Internet // Current

Times, the online version will be on payment

Times will make the turning point: the online version of the historic British... more

bibabiba
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Will the Internet soon be Regulated beyond recognition?

"The ACTA juggernaut continues to roll ahead, despite public indignation about an... more

claybird121
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11 hours ago
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Microsoft Ready To Combat Rivals With Upcoming IE 9.0

;contentBody Microsoft is preparing to strike back against competitors in the web... more

jeffgarlick
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12 hours ago
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Do You Spend Too Much Time Online?

The Internet has made almost everything easier. It's made it easier to play, easier to... more

digitalfever
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1 day ago
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Is electro smog causing your headache?

Swindon is to become Britain's first Wi-Fi town, but at what cost to its inhabitants'... more

Healthylivinggal
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1 day ago
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NSA Helps Microsoft with Windows 7

"The National Security Agency has been working with Microsoft Corp. to help improve... more

rodstradamus
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2 days ago
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2 comments

How to Take Your Crime Online

Today, the police are as advanced as we have ever feared they could be. Rather than be... more

digitalfever
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3 days ago
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1 comment

McAfee Report: Countries Prepping for Cyberwar

Major countries and nation-states are engaged in a "Cyber Cold War," amassing cyberweapons, conducting espionage, and testing networks in preparation for using the Internet to conduct war, according to a new report to be released on Tuesday by McAfee.

In particular, countries gearing up for cyberoffensives are the U.S., Israel, Russia, China, and France, the says the report, compiled by former White House Homeland Security adviser Paul Kurtz and based on interviews with more than 20 experts in international relations, national security and Internet security.

"We don't believe we've seen cases of cyberwarfare," said Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee. "Nations have been reluctant to use those capabilities because of the likelihood that [a big cyberattack] could do harm to their own country. The world is so interconnected these days."

Threats of cyberwarfare have been hyped for decades. There have been unauthorized penetrations into government systems since the early ARPANET days and it has long been known that the U.S. critical infrastructure is vulnerable.

However, experts are putting dots together and seeing patterns that indicate that there is increasing intelligence gathering and building of sophisticated cyberattack capabilities, according to the report titled "Virtually Here: The Age of Cyber Warfare."

"While we have not yet seen a 'hot' cyberwar between major powers, the efforts of nation-states to build increasingly sophisticated cyberattack capabilities, and in some cases demonstrate a willingness to use them, suggest that a 'Cyber Cold War' may have already begun," the report says.

Because pinpointing the source of cyberattacks is usually difficult if not impossible, the motivations can only be speculated upon, making the whole cyberwar debate an intellectual exercise at this point. But the report offers some theories.

For instance, Alperovitch speculates that the July 4 attacks denial-of-service on Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea could have been a test by an foreign entity to see if flooding South Korean networks and the transcontinental communications between the U.S. and South Korea would disrupt the ability of the U.S. military in South Korea to communicate with military leaders in Washington, D.C., and the Pacific Command in Hawaii.

"The ability of the North Koreans to disable cybercommunications between the U.S. and South Korea would give them a huge strategic advantage" if they were to attack South Korea, he said.

There have been earlier attacks that smack of cyberwarfare too. Estonian government and commercial sites suffered debilitating denial-of-service attacks in 2007, and last year sites in Georgia were attacked during the South Ossetia war, orchestrated by civilian attackers, the report says.

The report concludes that if we aren't seeing it already, cyberwarfare will be a reality soon enough.

"Over the next 20 to 30 years, cyberattacks will increasingly become a component of war," William Crowell, a former NSA deputy director, is quoted as saying. "What I can't foresee is whether networks will be so pervasive and unprotected that cyberwar operations will stand alone.Major countries and nation-states are engaged in a "Cyber Cold War," amassing... more

wayseeker
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3 days ago
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2 comments

YouTube Direct - Public media gets public

A new tool that allows media organizations to request, review and rebroadcast YouTube... more

Berik
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3 days ago
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Blame the Internet for Ft. Hood?

Talking about extreme views...

Jenime
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3 days ago
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1 comment

Hackers post private e-mails of accused Holocaust denier

A group identifying themselves as “anti-fascist hackers” broke into the website... more

maasanova
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4 days ago
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UN defends removal of China poster at Net event

The United Nations is defending the removal of a poster criticizing China's censorship... more

TravG73
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4 days ago
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Did Obama smuggle a little democracy into China?

I was watching Obama's town hall meeting with students in Shanghai last night. As he wrapped up his prepared remarks, stepped away from the podium, and began to explain the format of the town hall portion I realized that this might be absolutely foreign to many of these students. Here is a country's President, a very famous and powerful man, asking them to raise their hands and ask him a question. Whatever they asked him, he'd answer. We obviously take this sort of thing for granted - heck our most recent town halls seem to have devolved into purely shouting at our elected officials. But I couldn't shake the feeling that Obama, who was not joined on stage by any major Chinese official, had smuggled a little democracy into the PRC.

[Video is featured. This video of his introducing the concept is from CNN and their anchor, predictably, talks all over him, but you can hear the second half. If anyone can find a clean video - I'll replace this one with it.]

He also, and this was the headlining remark, asserted the American position that it's okay for everyone to use Twitter.

"President Barack Obama pointedly nudged China on Monday to stop censoring Internet access, offering an animated defense of the tool that helped him win the White House and suggesting Beijing need not fear a little criticism...."I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," Obama told students during his first-ever trip to China. "They can begin to think for themselves."

If the President's goal was to sneak a little democracy into the People's Republic, it seems to have not reached too many citizens. The event was not broadcast nationally - only on local Shanghai stations - and the live feed from the White House web site was reportedly choppy and hard to watch in China.

FROM THE BLOG: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/16/did-obama-smuggle-a-little-democracy-into-china/

SOURCES: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-holds-town-hall-chinese-students-introduces-us/story?id=9091246&page=2
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091116/ap_on_bi_ge/obama
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2009/11/15/live-blogging-obamas-shanghai-town-hall/I was watching Obama's town hall meeting with students in Shanghai last night. As he... more