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Comment by _8j50 | Hacker News Reader

Actual terrorists(like 9/11 type, well funded) know better than to even touch anything digital for comms. They literally get a drone strike for having called a known terrorist or for going to a wedding other terrorists with cell phones go to.

For home grown terrorism, how many school shootings happen when the people who know the shooter literally tell police/fbi beforehand about the state of the shooter. Are school shooters not terrorists? They have a social/political gripe and the terror is their way to get their voice out, avenge (like jihad) or inflict change. So why are they failing so bad even after almost 20 years of patriot act?

Politicians don't want to be blamed because they know the next terrorist attack will happen soon and it can't be prevented,except the politicians that gut the patriot act will be blamed for it. On the flip side,information on voters,tracking them like this helps politicians

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Washington politicians know American workers won’t organize a work stoppage

Or even put up a serious threat of one

Tech workers especially have little excuse, since it’s a matter of leaving that work laptop closed

No one in tech seems to remember SOPA

Workers seem oblivious to what recent teacher strikes achieved

Hong Kong protests in the face of a tyrant

Y’all bloviate all over your screens

Who is more exceptional?

A lot has changed in the almost 10 years since SOPA, we are fully into the disinformation age and strategies that worked 10 years ago are not going to work now.

Well for security minded folks, the fact they can't use traditional comms (likely because of existing snooping techniques) is a good thing.

Now, does all that snooping and invading countries increase the background desire and willingness for bad guys to do terrorist-type things, almost certainty.

> Actual terrorists(like 9/11 type, well funded) know better than to even touch anything digital for comms

Shit like this is said all the time on HN with absolutely nothing to substantiate it.

I'm not really sure why you think this needs substantiation.

The logic goes like this: It would be utterly stupid for terrorist groups to rely on digital communications simply because of how well locked down the various government agencies have made it. We assume that they are not utterly stupid.

I don't think it's a crazy statement or needing further justification. I doubt terrorist groups are that sophisticated but I would assume they have plugged the simplest holes.

It needs further justification because it's contradicted by the evidence cited to support it.

"Terrorists don't use digital communications[0]

[0] Example of a terrorist identified and killed via surveillance of their digital communications"

Do you know many terrorists who use digital communication to back your claim?

What the above is talking about well known, even privacy-aware people tend to not use digital communication that much, no facebook, or other social media, no smartphones. In the post-Snowden era, I am not sure why somebody thinks otherwise.

3 letter agencies have the means, the reason, the legitimacy, and the resources to penetrate every type of telecommunication, the worst-case just trojan the entire GSM infrastructure if necessary. The USA conducted thousands of drone strikes. What do you think drives locating the target?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-drone-strikes/

> Do you know many terrorists who use digital communication to back your claim?

Yes. In fact I don't know of a single terrorist who doesn't use digital communication of some kind.

I'm slightly confused because you seem to be justifying your belief that no terrorists use digital communication on the back of examples of terrorists identified and killed via surveillance of their digital communication use

I think the distinction isn't generally don't use it all - they are perfectly fine with recruiting and claiming responsibility with it. Instead it is in op sec. The San Bernadino shooters shot their personal phones beyond recovery and the FBI precedent fishing expedition was to theie work phones which they started with access to.

I do stats for a living, and while I think it's good to back up claims with data when possible, inductive reasoning is still a validate tool for understanding the world.

The logic is that active, dedicated terrorist groups already know: "They literally get a drone strike for having called a known terrorist or for going to a wedding other terrorists with cell phones go to."

The reasoning that knowing this information you would be very careful about what you communicate over the internet is very sound to me. To convince me that this reasoning is incorrect would require an abundance of data to the contrary.

"inductive reasoning is still a validate tool for understanding the world."

Thank you so much for saying this.

You assume that every terrorist (or most terrorists) acts rationally and has the knowledge you know. That is a huge assumption for your reasoning to work.

I think terrorists make mistakes (or take risks), and I'm not convinced that we catch all of those either.

