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Sunday, September 7, 2008
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WW3.0: How worried are you about the U.S. getting involved in a major cyberwar?

We want to hear from YOU. Share your cyberwar fears, predictions and experiences here.

Plus check out our two polls below:

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What else does he spout inaccurate facts about?

Somebody needs to give Marty Linder a basic geography lesson.

According to Wikipedia.org,

Rhode Island: 1,214 SQ MI
Republic of Estonia: 17,413 SQ. MI

So he's only off by 17 times, no big deal when describing security risks.

He's right...he's talking in internet terms, NOT geography..!

Here's a country talking about a 90Mbs DoS attack bringing down their entire government infrastructure...! By those standard I'd say that Rode Island is somewhat of an over-estimate...

To put that into context we've got home users in the west (and east) with almost that much bandwidth alone...and there are blocks of flats in some cities with more bandwidth than their entire nation appears to have...

No self-respecting major DC would be brought down by such a small attack...(which is'nt to say that they could'nt target the hosts themselves, of course)....

Now just stop and think

Now just stop and think about what you just wrote down.

Do you really think that a block of flats in your country have more bandwidth then a whole country as Estonia?
Surely you are not familiar with the nickname of Estonia: E-Stonia. They have one of the most "web 2.0" governments of this world.
They are capable of some bandwidth, don't you think?

Specifically about those 90Mbs and you're home user bandwidth: I'm pretty sure that you are referring to the standard 100Mbs of your connection. Although the new standard is 1000Mbs.
A DOS attack is measured in Mbs but it cannot be compared with it. This attack only targetted ten or more websites and that's all. They didn't break further deep into the network, didn't went for information, didn't break the databases or anything.
They just sended a whole lot of pakkages, filled up the network buffer and, in practice, closed the website for other users.
It's not that they broke the whole infrastructure of that country, or even broke the internet there.
Only a couple of sites weren't available...

No self-respecting major DC would be be brought down by such a small attack...
RTA: that was also not what they wanted to do

to bad he said by population

to bad he said by population not physical size.

geography or population?

Well, he said it is about the size of Rhode Island based on "population" as it relates to network size. I don't think he meant land mass, but robustness of the nework based on what can be expected from a population size.

How close is WW III ?

Close? Not at all.

We are already fighting WW III now, and have been since long before 09/11.

Are they Activists ?

Isn't Hacklomacy a better term -- Hacking to achieve a result between groups or states?

Always Looking Backward

What if the next world war doesn't involve bombs and bullets as a primary weapons? This looks like one of those technological disruptors is about to impact "the extension of politics by other means." It's one of the fundamental principals from military theory - never fight the enemy on grounds of their choosing. Fight where the enemy is weak, not where they are strong.

It is common knowledge that the military establishment is always planning for the last war. Making our enormous investment in military technology completely irrelevant leverages our strength against us. We waste money on things that don't do us any good at all, and neglect the areas where the real battle will be fought.

the meaning cyberwar seems

the meaning cyberwar seems trouble for technology industry. Daily hackers are being new ways to break in computers systems and steal personal information. The government around the world seems lack of understandly to crackdown hackers,crackers, unwanted users whom try to break in.

More details needed

Reporter Carolyn Duffy Marson vaguely answered the standard journalism questions who, what, when, where and why. She completely avoided the question, how. How were the packets coded and distributed to generate a successful denial of service?

Additionally, instead of contacting sources of information in Estonia, she interviewed colleagues, whose answers were more like military propaganda than computer explanations.

This magazine is about technology, not threats, attacks and wars. If Marson wants to explore controversial issues, then as a writer she must thoroughly research.

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