Information Warfare
I've been following the Germany terror situation - as I'm sure many others have too - in shock. The most amazing part was how the attacker used Facebook as a means for murder. All 3 aspects: Espionage, Subterfuge, and Deception were carried out - now I'm not saying he knew about all of this; but it fits the bill of classic Information Warfare / IT Warfare.
What he did was - he put up an offer for free food at McDonalds - which was his target in an attempt to increase the casualty count.
Some of my past learnings that this validated:
- Obscuring origin: Social media has the ability to project some things in a very obscure manner; thus people aren't always clear of the origin of the content in question. You can pretend to be an employee or contract worker of any tom dick and harry company and people could believe it because 'it says so on facebook...' :(
- The allure of FREE: So many people go for something just because it's free. I know many of my friends fall for this every now and then; just to find out that the 'free' was in return for money anyways (i.e. buy X get Y free). There's no problem with the free; it's just that its portrayed incorrectly and people fall for it as a result.
- Crowd gathering via Social Media: If you have even a reasonable understanding of peoples' desires and the rough timing of those desires (for example: people check for food coupons, etc between 11:30 AM and 1 PM) - you can project your advertisements or content at the appropriate time thus generating a huge flow of traffic; and potentially a crowd if it's a physical location providing the offer
- Girls are always interesting! If you create a fake account as a girl, put up a cute photograph and invite lots of friends - you can almost instantly have a huge fan following. I've seen blackhat SMO people using Ghost accounts for their work. How hard do you think it'll be for criminals to use that?
Technology - like a poorly trained dog - is up for anyone to command. While we can use it to increase traffic to our apps and websites, increase interest in new concepts and ideas... sadly there's people who can use it as a tool for radicalization (conversion etc) and criminalization (to show some group as criminals) or even to create outright terror attacks and mass hysteria.
I love my technology (I'm a techie) and despise the fact that it is being used in such a way. I hope and pray people use their intelligence and not fall for freebies, and that social media tightens/creates some sort of regulatory controls preventing gross misuse of what could otherwise be a pristine & enjoyable environment. Maybe if more positive minded technologists come together, an anti-terror network can happen that reduces the risk of such incidence.