MI5 has concluded that there is no easy way to identify those who become involved in terrorism in Britain, according to a classified internal research document on radicalisation seen by the Guardian.

[...]

The main findings include:

• The majority are British nationals and the remainder, with a few exceptions, are here legally. Around half were born in the UK, with others migrating here later in life. Some of these fled traumatic experiences and oppressive regimes and claimed UK asylum, but more came to Britain to study or for family or economic reasons and became radicalised many years after arriving.

• Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts. Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.

• The "mad and bad" theory to explain why people turn to terrorism does not stand up, with no more evidence of mental illness or pathological personality traits found among British terrorists than is found in the general population.

• British-based terrorists are as ethnically diverse as the UK Muslim population, with individuals from Pakistani, Middle Eastern and Caucasian backgrounds. MI5 says assumptions cannot be made about suspects based on skin colour, ethnic heritage or nationality.

• Most UK terrorists are male, but women also play an important role. Sometimes they are aware of their husbands', brothers' or sons' activities, but do not object or try to stop them.

• While the majority are in their early to mid-20s when they become radicalised, a small but not insignificant minority first become involved in violent extremism at over the age of 30.

• Far from being lone individuals with no ties, the majority of those over 30 have steady relationships, and most have children. MI5 says this challenges the idea that terrorists are young men driven by sexual frustration and lured to "martyrdom" by the promise of beautiful virgins waiting for them in paradise. It is wrong to assume that someone with a wife and children is less likely to commit acts of terrorism.

• Those involved in British terrorism are not unintelligent or gullible, and nor are they more likely to be well-educated; their educational achievement ranges from total lack of qualifications to degree-level education. However, they are almost all employed in low-grade jobs.

The rate of total homicide and the rate of homicide due to mental disorder rose steadily until the mid-1970s. From then there was a reversal in the rate of homicides attributed to mental disorder, which declined to historically low levels, while other homicides continued to rise.

Paper and press release.

Remember this the next time you read a newspaper article about how scared everyone is because some patients escaped from a mental institution:

We are convinced by the media that people with serious mental illnesses make a significant contribution to murders, and we formulate our approach as a society to tens of thousands of people on the basis of the actions of about 20. Once again, the decisions we make, the attitudes we have, and the prejudices we express are all entirely rational, when analysed in terms of the flawed information we are fed, only half chewed, from the mouths of morons.

He’s a bit indignant that so much energy goes to sporting events like the Olympics rather than more important news that isn’t getting reported around the world.

This is in a year when tons of journalists are getting laid off.

This is in a year when there are tons of stories around the world that aren’t getting reported on.

Could we take half of those photographers and send them to Russia, for instance

Reminds me of a feeling I had back in college as an undergrad student studying social sciences and humanities, about the way my friends who were physicists interacted with the world. They were so awed by the stars, Mars, astrophysics, and it seemed to me interesting but altogether unimportant. They argued they may find something outside our planet that could help solve Earth-bound problems like disease, or find the origins of earth and humanity — but really they were doing it because they loved it. One of my friends had a good argument, though — there are enough people right now that we can specialize in what we care about, and there will still be others covering other topics. He could be a physicist and look into the universe’s origin, while I studied social interaction and writing, and our other friends looked into solving cancer or eradicating invasive plants in the native wetlands. We have to specialize, and there are enough of us to do it too.

I think it’s the same way in journalism — whether it’s sports, celebrity journalism, or coverage of politics and war, there are a lot of opportunities right now for journalists. Of course the business model is changing, and some old-schoolers won’t know how to roll with that, but generations change slowly; we’re learning.

Also, the Olympics is seen as more than a sporting event, it’s also a symbol of world competition and cooperation too — a way for countries to come together and share entertainment globally. I think that’s worth covering.

In the second post, Robert Scoble says there are plenty of great journalists but the public doesn’t care. In some ways I have to agree with that, but I don’t think it’s negative, necessarily. I had a conversation with someone the other day about world news reportage. He says, “I was just reading this story, but what does it matter to me if there’s a flood in some city in another country I’ll never visit and some farmer lost his sheep?” World news is only important when it’s relevant, so it’s no wonder that many people don’t care — if they don’t know much about the area, and it doesn’t affect them, they have no incentive to give it full attention. You can call that apathy, but I think it’s an important selectivity skill that humans have. We have to choose what to give priority to, so if nothing stands out as being particularly important, we just ignore it or gloss over it. Human nature…

Also I think the common person today just gets desensitized and doesn’t know where to turn their energy, when surrounded by so many crises. Either you focus on one specialty and do your best to work toward one cause in your life — and maybe that’s just in the course of your daily work — or you become a complete Attention-Deficit-Disorder case and bounce from one problem to the next, without knowing how to solve anything. That just causes a sense of bewilderment, despair, and either that bogs you down or eventually you get desensitized.

There’s a commenter on Scoble’s blog, Spencer, who talks about this generation’s apathy. There are so many people who want to blame today’s generation or the young generation for this “apathy” that they sense. But I see it as a survival mechanism that arises from the way information flows these days. We’re surrounded by crises, everyone wants us to know about them — the water shortage, global warming, death in Iraq, the national deficit. Okay, crisis, I get it. But no one gives a real clear idea on what any individual is really supposed to do to solve the problem. You can’t get involved with one global cause, without ignoring all the others, and if you do get involved it’s likely to become your life’s purpose. Most people are concerned with other things — their families, their work, personal development, their homes and futures, and really that’s enough to take up all their time.

