless something has suddenly changed that makes these sites useless for intel purposes, the gubmint is not a likely source of the take-downs.

Did the e-vigilantes do it?  They say they are not hackers, but who knows for sure.  They at least claim to be White Hats in the e-terrorism game, so its conceivable they were involved.  Or maybe the Shia groups did it.  Yet neither of these scenarios really makes sense because forums have remained off.

I have been able to find no account of the circumstances under which they went down.  But to the best of my knowledge, all the common attacks against web sites are “temporary” in the sense that once you discover them you can correct the security breach and get back up and running (unless you’re some kind of massive operation like Amazon.com and they have hosed your back-end processes).  On a small forum, even if someone scrambled the forum databases, you could reset and start with zero post history.

If all else fails, you can just move to a new IP address and start from scratch.  The Bad Guys do this all the time in response to take-downs by ISPs.  You can sign up with a new ISP that provides plug-and-play forum software and be running with an IP address within an hour, and have a registered domain name within several hours.

So while any number of parties could have taken down some forums, I’m really scratching my head trying to figure out why they have remained down.  One explanation  I haven’t seen anyone suggest so far is that the Bad Guys have themselves taken these forums down.  Perhaps they decided they were too good a source of intel for their enemies.  Or maybe they uncovered some kind of threatening operation and pulled the plug.

This is really the only explanation I can think of that fits with the facts mentioned above, and explains why the sites have gone down and stayed down. If you have an alternative theory, please post a comment.

UPDATE 10/20

Will at Jihadica, reports that two of the extremist sites are back up.  More are supposedly to follow shortly.  Still no explanation for why they did not come back up more quickly, so this still doesn’t make sense.

UPDATE 10/23

More coverage from The Guardian and Christian Science Monitor playing-up the Shia hackers angle.

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Writing today in Danger Room, David Axe called members of the State Department’s Digital Outreach Team (DOT) “trolls.”  Axe was responding to some statements by Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Jim Glassman’s in a bloggers’ roundtable earlier this week.  Glassman discussed a recent and unusual engagement with an Iranian official by the DOT, which Matt has already written about.

I was more than a little surprised to see this presented as news, since the DOT program has been in operation for over a year now.  It was created in the summer of 2007 as a result of Karen Hughes’s U.S. National Strategy for Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication as a non-BBG media activity that could help counteract negative propaganda about the U.S.

According to a New York Times article about the program last year, the DOT consists of State Department employees who speak the requisite foreign languges.  It concentrates on “about a dozen” mainstream Muslim web sites.  Team members try to engage discussion about the U.S. and its policies, and “they always identify themselves as being from the State Department.”  I don’t know what actually happens, of course, because the team operates on sites in Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu.

Is it reasonable to label the DOT members as “trolls”?  Methinks not.  My personal experience with trolls is that they try to completely disrupt an online discussion group, to prevent it from carrying on as usual.  They mainly do this by being e-jerks, baiting people into emotional, off topic reactions and flaming.  Sometimes they hack boards to delete or change posts, or impersonate other members.  Above all, they do all they can to prevent anyone from finding out who they are or where they come from, so there is no chance of retaliation by aggrieved parties.

Indiana University Information Technology Services has (for reasons I can’t really fathom) a page about trolls. It says their communication falls into one of three categories:

• “an apparently foolish contradiction of common knowledge”
• “a deliberately offensive insult to the readers of a newsgroup or mailing list”
• “a broad request for trivial follow-up postings”

It goes on to say that “people post such messages to get attention, to disrupt discussion, and to make trouble.”

If the public facts about the DOT are accurate, none of the foregoing characteristics of trolls applies to them.

It would be one thing if the “troll” label had been applied by a clueless individual.  But Axe is from Wired, for crying out loud.  You would expect writers from that outlet to have a better command of the digital lexicon.

