[Infowarrior] - Coming attractions for history's first cyber-war

Fri Jun 15 12:17:30 UTC 2007

CNET News.com    http://www.news.com/
Coming attractions for history's first cyber-war

By Charles Cooper
http://news.com.com/Coming+attractions+for+historys+first+cyber-war/2010-734
9_3-6191184.html

Story last modified Fri Jun 15 04:00:04 PDT 2007

Most of the coast-to-coast office water cooler talk this week doubtless
revolved around David Chase's ambiguous (and brilliant) finale to the
Sopranos last Sunday night. We don't know whether Tony gets whacked or
whether it was a dream sequence--or even both. I suppose that was as it
should be as it left us guessing in true whodunit fashion about motive.

Another fascinating whodunit novella is playing out a few time zones away
from here in the nation of Estonia--but this one is for real. In case you
missed the news, here's the headline version: in late April, Estonia's
government moved a Soviet-era war memorial commemorating an unknown Russian
killed fighting the Germans.

Needless to say, this went over like a lead balloon with neighboring Russia,
which still hails the Red Army for its role defeating the Nazis. Not so in
Estonia, which spent nearly a half century under communist rule. The country
decoupled from the Soviet Union in 1991 and has not looked back. The only
people upset about the change in letterhead are the country's ethnic
Russians.

So it was that Estonia's decision triggered rioting among that same
population. One man was killed, and 153 people were injured. In Moscow,
President Vladimir Putin very publicly criticized Estonia and demonstrators
blockaded the Estonian Embassy.

Up until that point, the storyline played out with few surprises. Eastern
Europe is still a cauldron of conflicting nationalistic passions where
there's not always a shared, agreed-upon narrative of the post-War era.

Then things got squirrelly.

Despite their nation's small size, Estonia's 1.4 million people represent
one of the most wired populations in the entire world. The Parliament
actually declared Internet access to be a basic human right. Unlike the
U.S., which seems congenitally unable to resolve the mystery of e-voting,
Estonia has been using the Internet to elect representatives since 2005.

So if some group wanted to really wreak havoc, how better than to strike at
Estonia's Internet infrastructure? And that's what happened. Shortly after
the government announced its decision, Estonia's Web sites--including those
of government ministries and the prime minister's Reform Party--came under
attack in a distributed denial of service attack that lasted for weeks.

Russia rejected accusations that the government had anything to do with the
cyber barrage. In an earlier interview with CNET News.com, Jose Nazario, a
security researcher from Arbor Networks, suggested that the 100 to 200
megabit per second size of the attack waves was on the low side of the
average DOS attack. Whoever it was, though, knew what they were doing.
Things got so bad that NATO was invited to provide technical assistance to
help shore up Estonia's defenses. A NATO spokesman had it right when he said
that in the 21st century, it's not just going to be about tanks and planes.
What he didn't say was whether this represented the opening shots of
history's first cyber war.

I put that question to Dorothy Denning, an expert in terrorism and cyber
security at the Naval Postgraduate School. She thinks it's more likely that
this particular episode was the work of protesters who wanted to register
their unhappiness.

"Governments do try to keep collateral damage to a minimum and this looks to
have been the work of people where it's obvious where their sympathies lie,"
she said. "There's too much collateral damage."
Now on News.com
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In that respect, this most recent denial of service attack resembles
cyber-conflicts which have broken out between hackers in India and Pakistan
as well as between sympathizers of Israel and the Palestinians. But Denning
also noted that national security experts in our country are likely to take
away at least one lesson from what's going on in Estonia.

"It's taken cyber protest to the next level," Denning said. "It can happen
here or to any country where people are unhappy. These were serious attacks
which lasted long time. And it proves you need defenses."

She's absolutely right but so far cyber security remains honored more in the
breach than in the observance by the federal government. For all its
exhortations to beef up homeland security, the Bush administration still
considers this a side show compared with more pressing geo-political issues.

Maybe so, but they're kidding themselves if they don't think that chicken is
one day going to come home to roost. That's when I won't be the only person
with a blue moon in their eye.