In the context of droning terrorist, I think the anthropic principle applies. The ones who don't act rationally or have that knowledge are dead.

You’re assuming a static world.

Once again, that is just your opinion, presented as fact. Personally I would argue that people acting rationally stay away from the terrorism business.

If you were in their shoes and america exterminated your family,how would you react? Killing civilians is evil and horrible but in their case they are being very rational.

Was the US being irrational with nuking of japan?

Plenty of people are dumb. Including the ones who decide to join terrorist organization.

Actual terrorists were found because of using cell phones or internet.

9/11 terrorists were well educated. Show me how absent flight security 9/11 can't happen again in 2020?

If terrorists know not to touch digital comms, then how would they get caught by being at a wedding with other terrorists with cell phones? Do terrorists use cell phones or not?

The claim directly conflicts with the supporting anecdote.

People can learn from their mistakes, and from the mistakes of others.

Both, they adopt. This isn't a video game you get to beat after figuring out the enemy, unlike games real life enemies adopt to your tactics.

> inductive reasoning is still a validate tool for understanding the world.

And here it has led you astray. Terrorist organisations have propaganda mouthpieces, and use social media like any other. One of my previous jobs involved building network analysis tools to identify and locate terrorists combing through their Twitter feeds.

For some, you could easily identify the point in their lives when they were radicalized, and trace connections to others who were also, and identify the people they had in common.

Inductive reasoning opens room for questions, not answers, because it does not account for unknown information.

You are talking about the past when they were radicalized,if this happened online then you are right but I thought it was clear that I meant internet usage for organizing and planning terrorism. Propaganda and radicalization is a dragnet, you will catch many but the one cell that recruits in person and communicates on paper only by code will succeed. It's not a volume game,it's a binary game.

No single method of intelligence gathering will win a binary game, that is just moving goal posts.

https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/Encrypt...

Yeah. The truth is that groups like ISIS use Telegram pretty heavily. Same with some of the Persian threat actor groups, Hezbollah, others.

IS was/is a quasi nation state! What do these people think it runs off of carrier pigeons and smoke signals?

The Boston marathon bombing was carried out through plain text messages if I recall correctly. They weren’t even encrypted and no one caught them.

A little searching will reveal some of the opsec apparently used by Osama bin Laden. Use of couriers with thumb drives rather than risk electronic communications, and other things.

I know one piece of evidence contrary to that - the time 4chan used youtube videos posted by terrorists to find one of their training camps.

> Actual terrorists(like 9/11 type, well funded) know better than to even touch anything digital for comms. They literally get a drone strike for having called a known terrorist or for going to a wedding other terrorists with cell phones go to.

Terrorists don't use cell phones because terrorists use cell phones?

Smart terrorists don't use cellphones because stupid terrorists do.

So let's catch the stupid ones then?

Maybe the FBI should stop making them first.

Even the stupid ones slip through! It takes one smart cell to repeat 9/11. The way you catch them is by targeted surveillance not by dragnet collection of information. The IC does this all the time,they do a powergrab make noise about it, achieve nothing and retain their power. Look at wmds in iraq,torturing,drone bombing,mass surveillance.

Theatrics to make it look like they are doing enough. Truth is, if someone immigrated or gets radicalized without detectio, the IC is relying on them not having good opsec. Spying on everyone (instead of with a warrant) , E2EE subversion,and these silly laws won't give them additional capacity when the actual terrorists and mass shooters that slip through already have bad opsec,don't use mainstream platforms or E2EE

>Actual terrorists(like 9/11 type, well funded) know better than to even touch anything digital for comms

Then why is terrorist content discussed so much in content moderation circles, specifically the fact that content moderators are viewing it so often it induces PTSD in them?

ISIS has put out high definition videos of executions. That's the opposite of "not touching digital comms"

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/12/21255870/facebook-content...

