An FBI SWAT team arrives at the scene of a fatal shooting at the University of California, Los Angeles, Wednesday, June 1, 2016, in Los Angeles.

An FBI SWAT team arrives at the scene of a fatal shooting at the University of California, Los Angeles, Wednesday, June 1, 2016, in Los Angeles. AP / NICK UT

The Pentagon is Developing A New Suite of Tools to Fight the Lone Wolf Problem

As the counter-terrorism battle moves online, DARPA seeks to track how ISIS spreads its ideas — and how well US ripostes are working.

Multiple motivations may have been at play in the Orlando killer’s attack at the Pulse night club in Orlando this week. While it is possible to overstate the influence of the Islamic State, it is impossible to ignore ISIS messaging as at least one contributing factor. On Tuesday President Obama said that the killer “appears to have absorbed” messages from ISIS, whose propaganda, “videos, their postings are pervasive and more easily accessible than we want.” If the online world is part of the battlefield, a new Pentagon program is building tools to evaluate how the battle is going.

“From phony news on Web sites to terrorist propaganda on social media to recruitment videos posted by extremists, conflict in the information domain is becoming a ubiquitous addition to traditional battlespaces. Given the pace of growth in social media and other networked communications, this bustling domain of words and images—once relegated to the sidelines of strategic planning—is poised to become ever more critical to national security and military success around the globe,” reads the program description for the Quantitative Crisis Response, or QCR, from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

DARPA posted the program description this week, several days after Michael Lumpkin, director of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, or GEC, revealed the program in an interview with Defense One.  

“Many tools are available today to reveal whether rockets and bombs hit their targets or otherwise achieved their tactical goals. But no such tools are available to rigorously assess the effects of the volleys of information that are traded through social media and other communications channels,” reads the description.

Related: Why Lone Wolf Attacks Are So Hard To Predict

The new program seeks to develop “automated digital tools that can help operational partners better understand how information is being used by adversaries and to quantitatively predict and assess—in real time and at scale—the effects of those campaigns and of countermeasures.”

In other words, it seeks to better understand how information propaganda from groups like ISIS is working, as well as the effectiveness of counter responses.

The program’s director is Wade Shen, a former associate group leader in the Human Language Technology Group at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, where he worked on ways to distinguish one person’s language patterns from another. At DARPA, he’s served as a program manager for the MEMEx program, a search engine for the Dark Web.  

The problem of individuals “absorbing” Islamic state propaganda and engaging in lone-wolf attacks appears to be growing. On May 21, ISIS spokesperson Abu Muhammad al-Adnani issued an audio recording urging followers across the globe to attack civilian targets in the West.

“Let it be known to you that [spilling] the blood [of people living] in the country of the crusaders and combatants is not forbidden. There is no such thing as innocents” there, he said, according to a translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

On June 13, the Congressional Research Service published a report on Islamic State radicalization. They found that five of 13 violent Muslim-extremist attacks that have occurred in the United States since 9/11 were related to ISIS.  

“It does not appear that any of the suspects in either the five IS-inspired attacks or the eight others had sustained, substantive, in-person contact with foreign terrorist organizations. In essence, these attacks involved do-it-yourself—DIY—terrorists. Largely isolated from the operational support of terrorist organizations, they acquired violent skills (however rudimentary) by themselves or relied on abilities that they had developed prior to becoming violent jihadists,” the CRS report said.

Some of these attacks, such as the San Bernardino and Orlando massacres, made international headlines. Others were less widely reported. On Jan. 7, Edward Archer shot a police officer in Philadelphia and then pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Last November, University of California student Faisal Mohammad stabbed a fellow student; five months later, “the FBI announced that its investigation of the incident uncovered evidence that Mohammad may have been inspired by Islamic State propaganda,” the CRS report said.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.