Al Qaeda wants to be your “friend”

Who'd a thunk it? Terrorists use social media to recruit and to gather information!!! I have long looked on as social media users seem to feel the need to share every nitty gritty detail about their personal lives. I have been particularly surprised when Military families and/or supporters share details that I envision being useful information for terrorists. I thought everybody knew that there is more than one form of 'keyboard terrorists.' It seems that academics have now released a report on a longtitudinal study they did on this phenomenon, that anybody with commonsense could have figured out in less than five minutes. Read on:

From Homeland Security News Wire:

Social media

Al Qaeda wants to be your “friend” and “follower”

Published 10 January, 2012

Hezbollah, Hamas and others are looking for Facebook friends // Source: denznet.com

Hackers attacking databases is just one facet of online terrorist activity: International terrorist organizations have shifted their Internet activity focus to social networks and today a number of Facebook groups are asking users to join and support Hezbollah, Hamas, and other armed groups that have been included in the West’s list of declared terror organizations. This has been shown in a new study conducted by Professor Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa.

“Today, about 90 percent of organized terrorism on the Internet is being carried out through the social media. By using these tools, the organizations are able to be active in recruiting new friends without geographical limitations,” says Weimann.

[...]

Facebook’s popularity is being utilized by the terror organizations, and besides recruiting new friends, they use this platform as a resource for gathering intelligence. ......

There's a shocker! NOT!!! Go read the rest of this one here.

It may be a cliche, but loose lips - or in this case, loose fingers - really DO sink ships, and endanger our troops.

Of course, if any keyboard terrorist can decipher my notorious typos, and gather any intelligence from same, they are welcome to it. But that's a whole 'nother story!