Twitter Terrorism?

Oh REALLY?

Could Twitter become terrorists' newest killer app? A draft Army intelligence report, making its way through spy circles, thinks the miniature messaging software could be used as an effective tool for coordinating militant attacks.

For years, American analysts have been concerned that militants would take advantage of commercial hardware and software to help plan and carry out their strikes. Everything from online games to remote-controlled toys to social network sites to garage door openers has been fingered as possible tools for mayhem.

I've written about Twitter As A Threat before, but this is completely different. The US is still looking for tools the terrorists are using (you know, like the ONE time that someone tried to slip explosives by the security checkpoints in a pair of shoes?) and not finding anything but the dumbest, sloppiest and most ham-fisted terrorists. Check this out, and try to refrain from falling out of your chair in laughter:

Scenario 1: Terrorist operative “A” uses Twitter with… a cell phone camera/video function to send back messages, and to receive messages, from the rest of his [group]... Other members of his [group] receive near real time updates (similar to the movement updates that were sent by activists at the RNC) on how, where, and the number of troops that are moving in order to conduct an ambush.

Scenario 2: Terrorist operative “A” has a mobile phone for Tweet messaging and for taking images. Operative “A” also has a separate mobile phone that is actually an explosive device and/or a suicide vest for remote detonation. Terrorist operative “B” has the detonator and a mobile to view “A’s” Tweets and images. This may allow ”B” to select the precise moment of remote detonation based on near real time movement and imagery that is being sent by “A.”

Scenario 3: Cyber Terrorist operative “A” finds U.S. [soldier] Smith’s Twitter account. Operative “A” joins Smith’s Tweets and begins to elicit information from Smith. This information is then used for… identity theft, hacking, and/or physical [attacks]. This scenario… has already been discussed for other social networking sites, such as My Space and/or Face Book.

Wait! Terrorists are on MySpace and Facebook now, too?!

Look, guys. We get it: Terrorists communicate. Terrorists can communicate the same way other people communicate. What's next? "Terrorists might drive cars?" Looks like we'd better beware of anyone found driving a Toyota. Seriously, how much money do we have to waste on reports like this, which state the obvious while putting a sensational movie-plot spin on things?

Bruce Schneier - I don't always agree with him...

Love him or hate him, Bruce Schneier always has a fascinating take on security. Sometimes I agree. Sometimes I disagree. When I disagree, it's like a train wreck... So horrible, but so hard to look away.

I must admit, though, that his take on "Movie Plot Threats" is one issue where my stance and his line up quite parallel. And he finally worded it so succinctly today, that I may just have a new favorite Schneier Quote:

... the very definition of news is something that hardly ever happens. [emphasis added] If an incident is in the news, we shouldn't worry about it. It's when something is so common that its no longer news - car crashes, domestic violence - that we should worry. But that's not the way people think.

Check out the full essay, which originally was published in The Guardian.

As a culture, we've become so fraught with fear of dozens upon dozens of little specific "threats" simply because we saw that it happened or that a plot was uncovered and made the news one time. Helicopters dumping anthrax into our HVAC systems, dirty radiological bombs, splinter cells targeting kids at shopping malls on Halloween, IEDs taking out bridges, poisoned water supplies, elaborate mechanical sabotage plots (when the TSA's done a better job sabotaging our airplanes than any terrorist has) and many, many more.

It's the classic game of attacker and defender. If the defense is constantly reacting to attacks as they happen rather than identifying and stopping the attackers, the defense will end up spinning its wheels trying to make sure the old attacks aren't happening. Meanwhile, the attackers are concocting something else that no one is even expecting.

Most of the terrorists who've been caught were caught through investigating leads based on intelligence gained through slip-ups or stool pigeons within the terrorist organization. After that, the specific plots-du-jour became paradigms of terrorism. You're doing it WRONG!

The security gate at the airport is the wrong place to be identifying terrorists. Profiling individuals at a choke point is a sure-fire way to fail, by metric of false positives (stopping a non-terrorist) or false negative (allowing a terrorist). If instead of hiring people to keep liquids and toenail clippers off of airplanes, we'd put more effort into following leads, identifying terrorists, and making their lives hell (instead of making the rest of our lives hell), I think we'd be a lot better off.