What is the relationship between the self-imposed blackout of Wikipedia and the September 2007 Israeli air raid against an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor? The sophisticated worm Stuxnet, dubbed the first cyber-weapon in history? Or the "cyber-war" between Saudi and Israeli hackers? And while we are on it, might we add WikiLeaks and the debates on media freedom?
On Wednesday, a number of leading Internet media, including Wikipedia and Wired, launched a protest against two bills, ostensibly intended to combat Internet piracy, which are making rounds in the United States Congress - the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PIPA whose full name has undergone several transformations but which was originally called the Protect Intellectual Property Act.
On the more extreme end of things, the cyber-weapons used against the Iranian nuclear program illustrate the potential of this type of "warfare". According to some reports, Stuxnet was only the most discussed of several potent viruses unleashed against the Islamic Republic of Iran. [3] As studies of Stuxnet have shown, these viruses carry enormous destructive potential, and could cause staggering damage to key civilian systems if used imprudently.
Attesting to their effectiveness, Iran was forced to upgrade some of its uranium-enrichment centrifuges against such attacks, [4] and reportedly decided to invest $1 billion in its own cyber-warfare program. [5]
A clarification is due. While the romantic popular image of hackers as independent geniuses who occasionally act in teams for a cause has persisted, reality, for the most part, is different. Hacking today has increasingly become more of a technical matter; the most pure paradigms for this are military cyber capabilities. For many years, the leading world militaries have possessed sophisticated platforms which allow the remote hacking of radars, enemy communications, and other networks.
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