Internet Haganah

Internet Haganah is a "global open-source intelligence network dedicated to confronting internet use by Islamist terrorist organizations, their supporters, enablers and apologists." Internet Haganah also is a grass-roots organization which attempts to convince businesses to not provide web-based services to such groups.

The organization

Haganah is a Hebrew word, meaning defense. The historical group was originally formed as a civilian militia that acted to defend Jewish settlements in British-occupied Palestine from Arab attacks. Unlike most of the other such organizations at the time, Haganah was guided by a principle of havlagah or restraint. The original Haganah is now better known as the Israel Defense Forces.

There are two main parts to Internet Haganah:

a) A small, global band of researchers, consultants, analysts and translators, who "associate and collaborate with each other as necessitated by our common desire to do more than just watch Islamic extremists as they use the internet. We [Internet Haganah] share an understanding that a jihad, or holy war, has been declared against the West, and these jihadists need to be met on whatever field of battle they may appear."

b) The parent organization The Society for Internet Research operates this [1] website, which has approximately 30,000 visitors per month.

Actions of Internet Haganah

The organization claims to have taken down approximately 730 Jihad sites. Their success logo, is a simple drawing of an AK-47, colored blue.

To "take down" websites, the organization relies upon its web community to find jihadist and extremist websites, and use a free "whois" service to determine if a US based server hosts them. If so, as in the case of mawusat.com and it's host GoDaddy.com, it tells the host that the site is a "bad Thing" and asks them to remove it. If this does not work, it suggests (if the sites concern the US State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, or the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control's list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons) talking to the Banks and Financiers of the host, who could face serious penalties for engaging in unreported transactions with the suspect website. If all else fails, it suggests talking to the media.

However, as the defense become more elaborate, so does the offense. In the case of GoDaddy.com and mawusat.com, the site was taken down, but appeared on a different server within a week. Newsweek reported that:

"...It’s no coincidence, they argue, that in just the past year, Islamic extremists have gotten savvier in their use of the Internet. In early 2004, Iraqi insurgent Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and his group posted the video of the execution of Nicholas Berg, an American contractor working in Iraq, to one Web site, which was quickly overwhelmed with traffic. Today, terrorists post evidence of their atrocities on dozens of sites and coordinate their operations on secret e-mail lists, password-protected Web sites and audio chat services like PalTalk, which don’t leave behind a printed record. “The level of sophistication of these groups has become just unbelievable,” says Rita Katz, who monitors Islamic fundamentalist Internet activities as director of the D.C.-based Site Institute...." - Stone, Brad (July 13, 2005.).Heroes or nettlesome hacks?. Newsweek

Founder

A. Aaron Weisburd is a 40+ year old web developer from New York City, who long ago settled in the Shawnee Hills of southernmost Illinois. Aaron has a B.S. in Information Management Systems and is self-employed, offering consulting services related to his expertise in the fields of internet use by Islamic extremists, online/open-source investigation techniques and the use of information as a weapon against the global jihad. He is the founder and Director of Internet Haganah, and also of the Society for Internet Research, the latter being dedicated to producing a lower-volume and higher-quality product than is possible via Internet Haganah.

Press Coverage

Internet Haganah has received press coverage from such publications as Wired News and Newsweek. Haganah has also been reported on by a Hamas newspaper.

Sources

Internet Hanagah

Stone, Brad (July 13, 2005.).Heroes or nettlesome hacks?. Newsweek

Lasker, John (Feb 25, 2005.). Watchdogs Sniff out terror sites Wired News