They're not doing that to plan things, it's used intentionally for PR. Drive fear into those that watch it and recruit others who are excited. Pretty clear those are different.

But they're carrying complex recording devices, and sometimes laptops, to move the footage.

The original incidents are terrorism, and the people doing them are targeted.

>ISIS has put out high definition videos of executions. That's the opposite of "not touching digital comms"

I don't think you're being fair to the context. They've been showboating killing online for decades. But showboating should not be conflated using digital communications to coordinate their efforts. I'm not saying they don't use digital communications. But this is hardly proof of that.

You're conflating propaganda and recruitment with organization,coordination and communication.

How long did bin laden evade capture? 20-30 years? And did they catch him because he used the internet?

> Are school shooters not terrorists?

They are not. Terrorism is supposed to be a political tool. Whereas school shooters are often just deranged or troubled people lashing out.

Terrorism is violence with the intention of creating fear to further a political goal. If a kid feels victimized and wants to hurt the people they feel responsible, that's not terrorism. If a kid wants to hurt bullies with the intention that it will make other bullies afraid and so reduce the overall amount of bullying in schools then that would fit the definition.

By your definition (which I think is overly broad), most police officers are terrorists, and so is anyone that engages in self defense, or even jurors that vote “guilty” in the hope of deferring future crimes.

You either need to narrow the definition or carve out explicit exceptions. If you are carving out exceptions, the definition is just “people we don’t like”.

I guess that is pretty close to the definition prosecutors like to use in the US.

"Individuals acting in support of the rule of law" is generally the exception, but there is something useful in the implications you've brought up. That is, the uncomfortable proximity unlawful judgment and execution has to lawful judgment and execution; they're both ideologically-driven.

That they're similar in this manner doesn't mean that we can't have laws and law enforcement because they're inherently violent and tyrannical or anything, but it does inform how seriously and dispassionately we should approach their means and ends. I don't think that it's particularly radical to call an abuse of judicial power terrorism. What else to call, for example, a judge who robs entire communities of their youth in exchange for backroom deals with private prisons?

> If a kid wants to hurt bullies with the intention that it will make other bullies afraid and so reduce the overall amount of bullying in schools then that would fit the definition.

You have no evidence that most school shooters communicated such a goal (although there might be an outlier). Or if you do, I'm curious what it is.

Terrorists have a tangible goal, typically coupled with demands, not some hidden intention you make up to shoehorn a person into the definition. Even Elliot Rodger, who had a "manifesto", did not communicate any sort of demands or goals.

In most school shootings,they are not diagnosed with any mental illness. By that logic jihadist terrorists are sociopathic and mentally ill as well. You are right about their lack of interest in affecting change in governmental politics but they are many times (not always) trying to affect change in social politics. They prepare well ahead of time,plan out their actions and advertise their gripe against society.

Are you sure about that? Because when I read about school shootings, they were being done by individuals who were displaying plenty of red flags and signs they are not ok mentally.

I cant recall one who would act like normal person and multiple disturbed ones.

Which is one of the reasons for the shift in US politics from treating combatants as combatants. Terrorism is now just a word for anyone who disagrees with us. Whereas acknowledging the organization as a hostile state within an established state means that we have to actually treat it like a war, or treat the combatants like criminals and put them on trial. The term "terrorist" is now just a label that gets applied to anyone who is too inconvenient to treat as a criminal.

The prototypical school shooters (the Columbine duo) filled their notebooks with misogynistic, white supremacist screeds. If you ever thought it strange the hysteria over video game violence and Satanism that emerged from that attack, it's because your instincts were correct. The media was reticent to cover what was really driving their violence because the conversation would have been uncomfortable for the sizable portion of Americans who agreed with their views on women and minorities but felt no need to shoot up a high school.

Unfortunately, the narrative that resulted colored later discourse with less-than-accurate assumptions about the nature of mass school shootings. They're overwhelmingly not carried out by bullied loners, but instead by entitled, ostracized bullies who aren't stopped because they don't fit the American conceptualization of who commits violence. To that point, even high-profile black and brown mass shooters tend not to be gangbangers or whatever, but men with military or law enforcement backgrounds.

