Part II
Emerging Trends
Terrorist presence in cyberspace has changed considerably. When I completed my book Terror on the Internet (Weimann 2006b), I assumed that the new virtual arena would change rapidly. And yet, I did not realize then how dramatic and multifaceted this change would be. In fact, in the years following the book’s publication I noted that although some of the predictions I made were accurate, many of them failed to estimate the magnitude, sophistication, and volume of terrorist use of cyber platforms. The combined effect of technology, online terrorism, and counterterrorism resulted in a powerful dialectic process that changed the terrorist cyber-presence dramatically. In this ever-changing, dynamic, and restless environment, several trends have emerged. Some of them emerged recently, and some have only recently become more significant and dominant. The following chapters will describe some of these trends, as documented through continuous monitoring and analysis of terrorist use of the Internet.