It has come to my attention that Russia has recently attacked Georgia on two fronts (after Georgia reportedly attacked first). Reports indicate that ground forces have invaded the physical country and ‘cyber forces’ have laid siege to Georgian web sites and servers. This is according to information I have collected following an email received about an hour ago from a friend of mine. The email contained a link to a blog entry on a website which apparently tracks the activity of the Russian Business Network (RBN). The site is managed by a researcher named Jart Armin who is quoted in an article on the Telegraph website today. I missed it but the story made Slashdot on Saturday.
I guess it is just a natural progression. Disrupting communications has always been an advantage in conflict. Capturing a messenger, cutting a telegraph line, jamming a frequency and now ddos and other network exploits. The same can be said of propaganda; whispering lies, dropping leaflets, broadcasting radio and television and now defacing or creating fraudulent copies of websites.
This story does raise some questions for me though: How developed and organized is the U.S. Internet offense? Where do we draw the (if any) borders on the Internet? Is there now or in the near future the possibility that a war could be fought entirely ‘on line?’
EDIT: found an interesting article on the U.S. involvement in this new arena from the Council on Foreign Relations.
