TUCSON Ariz.
Web researchers at the University of Arizona are busy these days tracking down potential terrorist-led Web sites and following their every move.
Terrorists have been using the Internet as a university of terror, teaching their followers how to make bombs, how to set off roadside bombs aimed at U.S. soldiers and how to recruit new followers, UA researchers said.
The director of the UA’s federally funded Artificial Intelligence Lab, Hsinchun Chen, estimates there are 50,000 terrorist-led or terrorist-related Web sites with new ones appearing every day.
Chen and his associates are working on the Dark Web project, which scours the Internet to listen in on terrorist chat rooms, untangle the vast network of extremist links and spot threats emerging daily.
In assessing potential threats, UA researchers in Tucson have assembled the world’s largest database of terrorist-generated Web sites, including a collection of more than a half billion pages, postings, images and videos.
The UA has also picked up a $1.5 million federal grant to look deeper into how the Web teaches extremists to set up improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, the roadside bombs often used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