> To that point, even high-profile black and brown mass shooters tend not to be gangbangers or whatever, but men with military or law enforcement backgrounds.

Inst that simply because men with military or law enforcement backgrounds are more violent in general?

Terrorism has been removed of its meaning since 2001. Terrorism means using violence or threat of violence to influence social or political decisions.

Not everything bad is terrorism. A mentally ill person going on a murder-suicide rampage after beijg ignored by a girl is not a terrorist. A person acting in their self-interest in a way that contributes to systemic racism or oppression is not a terrorist. Hunting or threatening people of a certain race or gender or orientation or hobby to scare them and others away is terrorism. Blowing up buildings to pressure decision makers into a policy change is terrorism.

Maybe manipulating a single individual via threats or minor violence could be considered small scale terrorism (but their are better words, like harassment or abuse or stalking or assault).

> Terrorism means using violence or threat of violence to influence social or political decisions.

So like the shooting of a black church by a white supremacist explicitly for the purposes of espousing white supremacy?

> Hunting or threatening people of a certain race or gender or orientation or hobby to scare them and others away is terrorism.

So like the lgbtq club shooting, or the black church, or the 1989 shooting specifically targeting women?

Yes, clearly.

Or the El Paso shooting targeting Hispanics.

But to stay on topic, reading this article is clearly also terrorism, since only a minority(+) of congress disagrees.

(+) “minority” has apparently been redefined to be 60-66% whenever the goal is to stop congress from doing something reprehensible.

I agree but I’d take it a bit further.

Trying to change the behavior of a group of people by using violence is what I’d consider to be terrorism.

By that definition, some school shooters would qualify as terrorists. When they target a category of people (like athletes) who haven’t bulled them, they’re trying to scare all people away from becoming athletes.

I’d say, if you target specific people who directly hurt you, you’re seeking revenge.

If you target a category of people, you’re saying that those people who haven’t done anything to you are targets and you’re trying to influence their behavior through fear.

Their perception is that everyone in that group did hurt them. School shooters frequently blame everyone in the school for not helping them, and for having a higher social status than they do. I think their motivation is to flip the social hierarchy so they are at the top, and to punish people they think have wronged them (i.e. basically everyone).

The fact that it strikes fear into the rest of the nation is ancillary. They're usually more interested in the notoriety they gain than trying to create some kind of policy change.

When a girl ignores him,he attacked not that girl but a social group out of misogyny or some other socio-political perception of injustice. So it is still terrorism. The point of the attack is to affect political(at the social level) change.

This really is similar to jihadist terrorism,jihadism took away american's privacy and mass shooters with gripes against american socio-politics have americans living in trauma over active shooter drills and gun toting teachers. Not only are they both terrorism, they both won!

Al-qaeda is eradicated but they won, I fear many would credit 9/11 as the begining of the end of america. Much like insurgent warfare,terrorism will be studied as a means of warfare where due to extreme imbalances on weaponry and digital surveillance the only way to fight is by terrorizing your enemy. War is horrible but terrorism is a cancerous form of war where destroying your enemy does not translate to success.

The term terrorism refers to intended effect by the perpetrator. If the goal is to effect change by creating fear, it is terrorism. If the goal is revenge for perceived wrong doing, it is not terrorism.

I would argue most school shootings are also not terrorism. They do create fear, but my impression is that the intended goal is revenge rather than fear. It would be hard to frame them as terrorists; most of them leave behind notes expressing a clear desire for revenge but mentioning no kind of policy changes they want.

I do think most of the race/religion inspired mass shootings were terrorist acts though. Their goal seemed to be spreading fear in those communities.

Won what? As far as I know, they didn't achieve their goal of driving out the Americans out of the Middle East. The loss of privacy and rights is incidental to their goals.

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