Glasgow probe shows how Web links terror worldwide

TERROR NETWORK: Terrorists ensure they don't leave an electronic trail behind.

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Mumbai: The click of a mouse is all it takes for us to get connected across the globe.

But the Internet hasn't shrunk the world just for innocuous pursuits, it has also become a apotet tool at the hands of various terrorist outfits who sitting in Brisbane, Belfast or Bangalore plot death and destruction with ease.

"The problem is that the Internet has given people a space which is difficult to police and people from different locations can come together," says Maharashtra ATS Chief K P Raghuvanshi.

According to experts, ever-changing technology on the Web helps terrorists to stay ahead of government and investigative agencies.

Apart from social messaging services and private chat rooms, high tech methods which are difficult to detect include:

Steganography: A method of hiding messages in images, video and audio files which only the intended recipient can decode.

Cryptography: Messages sent by this method either have double meanings or are digitally encrypted into seemingly normal text.

Other software: Like Skype or Google talk can be used to call telephone numbers anywhere in the world via an Internet connection, making the call extremely difficult to trace.

“They use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) a lot because its back-ends are very hard to monitor. If you are using a free VoIP provider like Skype, then it’s even more difficult to trace,” says cyber expert Pawan Duggal.

Preliminary investigations indicate Web was the blue print on which the Glasgow attack was planned.

Bangalore police have allegedly recovered from Kafeel's computer a 320 GB hard disk normally used only as a web server, 1,200 files including videos on Osama bin Laden, over 5,000 e-mails from various sources and even a manual on car bomb design.

But if you thought that only cutting edge technology is hard to detect, think again. A simple application like the e- mail can be used by the terrorists to deadly effect.

These terrorists organistaiion do not send e-mails to each other but merely use a particular e-mail account for the purpose of creating and saving messages, so that a person sitting across continents can see the drafts and no electronic trail is left,” says Duggal.

Shockingly, while terrorists arm themselves with latest tech, law enforcing agencies have been left far behind.