The Blogetery platform, which hosted over 70,000 bloggers, is believed to have contained a link to terrorist material and a hit-list from Al-Qaeda posted on the site.

The parent company BurstNet said that bomb making instructions had also been posted their.

The company received a notice regarding this from law enforcement officials. Blogetery.com shut down their platform without any notice to their users.

BurstNet has said that “The posted material, in addition to potentially inciting dangerous activities, specifically violated the BurstNet acceptable use policy.”

CNET.com reports that Burstnet received news about this material from the FBI on the 9th of July. The material is believed to have contained the names of various Americans on the Al-Qaeda hit-list. There were also messages from Osama Bin laden and other terrorist leaders.

While BurstNet has said they received a ‘Voluntary Emergency Disclosure of Information’ notice from the FBI, the FBI has not confirmed this. They did however clarify that they have not ordered for any site to be shut down as that can only be done by a judge.

While BurstNet claims this is not the first time their platform has been misused, several theories are floating around regarding the reason for the closure, including the possible presence of child pornography.

Another online service IPBFree.com was also shut down one week after Blogotery.com.

According to sources, the Blogotery server is connected to an online magazine ‘Inspire’ which is believed to be a recruiting platform for terrorists and contained an article ‘Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of You Mom.’

The sudden closure has obviously displeased users.

This rule has been enforced since the beginning of December 2009.

Each mobile handset is supposed to have an International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) code, representing the official mobile operator. This is a 15-digit code that is printed inside the phone. This number allows the operator to track the handset. Whenever a call is made from the handset this number is displayed on the operator’s network.

Since a phone without this code number or a code consisting only of zeroes cannot be tracked, it can be misused by miscreants.

The law was meant to have been enforced back in October 2008, but was postponed repeatedly in order to allow users of cheap or unbranded Chinese handsets to get their phones validated.

It is estimated that about 13% of handsets currently in use in the country are unbranded and such handsets often have a common IMEI.

While there is no official estimate, the BBC has reported that almost 25 million of the 488 million phones in the country will be affected. India presently has the fastest growing mobile phone market, and millions of phones are being added every month.

Pankaj Mohindroo, President of the Indian Cellular Association, which represents mobile operators said, “We have to abide by the requirements of national security and help to create a legal ethical market.”

On the night of November 26, ten well trained, motivated and heavily armed terrorists landed in Mumbai by boat and went on a killing spree, in and around some of the extremely well known and crowded places in the Southern part of the city, creating mayhem and killing over 170 people over the next 60 hours.

A lawyer, Amit Karkhanis has now filed a public interest litigation in the Bombay High Court, against Google, because it is believed that the terrorists used maps provided on Google Earth to study their targets. He has demanded that Google should be made to block images of sensitive places in the country.

Google has issued a statement condemning the attacks and said that they “stand by the citizens of India and the city of Mumbai as they recover from the attacks.”

They however defend themselves saying, that theirs is not the only source from which such information could be made available. It is easily available to anyone who is willing to pay for the purchase of these images from public or commercial sources.

They also believe that advantages of easy access to such tools and technology are far greater than their potential misuse by a few misguided minds.

This certainly seems like a genuine argument, as the same Google Earth has been used in the past to coordinate relief operations in times of floods, cyclones etc.

It is also obvious, that those involved would have found some other means to achieve their devious objectives, even if Google Earth had not been available to them.

One must also bear in mind, that apart from making use of Google Earth, they also made use of other technological facilities such as, satellite phones, cell phones and internet phones to stay in touch with each other and their bosses during the course of their operation.

As the saying goes, ‘there are two sides to every coin’. So also, all forms of technological advances can be abused when in the wrong hands.

Does that mean, that we must decide to ban any further technological advances in the future?

Twitter users in and around the area started sending eye-witness accounts of the events on a minute by minute basis. Almost 70 – 80 tweets were posted within 5 seconds, and since Twitter has over 6 million users the news was spread really fast.

