NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Dangerous ramblings from Malone
Lauren,Your post made me read his entire column.The way his quote (excerpted below) reads is as if he is claiming there were millions of teenage, broadbanded, laptop users in N. Korea, who, his logic goes, clearly weren't spontaneously attacking other nations. Ergo, it's a state act. This is another blatant case of false dichotomies. Are there even that many broadband users in N. Korea? As you point out, it doesn't take a nation to coordinate an attack, just a bunch of coordinated machines. These could be anywhere.India and Pakistan have had decades of rivalry in cyberspace (and the physical space). People I have talked to mention that there are many attacks on Indian govt. websites, far fewer on Pakistani. This is NOT (per private discussions) because of governmental policies per se but also because of the disaffected youth, who get implicit or tacit blessings only. In Pakistan, they have few outlets. In India, they can get a read job.So, when any country's disaffected/misguided youth pull a stunt like this, at what point are we able to say the nation is to blame? The nation may enjoy the fruits, but they didn't do it directly...RahulOn Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 9:44 PM, Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com> wrote:
This commentary:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Technology/story?id=8045546&page=1
by Michael S. Malone is one of the more irresponsible and even potentially
dangerous that I've seen from any mainstream technology columnists in
quite some time.
By suggesting that the U.S. use Internet disruption techniques in
response to "cyber attacks," he is in fact endorsing the "Crack in the
World" school of technology
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAU12PiW4NA ). That is, even when
the potential risks are catastrophic, fire the missile anyway.
Even worse, Malone seems so sure that he knows where to point his
bomb-laden missiles. But in reality, despite his obvious confidence
that North Korea's leaders are responsible, calmer heads know that it's
virtually impossible to pin down operational command responsibility
for these sorts of attacks in most cases.
But here's the real kicker from Malone:
"Yeah, right. As if all of those millions of middle-class teenaged
private owners of broadband connected laptops all over that
electricity black hole called the People's Republic of North Korea
spontaneously decided to hack the Web sites of another country's
government and largest corporations."
Say what? Malone *must* know that attacks of this kind can indeed be
triggered by a single botnet-commanding teenager anywhere in the
world, and use contaminated PCs anywhere on the planet to try shift
the blame.
So we have to assume that Malone is ignoring these facts intentionally
to prop up his railing against North Korea.
Cyber-warmongering such as that from Malone is unwise, unhelpful, and
in the final analysis, both dangerous and dumb.
--Lauren--
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