Edmund Burke once said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Though Burke couldn't have conceived the world of cyberspace, his words apply to technology corporations and the battlefield of the Internet, too.
In 2014, technology giants like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, etc., confessed that the feds were ordering them thousands of times a month to turn over customer information for secret national security investigations.
In 2016, Google is coming to the cyber rescue, and its testing out its new Internet counterterrorism program in the United Kingdom.
The Times of Israel reported this past week that Google Inc. is planning to use its search algorithms to divert potential jihadists to anti-radicalization websites, in hope of dissuading them away from terrorism.
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The Times also explained: "It is believed that around 30,000 foreign fighters have joined the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq from around the world, with many of them recruited through the Internet."
The BBC reported that "at least 700 people from the U.K. have traveled to support or fight for jihadist organizations in Syria and Iraq," with half of them returning to Britain and a majority of them being under 20 years of age.
It should also be noted that Telegram, the mobile messaging service, has blocked 78 ISIS-related channels across 12 languages that the jihadists used to communicate with other members," according to the Computer Business Review, or CBR. (The terrorists even used some of Telegram's channels to kill 129 innocent people in the Paris attacks.)
CBR also noted that, in 2014, Google also removed 14 million videos from YouTube due to several reasons, which also included terrorist content.
That is why Anthony House, Google's senior manager for public policy and communications, explained the following to the Guardian about its high-tech counter terrorism: "We should get the bad stuff down, but it's also extremely important that people are able to find good information, that when people are feeling isolated, that when they go online, they find a community of hope, not a community of harm."
ISIS is a household name now. Not so familiar is the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, Jabhat al Nusra, but they could possibly be even "more of a threat" to the U.S, according to experts.
Basel Matar spearheads The SalamaTech Project, which monitors and attempts to provide a safer Internet environment for Syrians experiencing the Syrian crisis inside and outside the country.
Matar explained the crux of the cyberspace war zone: "The Internet has become a weapon. It is used by activists and others to communicate and coordinate. So, there is a lot of information on emails, Facebook, private Skype conversations that can be found useful. … It gives them more insight into what is happening [in Syria] and also who is doing what, it also helps expose the networks of these activists inside Syria. It is a war and this information is power."
So, what is President Obama's response to these ongoing terrorist cyber threats? A few weeks ago, he confessed at his last State of the Union address, "They use the Internet to poison the minds of individuals inside our country. Their actions undermine and destabilize our allies. We have to take them out."
Yet, Obama continues to waffle about boots on the ground in the Middle East and recently approved a 50 percent cut of aerial surveillance on the U.S. southern border.
And what about the cyber war that has proliferated the Internet for years? The White House finally set up a meeting in January with top Silicon Valley tech firms to see if they had any ideas about combatting terrorists on social media.
Is it just me, or does 2016 seem a day late and a dollar short for cyber warfare discussion? Washington: forever behind the eight ball.
There is one universal cyber truth beyond any doubt: Jihadists continue to grow, and the Internet has become their primary recruitment tool as well as a weapon of warfare. And something must be done about it if we are to strip their power as well as suppress and extinguish their efforts.
In 2011, it was discovered if one typed in the query "Find Chuck Norris" and then hit Google's "I Feel Lucky" button search, it yielded the results, "Google won't search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don't find Chuck Norris, he finds you."
Maybe it's time to program: if one types the query, "Find Jihad," it yields the results: "Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to Gitmo."
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