The Web is ISIS’s Nuclear Bomb

The Web is ISIS’s Nuclear Bomb. This is what Loretta Napoleoni, author of books on the economic side of terrorism, wrote in an article for the leftwinger Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano.

Napoleoni claims that – as the Marxist ideology did in the past with the “word-of-mouth” or, better, “word-of-book” – ISIS’s propaganda gets its power from a new “ideology-spreading-tool”: the Internet, and thank to the Internet will last, no matter what:

Even though, hypothetically, we should succeed in taking out all of ISIS’s warriors by bombing them and killing al Baghdadi, the ideology that these people have created and their universal message will last on the Internet. 1

I don’t have enough authority to challenge the curious association Napoleoni did between Karl Marx philosophy and ISIS’s vision of the Islamic religion, but I find grossly superficial and offensive for the victims of (every) war to compare “the Web” to a nuclear bomb.

As I wrote in a post, war is made of bullets, and bullets hurt as do (nuclear) bombs. Bombs make carnage, slaughters, shred a human being in pieces, burn, annihilate, vaporize, wipe communities, blindly kill innocents, pollute lands for centuries or millennia (ask Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors for additional info, just in case.) E-mail, newsgroups, chats, FTP (yes, Napoleoni, the Internet is not only made by HTTP) are tool of freedom designed by free people to give humans a free chance to communicate with no physical and social barrier.

Those like Napoleoni – and her cultural associates, member of the “Internet-as-a-threat Club” – should simply accept the fact that ideas are countered (and sometimes, fought) with ideas and that the worst way to challenge a disturbing statement is to censor it.

The idea that a sole statement might change somebody’s personal philosophy up to turning him into a human bomb carrier is simply wrong. Change of mind happens by way of? tragedies, loneliness, apartheid and injustice and not because of a tweet.

As per the “Internet Patrolling” advocated (not only) by Napoleoni – though sadly labelled by her as ineffective – again, let’s go back to basics: as the East Germany, Russian and Italian political police history show, to fight an enemy and prevent attacks there is no substitute for an actual, massive, ruthless and pervasive physical control. But t this is disturbing and, rightly so, nobody in the Western world is available to give a government so much power.

And here comes the brilliant solution: let’s fall back on the Internet and blame “the Web” as a radicalization tool.

No, Napoleoni, ideologies will not last because of a blog. They will stand until there will be inequality in world, it means until the end of time.

  1. Orginal text in Italian: Anche se, ipoteticamente, riuscissimo a stanare con le bombe tutti i guerrieri dello Stato Islamico e a far fuori al Baghdadi, l?ideologia che costoro hanno creato ed il loro messaggio universale in rete rimarr?

The Internet As an Intrinsic Threat: Yesbutters vs Whynotters

Italian politcians’ mantra, starting from the Chair of the Low Chamber, Boldrini and down to local parties’ minions is “The Internet is an opportunity but…” and then a stream flows of statement like “we need to regulate it”, “we need to keep it free for the righteous citizen”, “we must block hate speeches” and so on.

This reminds me of an old, untitled essay I read on Giancarlo Livraghi’s gandalf.it:

Yesbutters don?t just kill ideas.
They kill companies, even entire industries.
The yesbutters have all the answers.
Yesbut we?re different. Yesbut we can?t afford it.
Yesbut our business doesn?t need it.
Yesbut we couldn?t sell it to our workforce.
Yesbut we can?t explain it to our shareholders.
Yesbut let?s wait and see.
All the answers. All the wrong answers.

For the positive part, dedicated to the Whynotters, just follow this link.

War is fought with bullets

True, the monumental unscrupulousness of the ICT business (which sells systems
without concerns for the security side), and the na?vet? of its clients (trusting hardware instead of good practice and appropriate security processes) built today’s western digital infrastructure as a Colossus with feet of clay.

True, this made the Western World a soft target for computer-related criminals and terrorists.

True, a lot of damage can be done in a short time by a committed digital strike.

But don’t forget that war is fought with bullets, real bullets.

And bullets do hurt.

L?gion ?trang?re and Kamikaze. Dangerous Rethorical Stunt of Italian Politicians and Media

Undersecretary Marco Minniti, superseeding the Italian Intelligence activities on behalf of the Government, gave out his two cents about the war on terrorism – the Italian Way, announcing a private-public project to fight cyberterrorism and claiming that Europe hosts the?L?gion ?trang?re of Terror.
Here is the screen-shot of his statement:
ForeignLegionWell, I don’t want to talk about the merit of the cyberterrorism response of his announcement. It is too early to actually assess a proposal that ranges from catastrophically ineffective to functional.

Let’s wait and see, but in the meantime I’ve found grossly misinformed and misleading the association Mr. Minniti? did between the terrorist forces and the French L?gion ?trang?re. It is a fact that people from many different countries are joining the terrorist camp, but in no way this can be compared to what (like it or not) the L?gion is.

What I find rather disappointing is that to obtain a rhetorical stunt in front of the Press, a politician that is supposed to know better just let slip easy and wrong messages. I can imagine a newspaper’s title when the next attack will strike: “Terror Foreign Legion vs France’s Foreign Legion!” Awful sounding isn’t it?

This is what happened so far with the word “Kamikaze” whose meaning has been turned upside down by the Italian media.

Kamikaze was (and still is) the name for a desperate military tactic (BTW, not so different from the one Winston Churchill thought of fighting German panzers in case of invasion of the British soil) conceived by an army against another army, and has nothing to do with the exploitation of an individual as human bomb carrier targeting people with non combatants status.

Words’meaning grip loss leads to confused ideas, and cloudy thoughts produce wrong decision.