Cyber Vigilantes Track Extremist Web Sites, Intelligence Experts Balk at Effort

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,340613,00.html
MIAMI, Fla. -  While the debate grows on how to tackle global jihadism on
the Internet, some security experts warn that "cyber vigilantes" - people
who track and help shut down terror-related Web sites - are compromising
government investigations with their amateur sleuthing tactics.

Michael Radu, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and
an expert on terror-related Web sites, said the government is already
overburdened trying to monitor the thousands of sites on the Web believed to
contain radical Muslim messages. These cyber vigilantes, he said, are not
helping.

"It is very unlikely they will find something of significance in the
Internet that the government doesn't already know," Radu said. "They are
redundant at best."

Cyber vigilantes typically troll the Internet, searching message boards, Web
sites and media sharing sites for incendiary postings from people with ties
to terror groups like Al Qaeda. Using Arabic translation software, they
monitor postings and even assume fake identities to join online
conversations.

One of them is Bill Warner, a Sarasota, Fla.-based private investigator and
a self-proclaimed cyber-crusader.

Just last month alone, Warner was instrumental in helping shut down three
Web sites hosted by a Tampa Internet service provider (ISP) that contained
text, images and video related to attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

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