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IronManBeta -> Cyberwar #1 has been fought (5/31/2007 9:52:13 PM)
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Just as the Spanish civil war foreshadowed many of the trends and techniques of WW2 to those with the eyes to see, the world's first cyberwar has just been fought and is being studied by those who care.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/technology/29estonia.html?em&ex=1180670400&en=9dea0072a238483c&ei=5087%0A
I'm referring to the recent fracas that had Estonia at the receiving end of a month long campaign to shut down its digital infrastructure. It began at 10 p.m. on April 26 and built to a peak on May 10 using a world-wide network of bots. Experts from several countries rallied to the defense and have been picking over the evidence since. Others such as NATO did not help directly at the time but have taken a huge interest since. This has implications for everyone but relatively little seems to be circulating in public.
The last major wave of attacks was May 18th and now the mopping up is going on.
This new kind of warfare is not necessarily a war between sovereign states or entirely within a sovereign state like we were used to. It may eventually turn out that some or all of the attackers were of a particular national origin but that is not a precondition to an attack. Worse, it appears that they were able to rent a lot of the capacity they needed from 3rd parties (digital mercenaries?) to launch and sustain the attack. War has always required leadership, organization and deep pockets, but those attributes are no longer confined to the kind of elites we used to associate with it. It looks like we may have to get used to a whole new paradigm for 'political discourse by other means' in the future.
Me, I'm just trying to figure out how to compile an OB for this kind of conflict!
Regards, Rob
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