To say that the "Chinese government" is involved I think understates the situation. We know as fact that their army has invested considerable time and money in a cyberwarfare unit. And that the company that operates the Firewall is a military contractor.
When Sony was hacked a few months ago, the media couldn't wait to label it a "terrorist act" by North Korea.
I just now searched Google News for "github terrorism".
That's all, even though the evidence appears more clear that the Chinese government is involved. Whereas North Korea's responsibility was in doubt. The silence speaks volumes.
But is "terrorism" even the correct word for this? When Saddam invaded Kuwait, was that a terrorist act? Consider this quote written by a Chinese military analyst 30 years ago:
those who take part in information war are not all soldiers. Anybody who
understands computers may become a "fighter" on the network. Think tanks
composed of non-governmental experts may take part in decision-making;
rapid mobilization will not just be directed to young people; information-
related industries and domains will be the first to be mobilized and enter
the war..
However, the Chinese may respond by claiming this was a preemptive defense. That GreatFire.com was designed to weaken their security and they were justified in taking action to protect the sovereignty of their computers. Haven't western nations done the same when they were threatened by terrorism or nuclear arms?
It seems to me that we have officially entered the era of a weaponized internet.
>But is "terrorism" even the correct word for this?
Don't use that word. It's barely even a word any more, its become one of those weaponized magic symbols used for mind control. See also "freedom", "globalization", "sharing", "choice" and so on.
Instead, you can just use words like "murder", "destruction of infrastructure" and the like.
Makes sense, once you can come up with a single word to refer to targeting civilians with violence to try to effect political change. That's what "terrorism" meant and that's what it means, even if our news media and government have decided that it can only ever be applied to Muslims.
I've been told by an academic in the field (International Relations) that even within the field there is no academic consensus about the term "terror(ism)".
I'm not sure if that causes the word to be avoided in academic writing, I suppose largely yes (for its lack of any well-defined meaning) with some exceptions (probably by those who agree with the propaganda surrounding the word).
Interesting, but are relatively few terms in academic writing that aren't contested. was the tenor of their point that there's no common ground, or is it the standard wrangling over technicalities/edge cases?
As far as I remember, pretty much that the term is meaningless and/or useless.
The only way to meaningfully use the term "terror(ism/ist)" in academic writing is to exactly define at the start of the paper exactly what you mean and also what you don't mean by "terror(ism/ist)". This may attract knee-jerks of "that's not what it really means/etc", thereby detracting from the main point of the paper.
The other problem is, that even if you nail down the definition, it's still contested because it's a very loaded term no matter how you turn it. The academic goal is objective description, not pointing out good guys and bad guys.
Once you get past that, next problem arises, which is that International Relations just isn't always a hard science (just like History is not). So even if you got a clear definition, and it's accepted that both parties are equally bad, it can still be quite fuzzy whether it's "really" terrorism, because the one guy did this, and the other troops such, but then the guerillas, however it was the rich families that something or other, and Ted supported George, while Bill's family lived on the land for generations, blah blah bla etc. I really suck at history, it's just confusing.
All in all it's just more accurate to describe who did what, and if you want to describe something "terrorism"-ish, it's better to just describe reasons behind the attacks, the psychological goals, and psychological effects certain attacks had on the population, etc. Basically just say what you mean (even if they're theories) and state the facts, but avoid the loaded term.
If we are going to use terms like "cyberwarfare", it make logical sense that other military tactics will also be ported over to digital versions. One of those is the classic weapon test, where a nation demonstrate their military power to the world.
China used 1% of the available traffic from a single CDN. Their choice of target might just have been randomly picked from low priority list for the dual purpose of sending a political message.
With any meaningful definition of the word neither the github attack nor the Sony hack was terrorism. Nobody was trying to spread terror among civilians, nobody tried to influence government policy.
Not terrorism. The attack was somewhat narrowly targeted (at least as narrowly as technically possible, given it's all on one domain) and also tried to achieve the desired end goal. They weren't blowing up random parts of github infrastructure.
I have no question there's a political aspect, though calling the Sony attack terrorism is a better fit. Assuming the purported objective was to prevent release of The Interview, how does exposing the alias Tom Hanks uses to check in to hotels accomplish that? How does that accomplish any objective? (Regardless of the responsible party.)
Is terrorism the correct word for the US government infiltrating, manipulating and subverting technology and services all over the world? Is spreading fear about being monitored by a seemingly lawless entity terrorism?
There is never going to be serious public criticism of China in the west because there are vast numbers of western organizations making vast sums there. The public will see little to nothing that might ask for trade restrictions as a response.
If decades of continuous trade deficit and serious attacks on places like Los Alamos go under or unreported, don't hold your breath for GitHub.
Of course if it were North Korea (or Iran) it would be headlines.
Ah, I didn't know that. But I would call something that can survive a nuclear strike and then be used to coordinate a counter-offensive a weapon, or a least part of a weapon system.
... I can't tell if this is sarcasm or serious. But seriously... What "Mass destruction" can the GFW cause? ... Like Amazon/Azure/Rackspace are WMDs under your current definition?
I think the attack has proven that the government via the GFW can take down any web service they choose. There's not much infrastructure out there than can repel firepower of that magnitude.
Maybe not "destruction" in the permanent sense, but given the damage that a DDOS can do (financially, at least), it would make sense to treat one as an attack on infrastructure.
When Sony was hacked a few months ago, the media couldn't wait to label it a "terrorist act" by North Korea.
I just now searched Google News for "github terrorism".
1. http://www.itpro.co.uk/security/24319/github-falls-victim-to...
2. https://grahamcluley.com/2015/03/github-ddos-attack/
That's all, even though the evidence appears more clear that the Chinese government is involved. Whereas North Korea's responsibility was in doubt. The silence speaks volumes.
But is "terrorism" even the correct word for this? When Saddam invaded Kuwait, was that a terrorist act? Consider this quote written by a Chinese military analyst 30 years ago:
(From http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/chinarma.htm)However, the Chinese may respond by claiming this was a preemptive defense. That GreatFire.com was designed to weaken their security and they were justified in taking action to protect the sovereignty of their computers. Haven't western nations done the same when they were threatened by terrorism or nuclear arms?
It seems to me that we have officially entered the era of a weaponized internet.