UPDATE — Sept. 22

As Patricia pointed out in a post today, a transcript of the exchange with the Iranians shows that the digital debater in question indeed identified as being a State Department employee, but did not say exactly who s/he was.  Javanfekr thought it might be the Secretary of State:

Javanfekr: 1. My identity is completely clear to you but your identity is not at all clear to me. You are aware that I am the President’s adviser in media affairs and in this blog I express my own personal views and the official positions as declared by the government and foreign ministry spokespersons and also by the president and the foreign minister.  2. Considering that you present US government positions and given that your identity remains a secret, let me from now on refer to you as her Excellency Madam Rice, the distinguished US secretary of State unless you identify your position/standing at the US Department of State to the readers of this blog.

Debater: Thank you for the promotion but I am not the Secretary of State. I am a member of the Digital Outreach Team which is an entity within the US Department of State. Our goal is to establish communications and have a candid conversation with the people of Iran and answer questions about US foreign policy. But I think it’s better instead of focusing on personalities and job titles to focus on issues.

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Online PSYOP campaigns are a cheap and easy way for extremists to infiltrate U.S. public discourse about the fight against terrorism. The campaigns attempt to break the political will of U.S. policymakers and persuade the public to doubt the purpose and effectiveness of their government’s policies.

Does extremist propaganda have enough breadth and resonance with Western audiences to make them re-think their government’s actions? The extremists must think so, because these efforts remain a critical component of their broader strategic communication.

On August 4th, Steve Corman reported about a new trend in online extremist PSYOP campaigns: deliberately misrepresenting the content of YouTube videos in order to lure pro-American viewers into watching violent attacks or extremist messages.

Extremists also encourage their followers to engage in a “media jihad” against Western audiences to promulgate an anti-war sentiment. Last year, MEMRI reported that the “Al Mohajroon” website gave specific instructions to these virtual warriors to “break [Americans’] spirits” by posting on forums and sites popular with Westerners.

Specifically they suggested posting videos and images of American soldiers committing “crimes” like killing unarmed civilians, women, or children. They also encouraged fabricating stories about disaffected American soldiers that have turned against the war:

Obviously, you should post your contribution…as an American…You should correspond with visitors to this forum bringing to their attention the frustrating situation of their troops in Iraq…You should invent stories about American soldiers you have [allegedly] personally known…who were drafted to Iraq and then committed suicide while in service…Also, write using a sad tone, and tell them that you feel sorry for your [female] neighbor or co-worker who became addicted to alcohol or drugs…because her poor fiancé, a former soldier in Iraq, was paralyzed or [because] his legs were amputated…

Over the past several years, extremist media organizations, forums and bloggers have called on their multi-lingual readers to translate texts, videos, magazines, and statements into English. One of the more recent suggestions, was posted on al-Ekhlaas forum on Aug. 18. It called on media organizations and individuals to provide translations of popular jihadist e-journals like Sawt al-Jihad.

There is also a growing number of extremist websites in English, created by both official media organizations of extremist groups and individuals that adhere to their ideology. Countless sites, blogs, and discussion forums seek to engage the U.S. population and manipulate their opinion. The language barrier between the United States and its adversaries in the global extremist network has practically been rendered irrelevant by the prevalence of English language Islamist media.

So what, if anything, should be done about extremist Internet content? The Internet is famously difficult to control or regulate. Proposals to do so are almost always controversial.

Extremist videos posted on YouTube caught the attention of U.S. lawmakers earlier this summer. On May 19, 2008, Senator Joe Lieberman wrote a letter to the chairman of Google, Inc. (which owns YouTube) asking the company to develop a method to systematically remove extremist videos from YouTube. The senator notes, as Steve did, that “this should be a straightforward task since so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance.”

The YouTube Team responded on their blog that same afternoon. They promptly removed 80 videos that featured explicit violence. However, they declared that in order to encourage a “healthy debate”, most of the videos identified by Sen. Lieberman would remain online. Despite their obvious affiliation with extremist groups, the videos were not considered in violation of YouTube’s policies.

Sen. Lieberman’s request sought to help counteract the threat of self-radicalization of individuals within U.S. borders, which may be fueled by readily-available extremist propaganda. In his response to Google’s actions, he stated that “no matter what their content, videos produced by terrorist organizations…should not be tolerated.”

