Putting the 'cyber' into cyberterrorism: Re-reading technological risk in a hyperconnected world

Abstract

Chapter Overview: Threat assessments of cyberterrorism have so far tended to focus upon on two kinds of question. First, the extent to which such a construct really 'exists'- or at least exists in any way substantively different from other forms of terrorism. Second, its destructive potentials and the kinds of targets this might involve. This chapter considers a more basic set of questions about the cyberterrorist threat. These centre upon the very thing considered to make it a distinctive form of offending: (information) technology and its relationships with the intentions of potential terrorists. Central to this analysis is an attempt to clarify some recurring confusions about the criminogenic potentials of technology in general-in particular the extent to which it can be causally agentic or 'enables' offending. I argue that it is only by developing a more coherent understanding of contemporary socio-technic relations that a robust evaluation of the risks posed by cyberterrorism can be made.