From Technology Review‘s “Terror’s Server“:
According to [Gabriel] Weimann [professor of communications at University of Haifa], the number of [terror-related] websites has leapt from only 12 in 1997 to around 4,300 today. …
These sites serve as a means to recruit members, solicit funds, and promote and spread ideology. …
The September 11 hijackers used conventional tools like chat rooms and e-mail to communicate and used the Web to gather basic information on targets, says Philip Zelikow, a historian at the University of Virginia and the former executive director of the 9/11 Commission. …
Finally, terrorists are learning that they can distribute images of atrocities with the help of the Web. … “The Internet allows a small group to publicize such horrific and gruesome acts in seconds, for very little or no cost, worldwide, to huge audiences, in the most powerful way,” says Weimann. …