Chapter V: Justifications Behind Information Terrorism

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." -- Polonius to Hamlet

Both conventional terrorists and information terrorists have motives for choosing particular modus operandi for a given target. For this reason, I have previously described and explained the weapons and tactics terrorists use, the targets they aim for, and the nature of terrorist actors. The question that remains is why conventional terrorists would choose to use IW if it would inherently change certain aspects of conventional terrorism. As such, this chapter explores the practical reasons previously left unexplained why terrorists would choose to use IW instead of conventional methods. These reasons become the pro's and con's of information terrorism. The grounds for choosing IW tactics may by conventional terrorists may depend on the environment, particular situation or the group itself. However, since the definition of terrorism used in this thesis revolves around politics, the attractions to using IW that enable terrorists to best achieve these political causes are the most important reasons to analyze. The advantages to choosing IW tactics include the ability of IW to transcend geographical boundaries, the low cost of IW, the level of anonymity provided by IW, and the offensive nature of IW. In addition to the advantages that make IW attractive to conventional terrorists, there are also several disadvantages that also affect the decision to use IW. These three disadvantages include the blurring of lines between a political terrorist action and a simple criminal action, the decreased power or importance of the group, and the nihilistic phenomenon of terrorist actions known as the phoenix complex.

The Practical Reasons for Choosing IW

Four factors make it advantageous for a conventional terrorist to become an information terrorist. One justification to choose IW tactics over conventional tactics is that IW allows the actor to transgress both geographical and otherwise physical boundaries (Molander, Riddile and Wilson 1996, xv, 19-22). The conventional terrorist needs to have direct physical access to a vulnerable target. Therefore conventional terrorism requires extensive coordination, planning and financial resources in order to gain the close proximity to a target that is necessary to either physically attack it or take a hostage. IW eliminates the need for direct physical access. With a computer terminal and a modem an information terrorist could hack into a target from thousands of miles away. While the physical security to the same target may be impenetrable for any conventional terrorist, the information super-highway provides numerous vulnerable access points. Even when information terrorists cannot hack into a target, with other IW tools like an EMP/T device, information terrorists can often still bypass traditional physical barriers while carrying the EMP/T device. For example, trying to carry a gun or conventional bomb on-board a plane would be much more difficult than carrying a device that can be hidden in the electronics of a lap-top computer. In other words, the physical and digital boundaries of nation-states are reduced in importance, if not eliminated, with IW methods. [See Figure 5.1].

In addition to the blurring of geographic or political nation-state boundaries, other traditional distinctions of public verses private or warlike verses criminal, are complicated by IW. As a result, the dimming importance of most conventional boundaries decreases the ability to "make any kind of clear distinction between foreign and domestic sources of IW threats...[and] you may not know who is under attack, by whom ... or who is in charge [of coordinating a response]" (Molander, Riddile and Wilson 1996, 19-22). This is important because it shows that it would be more difficult to catch or stop information terrorists.

Second, the low-cost of conducting IW has been demonstrated but remains an important advantage for choosing IW tactics. As noted by Robert D. Steele, a former CIA officer, as little as one million dollars could "reduce the United States to information rubble" (Devost 1995, 41).1 To destroy the financial capabilities of Wall Street, for instance, the costs to make an EMP/T type bomb or use any other IW weapon are "incredibly cheap when compared to the cost of conventional military weapons" (Devost 1995, 41). Thus, considering that many conventional terrorist groups driven mostly by political reasons are economically dependent on nation-states or drug cartels, the low-cost/high-yield aspect of information terrorism are obvious reasons for the conventional terrorist to use IW. Additionally, the low-cost of entry into information terrorism from conventional terrorism dramatically multiples the threat. For instance, with the difference of knowledge and power as demonstrated earlier in Fig. 4.2, IW increases the numbers, kinds and capabilities of potential adversaries (Molander, Riddile and Wilson 1996, 17-19). Thus, the low-cost of IW results in both decreased dependence on other actors, but also increases the numbers of actors who can take up information terrorism who were previously restricted from acting because of this dependence on drug cartels or nation-states.

