Tag Archives: Cyberwarfare

Morning Stories (1-13-2012)

  • The Hill reports that Sen. Patrick Leahy will be putting forth a manager’s amendment of PIPA for the January 24 vote, pledging to cut the DNS blocking provision from the legislation. Mike Masnick at TechDirt provides some critical analysis.
  • Meanwhile, Rep. Jared Polis has taken to the League of Legends gaming forum to rally the opposition to PIPA and SOPA. And Carl Franzen at TPM asks what the upcoming January 18th “Blackout” and House Oversight Committee hearing will accomplish.
  • Gen. Keith Alexander, head of US Cyber Command,  reiterates that active defenses are increasingly necessary to thwart cyber threats, suggesting the current approach used by most businesses is akin to the “Maginot Line.”
  • At the Technology Liberation Front, Berin Szoka, Geoffrey Manne, and Ryan Radia have a thoughtful piece on Google’s Search Plus Your World:

All the usual blustering and speculation in the latest Google antitrust debate has obscured what should, however, be the two key prior questions: (1) Did Google violate the antitrust laws by not including data from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks in its new SPYW program alongside Google+ content; and (2) How might antitrust restrain Google in conditioning participation in this program in the future?

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Morning Stories (1-4-2012)

  • Yesterday there was a great deal of ballyhoo over news that Belarus had passed a law to prevent its citizens from browsing foreign websites. The law is a bit more nuanced than that, but nevertheless concern is warranted. Glyn Moody at TechDirt and Gavin Clarke at The Register give good breakdowns on what we know about the law.
  • John Dunn at CIO discusses Japan’s development of a new “virus cyberweapon” that can be used to back trace attacks and shut down offending systems.
  • Brendan Sasso at The Hill reports that the ACLU is suing a Missouri public library after it blocked websites related to Wicca.
  • Want to know where your representatives in Congress stand on PIPA and SOPA? Check out SOPA Track – you can see whether your lawmakers are actively supporting or opposing the legislation, and how much money they’ve raised from groups in favor of and opposed to the legislation.
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Sony Implicates “Anonymous”, Which Says It Was Framed

As the Wired blog Game | Life summarizes, the Chairman of Sony’s board of directors blames Anonymous for the hack, pointing to a calling card:

[He] revealed that the hacker left a smug digital calling card on the Sony Online Entertainment servers, which were hacked days after PlayStation Network. The file was called “Anonymous,” and simply read “We Are Legion.”

Anonymous says the calling card may have been planted:

The group is ballsy, but not stupid, it claims. A press release from the group says, “No one who is actually associated with our movement would do something that would prompt a massive law enforcement response.” On the other hand, Anonymous writes, “a group of standard online thieves would have every reason to frame [us] in order to put law enforcement off the track.”

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Cyberwar and Nebraska

I spent the last academic year, until last week, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, teaching cyberlaw and domestic and international telecom law.  It’s part of a great opportunity I was offered to help launch a space & telecom law program at the law school.

People wonder: why Space & Telecom together.  One answer is: satellites are governed by space law and by telecom law.

A second answer: look outside Omaha, about an hour from Lincoln, and notice US Strategic Command.  Let me quote part of their mission:

The missions of US Strategic Command are to deter attacks on US vital interests, to ensure US freedom of action in space and cyberspace.

This is space and cyberspace from a military perspective.  I’m guessing I’m one of the few cyberlaw professors to teach cyberwar law in my classes and to follow developments in the field.  (Outer space military law is someone else’s expertise.  As is space law in general.)

So I want to highlight an article from a few weeks back, in the New York Times, which is one of the better recent articles I’ve seen on cyberwarfare.

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