After the Paris attacks that happened last week, terrorism has been on my mind quite a lot. It's really difficult for me to understand why these things happen, as I'm sure it is for everyone. The first question we all ask is simply, "Why?" Why do people do these horrible things? How in the hell is spreading terror, fear, and grief going to move people closer to a goal that is any type of good at all? And honestly, there may not be a solid answer. But regardless, all I know is that terrorism is wrong, terrorism is absolutely horrible and devastating to those it effects, and I'm incredibly glad that I live in an age where terrorism has become much more difficult to carry out than ever before.
After reading the chapter in The New Digital Age about cyberterrorism, it gave me a lot of hope that terrorism's overwhelming presence in today's world might start to be mitigated due to the increased connectivity of the world. The chances that a terrorist, who is just as fallible as the next human, will mess up and leave some sort of digital footprint that could bring them to justice are quite high. In fact, they're higher than they've ever been and when the other 5 billion people come online, I'm hoping it will be damn near impossible for terrorists to even exist.
Terrorism is actually one of the reasons I chose to go into my field. I watched a lot of 24 in high school and in the show, the main place of operation is CTU or the counter terrorist unit. Seeing data analysts perform incredible computational tasks that help thwart terrorism inspired me. That, along with my passion of technology and social justice issues. So maybe one day, I could help put some of these messed-up, evil people who participate in terrorism in prison where they belong. Anyone who threatens society and innocence like that deserves to be punished heavily.
I agree that cyberterrorism will be harder to as we become more educated and advance within the cyber space. Everything in the web is recorded and analyzed but at the same time, can we really say we will be safer? The more access to the internet, the more unmanageable the internet might become. Can we truly protect ourselves while cyber terrorist might be slipping through the cracks due to drastic increase in internet flow? Once the world's population has access to the internet who can say that we will be truly prepared to regulate it?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I completely agree with your statement about terrorist acts being harder to carry out because of the increased connectivity. Yes, it would be easier to catch the people who commit these heinous murders, but I don't think it would be a deterrent. It seems like the terrorist don't care if they will get caught or not they just do it for whatever reason that they have. There are so many terrorist attacks happening in the world ( a lot more attacks than what most people know about or what is being reported) so it is hard to say that increased connectivity in the world would decrease the possibility of terrorist attacks. Also, I agree with Fatima. More access to the internet might lead to more problems, and people would have to worry about terrorist attacks and cyber terrorism.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. These terrorist acts have been on my mind a lot quite lately. The question to the causes still remains "Why?" and I'm honestly afraid that we may never know. Maybe its apart of a strange religion? It really does bother me. Right now I can't see how it is gonna be any different with technology being involved because I honestly feel that if it really is in a terrorist's heart, then they are going to do whatever it takes to get the job done. After all we don't know what goes through their minds. I have my strange conspiracy opinions about it, but I really do not know. I'm just hoping and praying that there can eventually be an immediate fix to all of this. These thousand of innocent lives should not have to lose their lives over a bunch of ignorance. Now I'm mad as hell.
ReplyDelete24 is amazing, I have watched the whole thing twice. I agree with you, terrorism is terrible "why?" is a pointless question, I just hope that people or organizations/governments with the power to stop it will. Also, just something interesting I read on CNN. Anonymous is hacking and deleting many of the resources used digitally by ISIS.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I want to point out is that many times, well most of the time terrosits do the things they do in the name of a movement, deity, or cause. So that helps answer the question of their motivation and reasoning. In this case I think a more important question or thing to think about is the technological advances and gains when it comes to terrorism. The whole idea of cyberterrorism is something new and we are in unchartered territory. Its relatively new to us and I honestly think that we are so in a rut about it is because we honestly don't know what to do with it.
ReplyDelete