After battling ISIS in the field, the U.S. Pentagon has stepped up its efforts to hunt the growing terrorist threat using the Internet.
According to a report by CNN, the military was alerted by a Twitter post after an attack in Texas, which is believed to be ISIS-related. The attack happened after gunman Elton Simpson posted on Twitter with hashtag #TexasAttack.
In a post by Defense One, the Dark Web is an "anonymizer" on the Internet. "It refers to websites that mask IP addresses of the servers on which they reside, making it impossible to know who or what is behind the site or sites."
The Dark Web has the capability to effectively hide identities of users that search engines like Google cannot also reach. Defense One also noted that activists and rebels often use this to make state surveillance.
Lillian Ablon of the Rand Corporation likens the Dark Web to an icerberg.
"Everything above the water is what we would call the surface web that can be indexed through Google or you can find through a search engine," Ablon said. "But below the water that huge iceberg up to 80% times bigger than what's above the water, that's the deep web, that's the part of the web that's not indexed."
"The thing I always look for is at what point do groups, for example, decide that they need to move from viewing the Internet as a source of recruitment, as a way to spread ideology, as a way to spread their message, their propaganda, do we see it move from that into something for greater concern as viewing it as a potential weapon system," said Director Admiral Michael Rogers of the National Security Agency.
Reports suggest ISIS is using the web for recruitment and fund raising, even accepting bitcoin donations. Senior analyst Ido Wulkan of S2T, a technology company in Singapore, has said there are a number of websites raising funds for ISIS with the use of bitcoin donations.