A third reason why a conventional terrorist might also choose to use IW means is because of the anonymity that IW provides. For example, if a terrorist would attack the public telephone network, the idea of "binary schizophrenia" would set into the targeted audience. Proposed by Schwartau, "binary schizophrenia" is the American belief that citizens need technology and computers, but at the same time we do not wholly trust technology or computers to be reliable (Schwartau 1996, 95). Thus, if the electrical power mysteriously goes out, U.S. citizens would be prone to look for technological causes rather than insidious information terrorists (Schwartau 1996, 95). This provides added anonymity to information terrorists. Not only can an information terrorist now breach U.S. national security and interests, but after an information attack the information terrorist can sit back and let insecurity and "binary schizophrenia" multiply the effect of the original action since Americans depend on technology to live before claiming credit for the attack (Devost 1995, 44). Additionally, the anonymity that IW provides comes when the attack is occurring. Unlike a conventional attack when you know that someone intentionally detonated a bomb, with an IW attack, the source or cause of the attack is often veiled or even destroyed in an electronic haystack. This provides added security to the attacker that conventional terrorism cannot provide. Essentially IW enables the information terrorist to cut Americans with both sides of the same sword.

Finally, conventional terrorists would use IW for its strategic purposes. Unlike conventional terrorism, no conventional radar or satellite can spy on the activities of an information terrorist who operates from within a building on a secure computer and a phone line.2 Another way to think of this is from a defensive perspective. "Tactical warning and attack assessment are extremely difficult" on the information super-highway. An adversary or information terrorist can potentially attack and withdraw at the speed-of-light so that trying to find the smoking gun in a timely fashion would be very difficult, if not impossible, especially in the context of a severe crisis or series of attacks (Molander, Riddile and Wilson 1996, 26-28). Combining anonymity and the ability to transgress boundaries with a perfected attack plan, the information terrorist could attack digital targets on which physical targets rely. Thus, these are several strategic advantages that IW provides that conventional terrorist methods cannot provide.

In the movie Blackout Effect, the loss of a radar image of a plane on the scope of an air traffic control terminal for a few seconds ended in a mid-air collision and catastrophe (Blackout Effect, 1997). This is a probable example of how information terrorists will first strategically use IW. If you think this cannot happen in reality, then you might be surprised to hear that it has happened even to the most watched plane in the skies--the Presidential flagship--Air Force One. On March 10, 1998, en route to Connecticut, Air Force One disappeared in a similar fashion to the fictional movie for almost 30 seconds (CNN Today, 11 March 1998). With the effectiveness of an IW attack, using IW may also actually prevent an adversary from responding to the attack (Devost 1995, 47). For instance, if information terrorists attack a person's "digital self," such as their social security number, it might be hard for the individual to file a police report if their social security number says they are a wanted criminal. Thus, an IW attack would give a decisive strategic advantage to any political group, along with the previous three reasons for choosing IW, making IW very appealing to conventional terrorists. Fortunately for the U.S., there are also several reasons why conventional terrorists might consider the use of IW as a disadvantage.

The Grounds Against Choosing IW

Three arguments help to explain why--despite some obvious advantages--conventional terrorists would choose not to use IW. First, although more objects and people can be attacked with IW, conventional terrorists may not choose IW tactics because the tactics do not create the fear that conventional tactics would. This reasoning suggests that IW blurs the distinction between political acts and criminal acts. This is strikingly different from conventional terrorism, in which the goal of promoting a political agenda is made generally clear. Second, if conventional terrorists do choose to use IW means, it would decrease the power or importance of the terrorist group and organization. Since conventional terrorists may be as effective in the creation of terror as information terrorists, or a single individual could be an information terrorist, having to reorganize or adjust group dynamics to accommodate the organization change or the fear of losing members would be reasons why conventional terrorists would not choose IW. Finally, the nihilistic phenomenon of terrorist members to be willing to sacrifice themselves, known as the phoenix complex, diminishes greatly when using IW. When the devotion to the cause decreases, there is less reason to use IW because the purpose of terrorism itself has lesser importance. These three reasons all support why conventional terrorists would view IW methods as disadvantages and are discussed in detail below.

