File-Hosting Sites Used in Terrorist Recruitment

Over the last few months, predictions, estimations and studies have been made with regard to which will dominate in the end between the mighty two infamous technologies – P2P (peer-to-peer) and (the more recently become popular) file-hosting services such as RapidShare and MegaUpload.

Well, the file hosting sites seemed to have won over p2p with respect to at least one segment of the public – terrorists. Yeap, no spelling errors there. According to a Washington Times post which all the way through blatantly associates p2p technology exclusively with child molesters and copyright pirates (the subtitle speaks for itself “Child molesters, criminals share Web techniques”), Pakistani authorities arrested five American men who allegedly were willing to be recruited by terrorist groups and join the jihad after accessing militant Muslim material via file hosting sites.

The WT post refers to another article published in Sentinel which claimed that the terrorist organizations’ preference for file hosting services over p2p services is due to the better anonymity the former offer.

Cyberspace has become the new propaganda and recruiting territory for Osama bin Laden and other figures linked to terrorist attacks. According to the post, potential followers are targeted through the use of videos, audios and written missives uploaded on multiple file-hosting services which then allow the material to be anonymously downloaded.

While I do not want to undermine by any means the importance of the matter itself I can’t help but wonder if this threat will not be also used in the future to justify laws that affect the freedom on the Internet.