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ON THE NET...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/12/AR2006041201968.html

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NOTE: The following text is a quote:
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http://www.internet-haganah.com/harchives/005572.html

14 April 2006
INSECURITY, WHAT A NOVEL CONCEPT

The gods of networking, be they still among us or of blessed memory, did not create this Internet of ours to be secure.

They created the Internet to be resilient. And to facilitate the sharing of information and collaboration among researchers working at various remote locations.

The Internet is not a private place any more than your car out on the open road or parked on the street is a private place. Certainly being inside a car can create impressions of privacy and invulnerability, but such impressions bear little or no connection to reality. Nevertheless each of us is free to express ourselves in any way we see fit as we drive down the road. Such freedom of expression does not include, however, freedom from responsibility or accountability for our actions.

For example, one is free to make an obscene gesture at the driver of another car, but one does so on the basis of the following assumptions:

1. The other driver is not armed.

2. The other driver is not having a very bad day.

3. The other driver is not an off-duty or plainclothes police officer.

All three conditions may be true, and one may get away with the offending gesture, but then again, one or more of those conditions may turn out to be false, and the result may be that we end up:

A. Getting ticketed or arrested.

B. Getting beaten up or having our car damaged in retaliation.

C. Getting murdered when the recipient of our gesture reaches into their glove box, pulls out a gun, and shoots us.

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The sympathetic treatment that the "privacy concerns" of jihadists receive in this Washington Post story

Terrorists' Web Chatter Shows Concern About Internet Privacy Groups Advise Members on Anonymity, Avoiding Intercepts

is evidence of the disconnect between the mainstream media on the one hand and the reality of a world beset by global jihadist terrorism on the other.

Each of us goes through life not knowing if at any moment some fool will stand up, yell "Allahu Akbar!!!" and press a button detonating his bomb belt, and that's OK.

We are told we need to understand why jihadis hate us so much, and that fighting back is bad because the poor dears might get offended and kill even more of us.

We are told by turns that nothing can be done about jihadist use of the Internet except to sit and watch as they use the Internet to make their jihad that much more global and deadly, and that the security issues that confront terrorists online are somehow equivalent to the privacy concerns of legitimate users of the Internet.

There is, however, good news, and it is not - as in the American advertisement - that we just saved a bundle on our car insurance. The good news is that there is growing understanding that the Internet has become a battleground, and that the jihadists who use the Internet are not spectators, they are participants, combatants. And not only is understanding of the issue increasing, but so too is action based upon that understanding.

It's high time the jihadis were the ones who suffer the anxiety and uncertainty.

Posted on 14 April 2006 @ 13:03