A report issued by the Federation of American Scientists revealed some surprising conclusions that might be hard to believe for some. The study was conducted by the 304^th Military Intelligence Battalion and addressed the alternative ways that terrorists might use for coordinating future attacks.

The social network and microblogging Web site Twitter was one of the main focuses of the report, as it is believed that it was used and will be used again for such activities.

Two of the examples presented involve an earthquake and a Republican Convention. The earthquake that occurred in Los Angeles on July 29, 2008 was discussed by one of the site’s users "approximately four minutes prior to the information being reported by the news," and over the next few minutes, several other "hundreds of tweets" appeared from other users. The protestors from the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul in September 2008 used Twitter to offer information about the police, ways of avoiding them through certain parts of the town and also first aid solutions.

These facts helped the U.S. military put together three possible terrorist attack scenarios that involve Twitter. The first scenario was presented as it follows: "Terrorist operative "A" uses Twitter with (or without) using a cell phone camera/video function to send back messages, and to receive messages, from the rest of his cell. Operative "A" also has a Google Maps Twitter Mash Up of where he is under a code word for other members of his cell (if they need more in-depth directions) posted on the WWW that can be viewed from their mobiles. Other members of his cell receive near real time updates (similar to the movement updates that were sent by activists at the RNC) on how, where, and the number of troops that are moving in order to conduct an ambush."

The second scenario involves an operative with mobile phone for taking pictures and Tweet messaging and a second operative also with a mobile device presenting an explosive load and remote detonation. Another operative handles the detonator and receives the messages and photos from the first two, and using that info he can easily decide on the best possible moment for detonation.

The third scenario involves the use of the profile information from the army’s members. "This information is then used for a targeting package (targeting in this sense could be for identity theft, hacking, and/or physical.)" The concerns of this third scenario have also been raised for other networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

The report acknowledges that there are numerous groups that use Twitter to send and receive information, most of them without any connections to these illegal actions. The report states that the Web site has become a social activist tool for human rights groups, communists, religious communities, political enthusiasts, atheists, anarchists, vegetarians and many others but the threat appears to be greater in some cases than with others and the authorities are looking to set them apart and focus their efforts on the areas that truly demand it.