Mao Tse Ping declares cyberwar!

Rob Rosenberger, Vmyths co-founder
Tuesday, 1 May 2001 THE CHINA-U.S. CYBERWAR started a little early in the western hemisphere due to time zone differences. "The 'Net that never sleeps" doesn't yet operate on a universal time standard.

Ah, of course. Your typical American hacker can't speak/read/write a single Chinese dialect, yet he can bring down China's "entire infrastructure" from the comfort of his parents' basement...

Crud! Don't you just hate it when an enemy attacks before you thought they would? A blabbermouth told ABC "military officials expect to raise the [INFOCON] threat level to Bravo or Charlie by the middle of next week." Yeah, I can believe it — a source tells me Scott Air Force Base surrendered to the enemy this afternoon. It's only a matter of time before Gee-Dubya, the Computer-in-Chief himself, recalls me to active duty. (I served with the elite INFOCON Delta Force, you know.) I'm already packing my duffel bag as I write this column. Honey, where did I store my 2-PAM Cyberide injectors? Oh, the humanity! For the Internet's sake, won't you put your knuckles down, boys? [Credit where due: I stole the 'knuckles' line from an XTC song.] Casualties continue to mount in this horrifying cyberwar. A ZDNN story notes "Web sites falling victim to the [Chinese] vandals included the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Navy, the California Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of Labor, as well as many corporate Web sites..." Oddly, some of the people who track website defacements say they haven't seen as much evidence of devastation as the media-borne hysteria would imply. Go figure. My favorite quote (so far) comes from a story in Wired, titled "Is This World Cyber War I?":

U.S hackers say they are prepared to strike back with increasingly harsher actions, but only if the Chinese step up their attacks on U.S. networks... "We're ready to roll with denial-of-service attacks, with viruses ... you name it, we've got it," said a hacker who wanted to be known only as John Doe. "We planned ahead, we have stuff on their servers that can bring their entire infrastructure down."

Ah, of course. Your typical John Doe hacker can't speak/read/write a single Chinese dialect, yet he can bring down China's "entire infrastructure" from the comfort of his parents' basement. (Right after finishing the second shift at Taco Bell, I'll wager.) And your typical John Doe hacker has already placed malicious software on Chinese servers, but will use it against China only if they "step up" their raging cyberwar. Such a mature sense of pre-planning and honor from a bunch of narcissistic MTV-fed teenage wannabees? Believe it. 14yr-old hackers probably can't even name the critical infrastructures off the top of their heads, but at least their hearts are in the right place. They show patriotism by defending the cyber-Monroe Doctrine. You'll probably find them down at the Army surplus store, shopping for cool-looking uniforms worn during Desert Storm. They call it a "cyberwar" for a reason, you know! However, I don't see how Wired can call it "World Cyber War I." The media declared Kosovo as "Web War I," and the Israeli-Palestinian cyberconflict counts as "WW II." This annoying little skirmish between U.S. & Chinese hackers would therefore qualify as "WW III." Yet no matter what we call it, Americans will remember it for decades to come as "a week that shall live in infamy." Mao Tse Ping said it best: "packets flow from the barrel of a cyber-gun." Hmph. It makes me wonder what word the media will trivialize when something worse than a cyberwar comes along. Perhaps "cyber genocide" or "cyber holocaust"? Or perhaps my own favorite: "cyber nameless atrocity"...