Saturday, December 11, 2010
Cyberwar ? Fiction or not ?
The campaign has fallen short of a real cyber war, said the Center for International and Strategic Studies, a Washington think tank. The Brookings Institution's technology innovation center call it "a piece of rhetoric." "It's not clear what political purpose it would serve, given the context," said an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, (Russia).
IMO: After the rather unfinished attack on Amazon, the continued possibility to use credit cards, and so on, the experts could say that. But I have the notion that a cyberwar need not be quick. We have the continued successes of theTaliban which have gone on for well over a century. And think of Chechnia, whose problems featured very strongly in the Russian mind as early as Tolstoy's novels. Guerilla war, even guerilla cyberwar, need not be short and sweet. All sides need to realise this, and unless the authoritities behave in a more moderate manner, the authorities can be more easily targeted individually than in a shooting war, which could anyway also arise. But a lot of this is metaphor. The Tories could even have been said to have indulged in cyberwar with the Labor party when they hired Andy Coulson, and current political spin is little short of cyberwar anyway. But it could well be that the geeks still lack enough moral fibre to make the matter any more than a Press publicity stunt. The hacking of the life support machines of all ill politicans so that they all die quickly could be one obvious, though not very efficient way to carry on and there is clearly a lot that could be done. The geeks may not have enough moral courage to carry the matter through, but cynical politicians will be attracted to their cause by the smell of filthy lucre, like a mangy dog is attracted to a bone.
IMO: After the rather unfinished attack on Amazon, the continued possibility to use credit cards, and so on, the experts could say that. But I have the notion that a cyberwar need not be quick. We have the continued successes of theTaliban which have gone on for well over a century. And think of Chechnia, whose problems featured very strongly in the Russian mind as early as Tolstoy's novels. Guerilla war, even guerilla cyberwar, need not be short and sweet. All sides need to realise this, and unless the authoritities behave in a more moderate manner, the authorities can be more easily targeted individually than in a shooting war, which could anyway also arise. But a lot of this is metaphor. The Tories could even have been said to have indulged in cyberwar with the Labor party when they hired Andy Coulson, and current political spin is little short of cyberwar anyway. But it could well be that the geeks still lack enough moral fibre to make the matter any more than a Press publicity stunt. The hacking of the life support machines of all ill politicans so that they all die quickly could be one obvious, though not very efficient way to carry on and there is clearly a lot that could be done. The geeks may not have enough moral courage to carry the matter through, but cynical politicians will be attracted to their cause by the smell of filthy lucre, like a mangy dog is attracted to a bone.
# posted by uv : 10:01 PM
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