One comment on the YouTube blog, by a user named “northshore83”, points out that the issue revolves recruitment:

If our country has designated al-Qaeda a terrorist group then how much of a difference is there between permitting them to recruit on this privately owned forum and recruiting at a privately owned building? Would you object to the al-Qaeda representatives being prevented from staging a fundraiser or recruitment meeting in your home town?

Removing videos that simply propagate an ideology walks a fine constitutional line. However, YouTube is a private organization that is not bound by constitutional restrictions, and it is unlikely that those posting the material in question are even U.S. citizens. Since the promoters of the ideology advocate violence against YouTube’s home country, Sen. Lieberman’s request seems to many to be simple common sense.

Finding extremists online and removing their websites and postings is another contentious issue. Some go as far as accusing U.S.-based extremist bloggers of treason, claiming that they are actively propagating an ideology that promotes the destruction of America. Yet the hosts of many of these extremist websites are either unaware of their content, or are unwilling to remove them due to the volume of sites they support and legal protections of free speech.

U.S. government officials have been lukewarm to the idea of trying to stamp-out extremist messages online. Following the Lieberman – YouTube dialogue, a Washington Post article quoted a senior U.S. counterterrorism official as saying “Yes, we could go around shutting down Web sites, but it doesn’t really work as a strategic weapon against al-Qaeda,” because as soon as one site is shut down another pops up.

So, are Americans falling for the bait? The effectiveness of these extremist PSYOP campaigns is difficult to assess. The number of hits on a particular YouTube video may be an indication of popularity, yet it does not distinguish Americans from other viewers, and it says nothing about the impact of the message. Although minimizing the presence of extremist PSYOPs online might be a good idea, it should not displace another priority: Creating a counter-media strategy that can deconstruct extremist ideology and reduce demand for it on the Internet.

UPDATE:

On September 11, 2008, Sen. Joe Lieberman’s office issued a press release announcing Google’s decision to strengthen its policies regarding YouTube videos that incite violence. The new community guidelines will now target videos that include “predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, intimidation, invading privacy, revealing other people’s personal information, and inciting others to commit violent acts…” Although Google has removed hundreds of videos from YouTube since Sen. Lieberman’s initial request, extremist videos depicting and inciting violence remain prevalent on the website.

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In the past couple of days I have received email alerts from ESISC, an independent European group based in Brussels that describes itself as doing observation and analysis of international terrorism and related strategic issues. The emails indicate concern that the Bad Guys are planning attacks during the upcoming Ramadan (which this year exactly occupies the month of September).

The first alert from two days ago says that a forum (unnamed), which is “generally used by Al Qaeda and its affiliates” has posted

a lengthy message signed by “Baghdad Al-Khilafa” (war name) urging to perpetrate suicide attacks in Sweden during the first month of Ramadan

In their analysis of the message they say this threat must be taken seriously because it is one of a

growing number of messages hinting to a “campaign of attacks in Europe during the holy month of Ramadan” [that] have been posted on websites close to Al Qaeda.

Today I received another ESISC alert, this one focusing on year-old pictures of a training camp for suicide bombers, taken in the Pakistani FATA and sold to ABC News. According to the alert these pictures were taken from the ABC web site and reposted on an (again unnamed) extremist forum earlier this week.  The post included a call to strike Canada, Germany, the UK and the US.  ESISC sees this as worrisome in the context of the above-mentioned hints about impending Ramadan attacks.

I don’t normally pass along “warnings” like this.  The posts being referred to in the alerts can come from over-excited newbies rather than actual operatives, and even when from the latter can be puffery.  But since the ESISC people are claiming this is a pattern, I pass it along as an information item.  Maybe Will or somebody else who monitors the forums can confirm, deny, or otherwise shed some light on this.

UPDATE 8/10/08

Will from Jihadica writes:

I checked a number of forums, but there isn’t much on the topic.  Still, that doesn’t mean Ramadan is bad time to launch attacks.  In 2006, Abu Ayyub al-Masri announced that a major AQI offensive, “The Clear Conquest,” was to begin on Ramadan of that year.

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