First, conventional terrorists depend on the ability of attacks to directly result in victims, create fear among a target audience, and convey a political message to a target of influence. Once it is discovered that an IW attack occurred, however, the response is often not one of fear or terror, but one of resiliency and action.3 This is mainly because without immediately claiming credit for an attack, which would increase the risk to information terrorists slightly, people do not know why something happened. For instance, people will only know that two subway cars crashed due to an electronic malfunction, but not what caused the malfunction. While secondary victimized targets may be fearful at first, once an IW attack occurs the fear is directed toward technology. Instead, the primary mind-set is to fix the weakness or hole, not to be intimidated (InterPact 1998). As people begin to recognize the problems of IW, and the vulnerabilities in the information super-highway, most information and information systems should naturally become more secure. As a result of the decreasing public relations value of an IW attack and the increasing difficulty to attack, information terrorists may eventually raise the electronic stakes in order to get the most publicity for their attack and cause. While this is similar to conventional terrorists who move from harder to softer targets, the response to an information terrorist assault merely creates a "just fix it" mentality, while the response to conventional terrorism remains terror and fear. Thus, conventional terrorists may view IW as only providing short-term benefits, if any, and believe that conventional terrorism is just as productive as IW.

The distinction between the different impacts of either direct IW attacks or indirect IW attacks also interferes with the ability of conventional terrorists to create fear and convey a political message. Although IW technology and the anonymity of an attack allows an actor to potentially cause more damage, the actions by a computer may actually mask an otherwise political act as nothing more than a simple crime or technological flaw. Since conventional terrorism revolves around the political aspect of direct persuasion with violence, anything that may interfere with the delivery of the message would be considered a severe disadvantage. Almost every example of IW could be labeled as a simple criminal action without knowing the motives behind an attack. Hacking into a bank to embezzle money, using an EMP/T device on the phone company for charging too much, or re-routing shipments of chemical supplies just to steal them are not obvious signs of terrorism. These are different than attacks that directly harm people. For instance, the terror created by taking people on a bus hostage and then killing them is significantly different from using IW to cause two subway cars to mechanically fail and collide. This is the difference between direct and indirect attacks. The results may be the same, both ending in the tragic loss of life, but the level of fear created from the attacks is considerably different. Whereas humans tend to naturally fear physical violence against other people, assuming that the cause of an electronic malfunction resulting in death or injury would take considerable time to discover, humans find it more difficult to place blame on anything but the machine. As a result, IW decreases the level of blame directly attributed to humans and increases it toward computers or technology. This shift in blame patterns detracts from the impact that the terrorist action was intended to cause. Therefore if conventional terrorists would use IW, it may interfere with their ability to create fear and convey a political message.

A second reason that conventional terrorists might consider the use of IW a disadvantage is because IW decreases the importance of a conventional group that is unattractive to conventional terrorists. As shown in chapter four, if IW is used a group is no longer even necessary to carry out the same yielding IW attack. So by making IW tools available, the group naturally has a lesser importance, and the group may even lose individual members. On the other hand, conventional terrorists depend on a group or organization to carry out a plan of terrorism. Killing people or other direct physical violence, for instance, irrevocably links the individual to the terrorist group and cause (Dobson and Payne 1982, 84-85). As a result, the first attack by new members in a conventional terrorist group is done more often to tighten the cohesion of the group and develop loyalties than for any other reason (O'Neil 1990, 104). When direct physical attack or aggression is replaced by IW techniques, however, information attackers no longer require a group. Thus, when conventional terrorists use IW the conventional group organization would need to change from a vertical to horizontal structure. Additionally, even within the literature on conventional terrorist groups, one of the causes of disunity in groups is competing strategic beliefs (O'Neil 1990, 102). IW would magnify this disunity in organizations, causing either a breakdown of the conventional terrorist group or it's reorganization since now every individual could use IW differently. Lacking clear indoctrination, since single individuals may have the IW skills to follow their own leadership and goals, IW further separates the need of the individual to belong to a group (Crenshaw 1989, 19). Thus, while a re-organization may be tolerated by a group committed to using IW, it can also be seen as a disadvantage.

Finally, the idea of the phoenix complex also makes the transformation from conventional means to IW difficult for conventional terrorists. According to Amon, within "terrorism are found the same elements of self-sacrifice, the attempt to burn and obliterate the present body, the rebirth of new life from the ashes of the old, and the promise of a messianic future that we associate with the legend of the phoenix" (Freedman and Alexander 1983, 13). In other words, conventional terrorists are out to have their cause survive in a society that they are out to destroy and are willing to sacrifice everything to make it happen. This desire is called the phoenix complex. If conventional terrorists do use IW, however, they are inherently using the system they disdain, industrialized technology and information systems, and the use of IW negates the need of actors to take extreme or suicidal actions to promote a terrorist group's cause. No longer would terrorists have to be willing to sacrifice their lives. Therefore, IW inherently defeats the phoenix complex, an important factor in the success of conventional terrorism.

