Partly due to the pressure of new terror laws in Britain and partly because of the effectiveness of Destroyers of jihadi websites like Internet Haganah, British-based radical Islamists have sought more imaginative online solutions both to maintain an online presence (even when they are banned) and to keep on recruiting (something they are increasingly desperate to do in a climate justifiably increasingly hostile towards them).

In the case of groups which are yet to be banned, this involves having a primary layer website associated with their name - which meets all terror law requirements. These sites are normally full of prejudiced political articles about the "Global war on Muslims", about the failure of "Western Society" (stories of grannies in the west dying alone in poverty, of alcohol abuse by children and pedophilia supposedly rife in western society) and pick-and-mix religious articles, which use lines of the Qur'an willy-nilly to suit whatever particular point they are trying to make, whether justifying Iranian nukes or ensuring that their sister is wrapped from head to toe in black Egyptian cotton in case she's offered cash by a scout from Plumpers gentlemen's magazine (or, more likely, chooses to use facial expression to disagree with her misogynistic and repressive brothers).

In the case of banned groups, the primary layer is purposefully obvious - in the case of Al Mujahiroun-linked groups, sites such as omarbakri.info (named after Al Mujahiroun's founder) include the odd extreme article and hot-headed video or audio file, hoping to attract and then delay less gifted law enforcers. Banned group names don't get a mention, though tone and content both point blatantly to ownership by the banned group members.

The second layer of websites vary. In the case of groups which are not banned, they tend to use their foreign branch sites to get their true message across (Hizb ut Tahrir's .org and .info websites link to their more extreme brother sites, based in places like Indonesia and Bangladesh, where they are less scrutinized and can get away with more extreme language). In the case of banned groups and groups yet to be banned, both tend to use second layer generics - for example 1924.org (the date of the end of the Caliphate as used by Hizb ut Tahrir in various formats....even Hizb ut Tahrir leader Imran Waheed's publicly available cell phone number is 07074 1924 00) or aswj.net (Followers of Ahl Us-Sunnah wal Jamma used by Al Mujahiroun) - to stock their more extreme material (much of which is illegal under current British terror legislation). Again, words like Ummah, Islam and Salaf keep springing up as parts of domains for their sites - islambase.co.uk, for example, currently houses a lot of al Mujahiroun stock material (Bakri rants, Izzadeen lectures etc) and through its password-protected forums within a few clicks you're soon onto the more hardcore stuff (beheading videos, al Qaeda recordings and incriminating speeches). They figure that authorities will not dare ban names using Islamic generics as they would obviously be acting in an Islamophobic way.

But the real innovation of the last weeks, in terms of virtual British radical Islamism, has been the disguise of old radical Islamist websites, which have been redundant for several months. Whereas before the redundant sites simply displayed "This page cannot be displayed" or "under construction", now these sites (the authorities know the names) display a brand-less search engine, made to look just like a Google affiliation or other affiliation site. At first glance, the enquirer will simply clock the standard advertisements and click away - thinking the domain redundant (as so many previously active domains used by these radicals are redundant). Even at second glance, pictures of bikini-clad women or dating services make the enquirer confirm his first suspicion - that the site is redundant, as the last thing prudish radical Islamists are going to do is have photos and advertisements of such kuffar (non-believer) wickedness on their active sites, even if their hero Bin Laden made regular drunken appearances in the early 1970's at Beirut's brothels or in later years fantasized endlessly about that arch kuffar temptress, Whitney Houston.

Even when you click on the search engine links of these particular sites, other links appear, which have been copied off genuine affiliation sites or actually link to genuine affiliations. Only the really curious will see this as an Aladdin's cave of prosecutable material, where an "Open Sesame" password or technique is required. Most will click around on the links a bit and get directed to genuine advertisements and genuine sites - and go away bored. Even those who type jihadi terminology in the search box are referred to sites as you'd expect from standard search engines like Google or Altavista - they get nowhere either.

The thing is, these search engines are a cover. There is a way of getting into these "caves" if you want to. It's not a question of guessing keywords to enter in the search engine, nor is it a question of wasting time clicking on loads of links with their annoying pop-ups and further links - much simpler. Once you're inside you see that the radical groups are unaffected by new laws and government initiatives designed to curb Islamist extremism - that they and their contents are as radical as ever. That their first and second layer sites are tame compared to these.

How do you get in? Put it this way - the new sites have been designed like mazes, as if all visitors are entering at ground level. They fail to comprehend that an aerial view can be readily obtained by those with the necessary wings. No point even trying to get in - unless you are licensed or don't mind law enforcers walking off later with your computer.

Right now there must be a lot of Britain's radical Islamists wasting their time thinking up how to cover their true purposes. They fail to recognize that they do not have the guile or the funds to beat their enemy, whatever they try. They fail to halt the progress of the army of hackers who follow their every move, who have spread, and daily spread, their virtual spy ware into the very heart of their online operations. The Islamists are scared stiff of the "jinn" (ghostly beings living on earth in a parallel universe) - well, it seems the jinn are friendly Tinkerbell fairies compared to the virtual weapons of radical Islamists' unrelenting tormentors.

The Islamists are still using the Internet as if it was set up by cranks like Ayman al-Zawahiri or Taqiuddin al-Nabhani -or perhaps the fairy jinn themselves. Look at the WHOIS data behind domain names used by the radical Islamists in their online operations and more often than not they fall for using anonymous registration services - just as the less lazy Islamists use software to hide their IP addresses when they communicate with their extremist brothers. Do they really think their data is protected? Do they really think that companies like Whois Privacy Protection Service Inc are going to hold out against intelligence agencies, with whom they are obliged to work hand in glove? Online the Islamists can get messages to each other in drop accounts and in code without much chance of being found out - but they can't recruit as they'd want to by being secretive (Islamism is the combination of Islam and politics - successful political action involves making statements to the many not the few and thus they are exposed in the House of Internet, which never belonged to them and never will).

The British radical Islamists' old advantage online was the languages they spoke, which British intelligence officers lacked. Amazingly, some of them think that this advantage still exists - ask al Mujahiroun's diminutive Abu Yahya who daily virtually builds his own jail cell in almuhajirun.com - but they fail to recognize how many of their so-called brothers and sisters make really good money out of being born polyglots. Nor the use of various names by the Islamists - Trevor Brooks, for example, is Abu Izzadeen is Omar Brooks is on bail - nowadays beats even the village Bobby's (basic) analyst notebook software. Sure, the Islamists' multiple name usage is annoying, but not nearly as annoying as having to listen to Omar Bakri talking about ankle exposure when listening to audio needing transcription (five minutes before and five minutes after for context) for the courts.

The Internet is a big place. But those radical Islamists who use the Internet to try to recruit, attract and grow - however much they try to conceal their true aims - will always be watched, translated and transcribed. As for their search engine camouflage - back to the drawing board, lads......

Dominic Whiteman is spokesperson for the London-based VIGIL anti-terrorist organization - an international network of terror trackers, including former intelligence officers, military personnel and experts ranging from linguistic to banking experts.

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