The Internet: A Terrorist Network?

Ever since the Internet became mass media in the western world in the mid-to-late nineties, there has been vigilance on the part of users to defend the privacy of computer networks. As a result, governments have resorted to stealth measures in order to assert their control over the data exchanged across and within borders.

Lately, however, it has become obvious that governments are taking a more pro-active role in trying to control the data flow on the Internet. This is most probably in response to the massive public protests at high-level political and economic forums over the past few years. Hence, it's time for them to play the terrorist card.

No longer is it enough that the Internet is full of child pornography, dot-con artists, and hackers intent on making your life miserable, now it is being used as a means of communication amongst terrorist organisations. To make matters worse, you are probably aiding and abetting such activity, and don't even know it.

At the center of the new anti-privacy crusade is a process known as steganography. Simply put, steganography is the ability to subliminally embed binary files, such as images or sound, with text. It's actually not an overly difficult process, and there exists numerous freeware and shareware programs that can encode text into certain files. What is more, these programs can be easily found on popular freeware and shareware depositories, such as Tucows.

Anzeige

Steganography is popular among young users, especially script kiddies. However, concern has been raised that it's much more than a simple method of secretly transferring data between kids; it can be used to cloak all kinds of data, including "terrorist" data. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that America's number one persona non grata, Osama bin Laden, has been sending documents around the world hidden within pornographic images and MP3 files.

By suggesting that terrorists have been using steganography to transmit data, convoluted logic based on a culture of fear begins to take over. If it is actually true that terrorists are using steganography to communicate with one another, shouldn't then governments be involved to counteract the threat?

Herein, one premise automatically leads to another. Since terrorists use steganography to transfer data through the Internet, and governments need to look for such communication so as to counteract the threat, a data espionage system, for example Carnivore or Echelon, is required in order to intercept "terrorist" data packets.

Yet there is a problem with this simple-minded solution, which leads us further down the anti-privacy slippery slope. Suspected terrorist data packets sent via the Internet will, for obvious reasons, not be labeled as such. Moreover, since such data can be embedded within a file of unsuspected or "clean" data using steganography, this leaves no alternative but to suspect all data packets.

Therefore, the only way to effectively intercept "terrorist data" -- that is, if it even exists in the first place -- is to search everything. This, in the end, is like giving the authorities the keys to your front door. From this point on, privacy doesn't exist and we are that much closer to a de facto police state.

But, as some argue, steganography is real, and there's serious reason to believe that it's being used for very bad (dare I say, evil) purposes. Hence, the dilemma: technology has once again opened a Pandora's box of privacy and legal issues, posing the same old question of how much privacy are you willing to give up so that those searching for a terrorist have an opportunity to do so.

The conclusion drawn from this argument is a very strong one, indeed. That is, we have once again come full circle on the same basic question of privacy on the Internet. If you have privacy, so does the person sending around terrorist documents. And of course, we wouldn't want that now, would we?

Well, it first depends on who you label a terrorist. Of course, using an example like Osama bin Laden is easy. But what if governments, concerned about mounting public pressure, decided to label protesters at the next WTO roundtable, World Bank meeting, or G-8 summit as terrorists? In fact, it's the same as labelling the protests themselves as terrorist acts.

Clearly, this latest issue in the privacy debate isn't a simple restatement of "the same old question" about privacy versus security. There is no overwhelming proof that steganography has been used by terrorist organisations; and even if it has, it's another question altogether of whether it makes much of an impact.

The argument of anti-privacy apologists to monitor all data traffic on the Internet is tantamount to bugging every single telephone around the world because a terrorist somewhere may make a phone call. In fact, there is every reason to believe that even this is being attempted. Yet, as with the drugs trade, prostitution, and other such clandestine networks, those involved in illicit activities will always find a way to communicate with one another -- with or without the Internet.