Cyberwarfare

Cyber technology has created another path for warfare to be executed in, cyberwarfare. Year on year, attacks being executed through the use of cyber technology are increasing, with the advancement  in technology, new ways of war are being dreamt up to combat the perceived threats. This increase is for multiple reasons, one that different countries are trying to gain information through cyberspace from enemies or using means to halt economic progression, two that countries are looking for new ways to gain the upper hand in warfare, as well as domestic and corporate organizations receiving attacks or online protests from the average civilian engaged in groups such as Anonymous. This could be why we have seen new bills trying to be passed into law in some countries such as PIPA, SOPA, CISPA and ACTA.

There are many reasons, it would seem, to invest in using cyberspace as a warzone. Most modern countries depend on cyberspace as a lot of they're infrastructures are in the cyber domain such as powergrids, communication tools, financial transactions and governmental agencies among other things. Taking out the infrastructure of a country is key in war to disrupt the opposing countries abilities to fight back. Although many say this threat is increasing, many people think that this threat is being hyped up by the cyber industry as a means of increasing revenue as it's services are more likely to be needed. It's not a profitable business if there are no threats. “There is no chance whatsoever that nuclear power plants will be hacked, that electric infrastructure would be hacked and taken down for any significant period of time,” said Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the CATO Institute in Washington. “The worst we can expect is disruption – that's not war, it doesn't really terrorize. So the threats are serious but they're not to the level of war on terror."



Although saying this, we can see cyberwarfare taking place. Iran's nuclear facilities were targeted and infected with a virus called Stuxnet. Many suspect that either Israel or America were behind the infection due to the paranoia that they think Iran is planning to build a nuclear bomb, even though they say they are building parts for nuclear power. Stuxnet has been described as " the first cyber-weapon" as the scale of the attack and complexity of the virus has never been seen before. It infected around 16,000 computers due to the ability of self replicating. Ralph Langer said
" With Stuxnet we have opened a new chapter in history. There is now no way we can stop the proliferation of cyber-weapons".

This got me thinking about other cyber-weapons and cyber defence systems and the danger they may pose the population. The Haarp machine is a programme in Alaska used to research the ionosphere along with experimenting with it. They say transmit frequencies into a small beam of information into the ionosphere from the facility which can travel to any submarine submerged in the sea anywhere in the world.
It is true to say that internet is trawling with silly conspiracies about the capabilities of what this machine can do from mind control, to weather manipulation, to anti missile defence systems and many more but some of this may have some merit. The U.S denies this but the United Nations is taking the machine seriously. A UN report says this "HAARP could function as an anti-missile and anti-aircraft defence system, permit interception and disruption of communications, weather and submarine and subterranean communications, among other things.  The HAARP patent papers also stated that the invention could “simulate and perform the same function as performed by the detonation of a heavy type nuclear device”.  It seems worrying to me that any machine could disrupt weather or perform the same act as a nuclear bomb without anyone knowing who did it. More over this technology it says in the report has seen a rise of cancer in the surrounding area. This is untested water when experimenting on our atmosphere so they could be walking or "beaming" into a catastrophe. This machine leaves no traces behind so it is worrying that they could run away with the idea. Europe and Russia have similar devices but are considerable smaller and less powerful.

As we have become so dependent on modern technology and cyberspace to communicate it is now easier to disrupt the communication between a population. When Egypt had the uprising in 2011, a country still in turmoil, the government turned off the internet. This was a massive blow to the protesters as they used social networking sites to organise and prepare themselves whilst also spreading and releasing information to the outside world. It could be argued that by turning off the internet this is a cyber-weapon itself. Egypt triggered the cyber communities to come together to help they Egyptian population. Communities such as Telecomix and Anonymous joined forces to help get communication flowing again by using dial-up devices and by flooding Egyptian fax machines with information to help them. They do the things our governments don't think to do or won't act on on doing.

Another type of Cyberwarfare being used is by turning off the mobile network or making it appear as if the mobile is working when it isn't. The MET police can now turn off your mobile network when they want to and load a fake one to track an individual's where about's without them knowing. As well as this, the MET can do this to specific points, blanketing the area so everyone in the radios is under the illusion. We have also seen this tactic being used in America in San Franciso where a group of protesters were assembling to protest the shooting of an unarmed black man by a BART officer. Bart is a train system which turned off the mobile networks to stop the assembly. It seems to me that this trampling on free speech.

"All over the world, people are using mobile devices to protest oppressive regimes, and governments are shutting down cell phone towers and the Internet to stop them," said Michael Risher, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. "It's outrageous that in San Francisco, BART is doing the same thing."

I'll leave you with a video showing you the direction in which the digital battlefield is evolving.