Open Source Jihad

John Robb continues to be proven right with his spot on thinking about open-source warfare.

Taliban adopting Iraq-style jihad

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN ““ Even in near-total darkness, the wounded Taliban fighter insists on masking his identity, his head and face covered by a tightly wound white cloth. Only two bright eyes and a confident voice tell how Afghanistan’s Islamist militants are ramping up their fight against US and NATO forces.

He speaks a warning, of how the “new” Taliban has become more radical, more sophisticated, and more brutal than the Taliban ousted by US-led forces in 2001 – and of how its jihadist agenda now mirrors that of Al Qaeda, stretching far beyond Afghanistan among the keys to the Taliban resurgence – which is sparking lethal violence on a scale unknown here for almost five years – are crucial lessons drawn from Iraq.

“That’s part of our strategy – we are trying to bring [the Iraqi model] to Afghanistan,” says the fighter. “Things will get worse here.” Those “things” include suicide attacks, assassinations of government officials, moderate clerics, and civilians, along with guerrilla tactics now in use against Western forces in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where NATO claims to have killed more than 500 insurgents in 10 days of intense fighting.

Robb notes that:

• Release early and often. Try new forms of attacks against different types of targets early and often. Don’t wait for a perfect plan.
• Given a large enough pool of co-developers, any difficult problem will be seen as obvious by someone, and solved. Eventually some participant of the bazaar will find a way to disrupt a particularly difficult target. All you need to do is copy the process they used.
• Your co-developers (beta-testers) are your most valuable resource. The other guerrilla networks in the bazaar are your most valuable allies. They will innovate on your plans, swarm on weaknesses you identify, and protect you by creating system noise.
• Recognize good ideas from your co-developers. Simple attacks that have immediate and far-reaching impact should be adopted.
• Perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away (simplicity). The easier the attack is, the more easily it will be adopted. Complexity prevents swarming that both amplifies and protects.
• Tools are often used in unexpected ways. An attack method can often find reuse in unexpected ways.

As he noted, if Microsoft hasn’t found any solution in its war against the open source movement, the prospects of finding one in the War on Terror are doubtful. Nevertheless, proxies may offer the best, though bloody, solution.