Civilian Internet applications now offer militant groups access to intelligence that rivals what government spies can get, Israel’s domestic security chief said on Monday.

Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin, in a rare public address, identified cyber technologies as an ascendant international security threat.

“Intelligence once enjoyed only by countries and world powers can now be obtained through Internet systems like Google Earth, Internet cameras that are deployed all over the world and linked to the Web, or applications for IPhone devices that allow for quality intelligence to be received in real-time,” he told a homeland security conference in Tel Aviv.

In what appeared to be an allusion to two parcel bombs found on U.S.-bound planes on Friday, he said such a tactic had featured in “mounting debates” among Islamist militant groups over the Internet on how to exploit international aviation.

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(Source: Reuters)