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27
Dec
Image courtesy of worsttech.com
So, in the wake of the most recent WikiLeaks scandal, the diplomatic cabletastrophy, the MasterCard “cyber attacks” and the attack on the Iranian nuclear program lots of new language has been added to the media vocabulary. Until just a few weeks ago the vast majority of Americans had no clue what a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, nor certainly viewed internet crime as any sort of national security issue. Now it seems politically motivated cyber attacks are all the rage, and though these are the newest forms of political attacks popularized in news media, they’ve been a popular weapons against human rights organizations for ages.
Yet, not surprisingly, one rarely if ever hears about cyber attacks on human rights organizations and sources of independent media. Perhaps at least in part because excluding major efforts of governments and the like, they tend not to actually be that big of a deal. Contrary to the sea of tweets and TV news stories, cyber attacks, while certainly pretty fierce and frightening displays of political beliefs, tend not to cause earth shattering meltdowns. As with more traditional political attacks, these recent attacks have had an impressive impact in bringing public attention to a host of differing political ideologies.
If not for sharp manipulation of mainstream media sources, WikiLeaks probably never would’ve stood out among the sea of nerdy political sites. Whatever the WikiLeaks scandals amount to in history, the organization certainly will have had a profound impact on the US populace and international community in bringing the influence of technology into the public eye.
- Published by Imara in: Human Rights security technology
10 Responses to “Human Rights, Media Manipulation & Technological Attacks”
This doesn’t come as a surprise to people at DOD as they have long been claiming that cyberterrorism is one of the largest threats to US national security. I don’t believe that WikiLeaks is an example of cyberterrorism, but the DDoS attacks certainly come close. Moreover, where people in the US probably don’t believe the attacks on Iran amount to cyberterrorism, I suspect the Iranians do.
Yeah I’ve read that the attack on the Iranian nuclear program was the first of its kind to be the equivalent of a military strike. However, I’ve also read that it was almost doubtlessly the work of one if not two governments.
Good post Imara. I think we have to distinguish DDoS attacks from the Iranian virus. The virus that attacked Iran was scary because it actually caused physical damage and will be almost impossible for the Iranians to remove because of its complexity. I largely agree with the labeling of DDoS attacks as “sit-ins” however. They are literally the equivalent of making a public space inoperable for a short period of time by putting too many “people” in it. This should be illegal, but not considered the horrible crime that is currently viewed as.
Agreed to a degree David, among my nerdy cadre of friends (from my previous career), the attack on Iran has been the subject of many discussions. They’re a big deal for a number of reasons, but I included them in the above in an effort to express the growing ways the internet is becoming a source of conflict. The DDoS attacks tend to be politically motivated, as the virus attack obviously was and both subjects are clearly the sort of stuff most people had no idea about before a few weeks ago. Basically in the States “hackers” are the stuff of ridiculous action movies, doing stuff like hacking the whole internet simultaneously presented in Transformers or blowing up an alien space ship with a Macbook as in Independence day.
These recent attacks publicized by the media have if nothing else made the public somewhat aware of the actual threats presented by cyber crime and how they differ from entertainment nonsense (ie movies/TV). I might do a deeper analysis of the subject here some time in the future, but I thought it’d be a good thing to touch on.
I am thoroughly convinced that cyberterrorism is a genuine big threat. Let’s take one example: my bank account. Nowhere in Bank of America is there a pile of cash that says “Barak’s money.” My checking account is simply an electronic book keeping entry. If someone hacks into their cite, who knows what will happen to my bank account. Sure, I might get the money back if I can produce a paper record, but imagine the chaos if this were to happen to me and millions of other BOA customers at the same time. We can repeat this ad infinitum. Main point: if the internet is the main place people store stuff these days, then attacks on it must be at the top of the list of threats not only to our national security, but to our entire way of life.
I think I did a bad job of explaining myself, I believe cybercrimes can be very serious, I just think that the types of attacks vary a lot and DDoS attacks are not the most serious. Certainly hacking into a bank account, or any database is a serious issue, but DDoS doesn’t gain access to anything, it just blocks access to a website for a short time. I certainly think that this is still a crime that should be punishable by jail time and fines, but it is not in the same league as other types of cyber attacks.
I agree fully and the more I think about it, the less sure I am where I would draw the line on what constitutes a cyber-crime. I think the best way to do this is by finding a non-cyber analogy to the event in question. For example, is DDoS more like a protest or is it closer to vandalism? On the surface, it seems to me like it is the latter and so therefore is a crime. However, one could make a convincing case that it is more like a protest in which case it would not be a crime, so I am not sure where I come down on DDoS. Hacking into a private database is clearly a crime: breaking and entering.
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