If conventional terrorists do not choose to use IW, despite the advantages that IW can provide, these three reasons support that decision. In the past conventional terrorists have always had to opt for destructive or violent measures to get the attention of the world for their cause. However, although conventional methods do not allow terrorists to gain any power, control or influence other than with the evocative nature of their actions, IW allows information terrorists to get this power in a different manner. Instead, IW methods enable the information terrorist to get control and wield considerable power over the information and information systems that people depend on. This power enables the information terrorists to essentially tactically confront the U.S. on an equal level instead of on a "Have-Have Not" playing field. This is a fundamental difference between conventional terrorism and information terrorism and the strongest reason why IW is so advantageous to conventional terrorists.

Conclusion

Clearly conventional terrorism and IW are different in many respects. As such, when conventional terrorists choose to use IW tactics, the transition needs to be justified. On the one hand, where conventional terrorism is limited, such as with geographical or physical boundaries, IW is an advantage because it allows information terrorists to transgress these limitations. Conventional terrorism is also limited due to the financial restrictions of expensive conventional armaments and large amounts of people terrorist groups must support. Since this dependent need is often filled by drug cartels or nation-states, the low-cost of IW to achieve an even higher-yield without the dependency is a huge advantage for information terrorists. What this means is that IW enables the information terrorist to better achieve their goals by indirectly targeting people. Consequently, information terrorists are better suited to achieve their desired outcome in an attack than conventional terrorists.

IW is also advantageous for conventional terrorists because it increases their ability to attack a victim-target anonymously. Anonymity may seem contrary to the needs of terrorists to make demands or claim responsibility, but all that IW does is mask how an attack occurs through an electronic haystack. For instance, if a group threatens to destroy an organization's assets, the conventional reaction would be to set up physical barriers. But when information terrorists attack an organization with HERF guns there is little to no resistance or protection available from the attack, and the information terrorists can also allow binary schizophrenia to set in before claiming responsibility. Thus the anonymity that IW provides results in dual-advantages and makes the information terrorist more powerful in both succeeding with an attack and generating fear. This relates to a final advantage of IW to be used strategically. Unlike conventional terrorism, there are few warnings on the information super-highway. This allows an information terrorist to attack and withdraw at the speed of light. IW can also cripple an adversary so that any electronic response or tracing is impossible. Although there are many other reasons why IW is advantageous to conventional terrorists, these reasons explain that information terrorists would succeed more often than conventional terrorists in an attack. These advantages also reinforce that the U.S. is vulnerable to both IW and the subset of information terrorism.

Fortunately, despite these advantages, the process of switching from conventional terrorism to using IW methods is not necessarily automatic. Due to the unique nature of IW, as opposed to other technological, military or offensive capabilities,4 there are three main reasons why choosing to use IW would be a disadvantage to conventional terrorists. The most significant disadvantage is that an attack using IW tactics may not create the same level of fear or terror as a conventional direct violent attack would. Instead, an IW attack may result in resiliency and fortitude. This reaction to an attack is exactly the opposite effect a conventional terrorist group would want. Additionally, the line between a political act and an act that is simply criminal in nature is blurred. Thus, IW may actually interfere with the ability of information terrorists to convey a clear political message. This is the one issue that makes proving that an information terrorist is a subset of IW and not just another information warrior quite difficult. Another disadvantage IW presents is a decrease in the value of a conventional group and an increase in the value of an individual. This is unattractive to a conventional group because it would decrease the cohesion and importance of the group necessary to maintain a vertical hierarchy, and may also be seen as detracting from the value of the organization's cause. Finally, conventional groups depend on the members' need to sacrifice themselves for the group and cause. Whereas to conventional terrorism the phoenix complex is both wanted and necessary, IW simply provides thorough protection to its users that the phoenix complex is rendered no longer relevant. Thus, these disadvantages demonstrate why deciding to use IW is not an easy one to make despite the benefits IW provides to an aggressor. Nonetheless, should conventional terrorists use IW, becoming information terrorists, strategies and solutions must be created and implemented to combat the threat from the sub-category of information terrorism.

CHAPTER IV

Return To Index

CHAPTER VI