Given the billions of dollars that governments spend to build offensive cyber forces, and the resources that technology companies devote to protecting their platforms from becoming digital havens for jihadis, it would seem easy to predict quick, satisfying victories in the cyber battle against bands of ill-funded terrorists. The reverse turns out to be true. “It’s the hardest fight we face,” one senior military official told me. Blow up a safe house in Pakistan or a missile base in Syria, and the result is rubble. Aim at the servers sending out beheading videos or recruiting messages, and the
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