With the rapid growth in technological advancement, the world today has been seen to try and maximize its usage to either reduce costs or even increase efficiency. Most of the things that we were compelled to do in the physical realm a few years ago can today be done in cyberspace. For a typical citizen, the internet is used to make life more interesting; a case that is so different when it comes to cyber terrorism. In a national domestic setting, as much as we would expect everyone to use the internet appropriately, ill minded characters like terrorist have also been seen to go digital.
One of the elements that distinguish domestic cyber terrorism from typical internet hacking is the element of sponsorship. It is easily described by the notion of a talented computer-literate person being sponsored by organizations that share the same ideology with them. The fact that resources are put into use, these acts of hacking can no longer be classified as crimes, but rather act of terror. With the necessary resources in place, these computer-literate persons can mean to be very aggressive and very persistent, especially when it comes to targeting a nation’s security arena.
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In the cyber world, it is typical for the users to fully maximize the use of information availed by the internet. The dynamic nature of the cyber space avails the cyber terrorists with a platform that is always constantly changing. Another distinction that separates a cyber terrorist from a typical computer user is their limitations of motivation. A regular computer user would probably just use the internet to buy and sell stuff while a cyber terrorist would dig deep in all arenas. Instead of just buying and selling products over the internet, they would probably want to steal all the information given by a customer before furthering their cause. Cyber space and techno-culture is their playing ground.
The resent up rise of the era of technology can be said to have almost caught law system off-guard. It is almost impossible for the law to fully define the extent as to which one can use the internet. In a typical situation, citizens are always protected by the First Amendment where one is given the rights to express themselves. What happens when this is done over the internet? The Fourth Amendment grants citizens the freedom from search and seizure. This platform faces a lot of complication when done in the cyberspace. Some of the questions that arise are what transpired hence allowing authorities to search and target a specific individual in the cyber space? Today, it is not yet clear as to what authorities can or cannot do freely over the internet hence making it almost impossible to tackle the issue of cyber terrorism. The virtual nature of the cyber space also makes it challenging to define an act, especially as evidence. There is a distinction between arresting a terrorist trying to wire a bomb and one who is using the cyberspace to promote terror. The virtual nature of cyber terrorism is a great setback in regards to the law system.
Cyber terrorism can be defined according to the spectrum to which it is committed. As stated before being that the main difference between a hacker and a cyber terrorist is the resources availed, we can use the same escalating creation to define the same. A typical hacker can easily graduate to small online crimes. With time, they can start terrorizing people over the internet, but not in large scale. With time, such acts can grow into cyber espionage and even organized crime. In a national setting, the most dangerous level domestic terrorism would involve national cyber-enabled kinetic attacks. In this case, the cyber terrorists use their in-depth skills to control state infrastructure and resources. They can decide to deprive a nation of electricity or even disable all forms of communication. Cyber terrorism is equally as dangerous as “physical” terrorism especially being that they are both used to terrorize innocent victims. They both put a person’s life in danger.
