The incidents of November 26 have left Mumbai shaken, more due to the impunity with which the attacks were orchestrated out and to a lesser extent due to our failure to link theresources at our disposal in a manner that might have prevented this series of unfortunate incidents at the onset. What came across strongly through the fervent news broadcasts were images of satcom phones, news of mobile intercepts linking multiple geographical locations and GPS locators - technology being put to nefarious use by the perpetrators of the crime. Then on the night of the attack, the anxious public was informed that those trapped inside various target locations were not veritable hostagtes - there were messages being relayed through Blackberry messenger, email, SMS, and web 2.0 devices such as Twitter.com - trying to provide the loved ones at home some solace from the gruesome video feeds being displayed on national TV.
This entire Mumbai terror that was played out as a prime-time tragedy across millions of Indian households has made clear, that the perpetrators of terror have kept pace with advances in technology. Using this as a foundation, if we are to scour other international hotspots - we see similar misuse of technology. Websites are used to spread disinformation and to serve as the mouthpieces of terrorist organizations, broadcasting their ideologies to the world. Subverting common digital interfaces to further terrorist agenda, has the world's security agencies constantly playing catch-up. To cite one method commonly, not actually sending email communication but saving them in draft mode - prevents the digital signature from leaving its mark across closely monitored global routers and gateways.
"Know your technology" - secure it and ensure that digital security is a by-word amongst all the people you know. Secure your email, your web-cam, your mobile phone and personal computing devices - lest they be subverted and put to ill-use by people who have nothing more at heart than the next morning's gory news headlines. Embrace web2.0 but also remember that the smallest slip-up can manifest with ramification of butterfly effect proportions in some other part of the world.
