To avoid the use of the internet for terrorism, it is necessary to invest in human resources and technology.

According to former FIA director general Sanaullah Abbasi, the use of the internet for terrorist goals presents both obstacles and opportunities in the battle against terrorism.

He told The News on Saturday that it is a new domain but one that is quite difficult. Everything has gone to online, but Pakistan is still in transition, according to Abbasi, who holds a law degree.

"We need to invest extensively in this domain to meet the difficulties in terms of people resources, technology, and infrastructure."

Change the law to include and balance security, human rights, mass awakening, increased investment, international collaboration, cyberattacks, and virtual money.

Since the late 1980s, the internet has proven to be a highly dynamic method of communication, reaching an ever-growing audience globally, according to the former FIA chief, who revealed his research on terrorism via the internet. The advancement of more sophisticated technology has resulted in the creation of a network with truly global reach and low entrance barriers.

He added that the use of the internet for terrorist goals provides both obstacles and opportunities in the battle against terrorism since it allows people to interact with their relatives secretly, rapidly, and efficiently across boundaries, to an almost endless audience.

According to Abbasi, a functional approach to the classification of means by which the internet is frequently used to assist acts of terrorism has been taken for the objectives of the current book.

Propaganda (including recruitment, radicalization, and incitement to terrorism); finance; training; planning (including through secret communication and open-source information); execution; and cyberattacks have all been identified as a result of this method.

Each of these categories, such as propaganda, which covers recruiting, instigation, and radicalization, is discussed in further depth. Financing, training, planning, preparatory covert communication, publicly available information, execution, cyberattacks, the use of the internet to disrupt terrorist activity, and rule-of-law considerations are among the other components.

According to the former FIA DG, terrorist use of the internet is a transnational problem that necessitates a coordinated response across national borders and among criminal justice systems. In this regard, the United Nations plays a critical role, promoting debate and exchange of best practices among member nations, as well as the development of consensus on shared approaches to fighting the use of the internet for terrorist purposes.

[Intelligence-gathering]

Technological improvements have created several sophisticated techniques by which terrorists can exploit the internet for unlawful objectives in the conduct of terrorist offences involving the internet.

Traditional investigative procedures, awareness of the instruments accessible to conduct criminal behaviour via the internet, and the creation of strategies designed to identify, apprehend, and punish the perpetrators of such activities are all used in effective online activity investigations.

A case from France demonstrates how many sorts of investigative procedures, both traditional and specialized to digital evidence, are used in tandem to gather the evidence needed to successfully prosecute terrorist use of the internet.

Expert criminal investigative abilities, as well as the competence, knowledge, and experience to use those skills in a virtual context, are required for the investigation and prosecution of crimes utilising digital evidence. While evidence admissibility is ultimately a legal concern that falls under the purview of prosecutors, investigators should be conversant with the legal and procedural standards for establishing admissibility in both domestic and international investigations.

Investigators can collect enough admissible evidence to support the successful prosecution of a case if they have a good understanding of the requirements of applicable rules of evidence, especially when it comes to digital evidence. For example, protocols for acquiring, storing, and analyzing digital evidence must ensure that a clear "chain of custody" has been maintained from the time it was originally secured, ensuring that it has not been tampered with from the time it was seized until its final production in court.

Voice-over-internet protocol, electronic mail, online messenger services and chat rooms, file-sharing networks, and cloud technologies are all examples of internet-based communication. Data encryption and anonymization techniques, wireless technology, investigations of terrorist cases involving the internet, a systematic approach to internet investigations, tracing an IP address, forensic data preservation and recovery, and supporting the authentication of digital evidence are among the other investigations.

National or regional cybercrime units, computer forensic triage units, intelligence gathering, and training are among the operational cybercrime units.

[Prosecution]

Prosecutors' roles in terrorism prosecutions have gotten increasingly complex and demanding. Prosecutors are becoming more involved in the investigative and intelligence-gathering phases of terrorism cases, providing direction or supervision on the legal and strategic consequences of various investigative tactics, in addition to being responsible for the conduct of criminal procedures.

The role of prosecutors in terrorism cases involving terrorists' use of the internet is examined in this chapter, with the goal of identifying common challenges or obstacles, as well as strategies and approaches that have been proven to be effective in the successful prosecution of perpetrators, from the perspective of prosecutors.

[Private-public partnership]

While member states are ultimately responsible for combating the use of the internet for terrorist purposes, the collaboration of important private sector stakeholders is critical to effective implementation. Private companies frequently own network infrastructure for internet services in whole or in part. Similarly, private firms usually operate social media platforms that help spread user-generated content to a large audience, as well as prominent internet search engines that filter content based on user-supplied criteria.

Data retention, websites and other platforms hosting user-generated material, internet search engines, monitoring services, and public-private partnerships are all examples of collaboration with government agencies.