In fact, even some of the major Television and radio stations such as BBC and CNN used information sent through Twitter and photos posted on Flickr by ordinary citizens who were present at the spot, such as the ones shown above and below here:

Users not only sent out details about the terrorist attack, but also messages asking people to donate blood at the major hospitals, along with the contact numbers to help out in the crisis. Some people also used the site to reassure their near and dear ones about their safety.

Flickr and Twitter were not the only sites used. A new entry was created on Wikipedia, which local users added details to, as they occurred. Somebody else actually pinpointed the location of the buildings where the mayhem in progress on Google Maps.

While the BBC, CNN and every major newspaper has dedicated a lot of space to the events still unfolding in Mumbai, people increasingly seem to turn to user-generated content on sites like Twitter to get the “real”, unfiltered information as it happens.

Important Note: Please remember that these same tools of communication can be used by the terrorists to keep in touch and convey the latest information to each other. Also if citizens post too many details about the rescue operations in progress, the terrorists can benefit from this information, and change their positions or tactics if necessary. Users must therefore exercise caution regarding the information they send out.

A recent report, from the 304^th Military Intelligence Battalion of the U.S. Army Intelligence, raises the possibility that the popular instant messaging service, Twitter, could be used as a tool by terrorists, as also some other Internet technologies such as Global Positioning System Maps, and voice-changing software.

Noah Shachtman the author of this report has written a chapter titled, “Potential For Terrorist Use Of Twitter”.

It is mentioned here that users of Twitter send out tweets or instant messages to other twitter users, and during the earthquake which occurred in Los Angeles in the month of July, the news reached Twitter users much sooner than it reached those who rely only on traditional forms of news broadcast such as newspapers and television.

This same service Twitter was also used to provide information about police movements, by activists of the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis.

It is further written that Twitter is already being used by several human rights groups, communists, socialists, religious communities and anarchists to propagate their respective causes and ideologies. The report also includes the term “Hacktivists”, which refers to computer hackers with a political or religious motivation.

The report says “Extremist and terrorist use of Twitter could evolve over time to reflect tactics that are already evolving in use, by hacktivists and activists for surveillance. This could theoretically be combined with surveillance.”

It is also mentioned that extremists can use Twitter in conjunction with other services such as cell phone pictures or videos, Google Maps etc. to carry out their underhand activities.

Global Positioning system and voice changing software are some other features which could help terrorists to set up their travel plans, mount surveillance etc. These uses are reportedly already being discussed in certain pro Al-Qaeda forums etc.

But as the saying goes ‘there are two sides to every coin.’ While it is entirely possible that these latest Internet technologies can be misused by the wrong people, it is far easier and possible to put these services to good use, such as disseminating information during emergencies, or as a counter-terrorism tool by emergency response teams.

The United States government are buying AdWords units that link to a page on the America.gov portal,  telling America’s side of the story:

http://fpolicy.america.gov/fpolicy/security/

This page shows various subjects of international interest such as America’s foreign policy matters, the up-coming U.S. presidential elections, human rights stories, Middle East topics, peacekeeping, confronting terrorism and the US’s work with NATO.

The (rather unrealistic) intention might be to try and lure terrorists who show an undue interest in these stories and thus crack down on terrorism. The ads are visible to Internet visitor on the content network and to searchers looking for keywords such as “terrorism”, “Middle East peace”, “human rights”, “press freedom”, “renewable energy”, “food aid” and “US elections”. The ads are only shown to Google users in Canada, the UK and the UAE.

Jonathan Margolis from the Bureau of International Information Programs, which has released these ads says, “We are trying to engage, inform and influence foreign audiences. Before you can do either of the last two you have got to find some way to engage them . . . We found that when you launch a website and if you want to attract a target audience, Google ads are a very effective way of drawing people to the site.”

The U.S. government is spending $25,000-$30,000 per month on these ads and and additional $15,000 per month on ads in Farsi and Arabic, which have generated about 300,000 impressions per month.

Surely the US could have thought of better ways to spend that money rather than trying to buy a change in public opinion?