I’m always amazed when I read about the early unionists. Emma Goldman for example, the activist who pushed for the 8-hr workday, and campaigned for free love in the early 1900s when women were still wearing corsets, used to work 16 hour factory days as a seamstress, then lead meetings late into the night. Today we lead cushy lives comparatively–8 hour days, plus commute and lunch, family time, dinner time, gym maybe, sleep… but it still doesn’t seem like we ever have enough energy and time.

What Emma had that most people today don’t, is a community living in the same conditions as herself, with clear goals about what they were campaigning for, and a cause that affected their own daily lives. Today, unionism and local activism is in much shorter supply, in part due to the many people who work fairly comfy desk jobs, and the problem that everyone has his own specialization, works in a cubicle, does his or her own thing. The problems we’re facing today in terms of global warming, global water shortage, aren’t the same kinds of problems that activists have fought for in the past, and there’s no clear road map for how to solve them. Our leaders sure aren’t leading the way.

What we do have, at least, is the Olympics, which is an age old symbol of international cooperation, play and competition…so, uh, go sports! As for full disclosure, I don’t actually have a TV and haven’t watched the Olympics in many years, but I do try taking short showers–does that help?

• Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) : http://www.isaca.org/cisa/
• Certified Information Systems Security Professional : https://www.isc2.org/cissp

Are You Ready ?
A few basic questions to ask yourself to gauge how ready you are:

• Do I meet the spirit, and not just the letter, of the experience requirements ?
• Has there been sufficient diversity in my experience ?

Five Step Approach to CISA or CISSP Exam Preparation

1. Perform an initial benchmark and assessment of your readiness
2. Read a “survey” level preparation guide cover to cover
3. Perform a secondary benchmark, and compare your readiness
4. Review official, or “deep dive”, preparation materials on areas identified as your weaknesses
5. Re-benchmark, and repeat targeted reviews until ready

CISA and CISSP Preparation

Definitely worth half an hour of your time.

And this is a video of Virginia Beach Police Department Officer George Bruch, who basically says that Duane is right.

I say I am live blogging this, but of course you are not live reading this.  That is because I have no way to upload this to my server.  You see the iPhone 3G for all the coolness, has no Internet sharing that I am aware of. My old windows mobile phone had Internet sharing and if I still had that you would be reading this live right now.  But no, not with the iPhone. 

I was scheduled to connect in Cincinnati right about now.  I am obviously missing that connection.  I was flying from there to Columbus and driving about an hour and half from Columbus.  I have a 9am meeting tomorrow.  So unless I feel like renting a car and driving 4 hours whenever it is I land, I am pretty much missing my meeting tomorrow as well. 

What to do?  a). Should I break out of this plane, run to the terminal and try to get on a flight home to Florida  b). Go postal or c). Grin and bear it and try to remember that I love what I do and that is what flying in the summer is all about (actually that summer thing is full of beans, it is no better in winter with weather either!).

So here is the update, we sat on the runway for 4 hours!  Finally took off and landed in Cincinnati at midnight. I had no connection.  Could not get a flight out in the morning, not rent a car and most hotels sold out. I am writing this from the coffee shop of the lovely (and I do mean lovely) Drawbridge Inn. I will miss my meeting in the morning and am booked on a flight home tomorrow.  Ah, the life of a road warrior!

I was reading the Security Bloggers Network feed this morning. I had missed a day or so and had a lot of articles to go through. I was also thinking of what could be the next topic suggested for members to blog about as part of our cross-promotion with Black Hat.  Than I realized there really was not any need.  The topic was obvious, DNS. I didn't do an actual count of how many times it was mentioned (as Mr Bump did with NAC vendors mentioned in the Information Week NAC survey), but there had to be at least a dozen and half, if not more articles on the great DNS leak of 2008. 

Dan Kaminsky's research was exemplary, but his naivete about people keeping the exploit under thier hat was not.  While Thomas Matasano apologized for his mistake, frankly from the moment Havlar Flake begain speculating on it, it was just a matter of time. 

Anyway, the cat is out of that bag, but something tells me that Dan K's presentation will still be a standing room only crowd in just a few weeks in Vegas.  But beyond that there are still a bunch of good topics to be discovered at Black Hat.  Not to mention lots of social activities brewing for both BH and DefCon.  I amreally looking forward to it. I would hope that no one is feeling the air out of the ballon on this one!

I was reading the Security Bloggers Network feed this morning. I had missed a day or so and had a lot of articles to go through. I was also thinking of what could be the next topic suggested for members to blog about as part of our cross-promotion with Black Hat.  Than I realized there really was not any need.  The topic was obvious, DNS. I didn't do an actual count of how many times it was mentioned (as Mr Bump did with NAC vendors mentioned in the Information Week NAC survey), but there had to be at least a dozen and half, if not more articles on the great DNS leak of 2008. 

Dan Kaminsky's research was exemplary, but his naivete about people keeping the exploit under thier hat was not.  While Thomas Matasano apologized for his mistake, frankly from the moment Havlar Flake begain speculating on it, it was just a matter of time. 

Anyway, the cat is out of that bag, but something tells me that Dan K's presentation will still be a standing room only crowd in just a few weeks in Vegas.  But beyond that there are still a bunch of good topics to be discovered at Black Hat.  Not to mention lots of social activities brewing for both BH and DefCon.  I amreally looking forward to it. I would hope that no one is feeling the air out of the ballon on this one!