With some justification, skeptics have questioned whether cyberwar is a realistic scenario for concern or merely a scary story to earn funding for security companies and writers. Unfortunately, there are many cases in which journalists and others have leaped to the conclusion that security breaches are examples of cyberwar; recent examples include the Estonian "cyberwar" of 2007 and the attacks on the Church of Scientology in early 2009. 

We may be seeing an illustration of one kind of cyberwar in June 2009 as many readers follow news of the post-election events in Iran with interest and concern. Following a vigorous election campaign in which Mir Hossein Mousavi appeared to have a majority of the voters' support but not a majority of the reported votes, the situation after the balloting quickly degenerated into claims and counterclaims of ballot-rigging and demonstrations that turned into violent confrontations.

Throughout the conflict, electronic communications have been central to the organization of protests and to the attempts of the dictatorial regime to suppress dissent. In particular, the tiny-message network Twitter has been central to the coordination of mass action. Canadian writer Brett Anningson has a summary of Twitter's role in the protests in which he comments, "Iranian Twitterers, many writing in English, posted photos of huge demonstrations and bloodied protesters throughout the weekend, detailing crackdowns on students at Tehran University and giving out proxy Web addresses that let users bypass the Islamic Republic's censors. | By Monday evening, it had become such a movement that Twitter postponed maintenance scheduled for the wee hours of the morning, California time -- midday Tuesday in Iran. | The maintenance was rescheduled to be between 2-3 p.m. in California which happens to be 1:30 a.m. in Iran. | A couple of Twitter feeds have become virtual media offices for the supporters of Moussavi. One feed, mousavi1388 (1388 is the year in the Persian calendar), is filled with news of protests and exhortations to keep up the fight, in Persian and in English. It has more than 15,000 followers." He adds that the social networking site Facebook has more than 50,000 members in the Moussavi fan group.

M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP-ISSMP, specializes in security and operations management consulting services. CV online.