[BITList] How to Wage Global War from the Comfort of Home

[franka]

One of cyber warfare most intricate salvo's came in the form of the 
Stuxnet computer virus that caused havoc in Iran's nuclear enrichment 
program this past summer. The virus is widely believed to be the result 
of a joint military-backed effort of American and Israeli engineers, and 
by some estimates has pushed Iran's ability to produce a nuclear weapon 
back three years.

But what about those with basic programming skills who would like to 
take part in international conflicts but don't have the benefit of 
official government funding and resources? What are they to do? For now, 
these laptop warriors may be forced to settle with old-fashioned virtual 
vandalism.

Last week the US government-sponsored Voice of America web site 
<http://www.voanews.com/english/news/> was taken down by a hacktivist 
group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army."

The group managed to alter the VoA's DNS settings to redirect traffic to 
their own site where visitors were met with a message addressed to 
Hillary Clinton that appears to have gone through Google Translate's 
lingual meat grinder (see a screen grab here 
<%20http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/219-iranianhacks/9631791-1-eng-US/219-iranianhacks_full_380.jpg>): 


    *We have proven that we can* Mrs. Clinton Do you want to hear the
    voice of oppressed nations will from heart of USA?

    Islamic world doesn't believe USA trickery.

    We call on you to stop interfering in Islamic countries

The VOA acknowledged the hacking on their Facebook page and was later 
able to return the site to normal.

Stuxnet, this was not.

Due to the relatively small potatoes hit of the VOA domain 
<http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2381104,00.asp#>, it's 
likely the Iranian Cyber Army is not an official Mullah-backed 
organization, but rather a group of pro-regime hackers in search of an 
easy Western target. And since VOA is specifically targeted for 
audiences outside of the US, the hack might have been more concerned 
with projecting the group's reach to fellow Iranians than sending a 
message to Hillary.

In cyber warfare terms, this was more akin to drawing an obscene cartoon 
on the chalkboard for your classmates than setting off an explosive in 
the teachers' lounge. But it's also indicative of the ease with which 
anyone can tip their toe into international conflicts from the relative 
safety of their living room.

In 2008, a Sunni hacker consortium known as "Group-XP" posted a video of 
American comedian Bill Maher on the web site of Iraqi Shiite cleric 
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Group-XP claimed they were angry with 
al-Sistani for opening Muslims to mockery in the West. The group went on 
a subsequent hacking spree, causing mayhem on several sites the group 
claimed gave a "bad name" to Sunnis.

In response, various Sunni sites came under attack by Shiite hackers, 
eventually culminating in a Shiite hacker by the name of "ShiaZone" 
uploading a YouTube video that scrolled the personal emails of Group-XP 
members (I think this <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l4E1UA5ek4> is it).

Perhaps this petty exchange of pwnings doesn't represent a robust debate 
of differences, but it is a far more civil form of discourse than the 
senseless sectarian violence that ruled Mesopotamia during the period.

Of course, the true masters of cyber warfare come from farther East. The 
past decade has seen a spate of cyber attacks from China on the vital 
web infrastructure of Western governments and private corporations. 
(Just this week they attacked Canadian government servers 
<%20http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110216/china-hackers-canada-finance-department-110216/>). 
Many of these hackers are believed to not be under the direct command of 
Beijing, rather they are the result of a volunteer consortium of 
patriotic Chinese geeks. We can't be sure how much collusion there is 
with Chinese authorities, so unlike the web graffiti nonsense detailed 
above, these operations present real power to inflict damage.

The West, of course, is not immune to this type of digital vigilante 
groupthink. We have our own linked-in hive mind that claims to represent 
our values in the virtual world: namely freedom of expression. The 
leaderless laptop cluster Anonymous, armed with its Magritte-esque 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Magritte> branding and 
intercontinental armada of low-orbit ion cannons levies DDoS attacks at 
the web portals of any target it deems a threat to freedom and 
democracy. The group came to international attention when they launched 
assaults against the websites of the perceived enemies of Wikileaks. 
Most recently, the group successfully took down the official web sites 
of the governments of Tunisia and Egypt in support of those nations' 
protest movements.

Aside from the China-based virtual attacks, these operations have been 
of little consequence on global affairs. Was Anonymous really an 
accessory to regimeicide? Despite their fantasies to the contrary 
<http://www.anonnews.org/index.php?p=press&a=item&i=118>, probably not. 
Will the VOA hacking cause American leaders to rethink their policies 
towards Iran? Not at all. What these groups lack in real world effect, 
they make up in offering a way for its members to feel connected to 
international events. A romantic James Bond fantasy of joining the good 
fight from the safety of your favorite wifi connected cafe.

Millions of geeky Davids in search of a Goliath.

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