Moore's Law and terrorism

The thoughtful private Intelligence company Stratfor just released a piece suggesting what it thinks are the limits to jihadi terrorists being able to conduct their terrorist planning and training online: The Role and Limitations of the "Dark Web" In jihadist Training. Stratfor acknowledges that the Internet has been an enabler for terrorism but it doubts that the required tradecraft of terrorist operations can be taught online. Where Stratfor makes an error in this article is in not taking account of the enhanced capabilities of 3-D virtual worlds to assist the next generation of jihadi terrorists. The educational abilities of virtual worlds have been well-documented and as Stratfor points out bomb-making is best learnt from an expert. With the abilities available within virtual worlds there is no reason why this knowledge cannot be passed from teacher to pupil within a persistent 3-D environment. The real-time communication systems incorporating VoIP and the ability to produce sophisticated, "working" 3-D models makes training in the engineering of terrorist technique a current reality.

Moore's law makes any kind of virtual training environment we consider pie-in-the-sky now almost inevitable in a few years -- decades at most.

One of the problems we'll be addressing in the future is that advancing technology puts more and more power in the hands of the individual, and for less and less money. This trend isn't going to stop any time soon.