Decius wrote:
I was absolutely horrified by this editorial in the Washington Post in which a former Bush Administration official calls for US Cyber Command to declare war on the Internet by DDOSing wikileaks. (Liz Cheney has also apparently come out in support of this position, so clearly there is a coordinated effort going on here.)
Assange recently boasted that he has created "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking." I am sure this elicited guffaws at the National Security Agency...
With the stroke of his pen, the president can authorize USCYBERCOM to protect American and allied forces by eliminating WikiLeaks' ability to disseminate classified information that puts their lives at risk.
WikiLeaks represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States...
Will President Obama stop WikiLeaks from doing so -- or sit back and do nothing?
This would result in a massive counter-reaction from people who don't believe that the United States should use DDOS attacks to censor information it doesn't like on the Internet. The Wikileaks files would end up all over the place and the fundamental question of freedom of speech would completely overshadow the question of whether or not it was irresponsible for wikileaks to repost this material unredacted. US Cyber Command would be forced into an ugly conflict with a large group of the general public, including American citizens, that would have repercussions for years into the future.
The mere fact that this has been suggested by these people itself constitutes a significant problem. US Cyber Command has an important mission, but it must now be considered a weapon that may be pointed at the American public, and that fact will cloud future discussions about its development.
Stupid.
i can't agree more.
if everyone's gonna whip their pieces out and beat each other using the internet the result will be something similar to "information siege"*.
but it's okay, chinks got own their jams.
on a related note i've just started *also* using baidu.com after doing google searches. it's kinda neat.
* information siege -- (bs i'm making up right now) -- let's call it when you and your opponent are distracting each other so much that at the limit nothing of consequence can occur.
