Via Wired Online

This is assuming that the government of North Korea *is* behind the attacks against South Korea and the USA.  The question implied in the Wired article is whether such a cyber-attack should be considered an act of war (for the record, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance is starting to shift towards considering it one, based on experience in a 2007 attack by a Russian botnet against the entire country of Estonia).  Personally, I believe that a government-sponsored attack against cybernetic infrastructure should be considered an act of aggression, no different than bombing hydroelectric dams or poisoning the water system.  In the West – especially in the West – so much is done over internal, national networks that to take those down would be *more* dangerous than poisoning the water main of a major city (think about it:  if Canada’s internet went down East-West-North communications would be severely curtailed, and that’s the least of it:  Provincial health authorities would be unable to relay important information, traffic would stop flowing in many urban centres, news services would be down as well as cellular networks (upon which Canada relies heavily), the Canadian Banks would be down, the RCMP and Provincial Police Forces would have to enforce order, and so forth.  A state the size and population density (or lack thereof) of Canada can not function without its communications networks.  America has a more modular political system – each state could assume responsibility for their own wellbeing; as I understand it, each state has their own military force of some kind (state troopers?) and has an executive which has wide-ranging powers.  Canada has one military, one executive.  The only way a provincial authority can exert force is through its municipal and provincial police.

So yes, a government-sponsored cyber-attack should be grounds for war or at least very very very strong sanctions and a retaliatory cyber-attack (which I’m sure Canada could mount much more effectively than North Korea and the US even more effectively)

Getting involved in cyber-warfare is one of the career possibilities I am possibilitiatizing right now with the Canadian Forces, so this is particularly interesting.

On a lighter note, Wired has a list of 100 *basic* skills for Geeks.  I do #44 and I should show #77-79 to my Computer Science/Engineering teacher who runs KCVI’s robotics club (and is very good).

So I was listening to the news and hearing about all the protests against Israel’s operations in the Gaza Strip.  Oh it’s war crimes!  Oh those evil Jews with their F16s and their superlaser weapons are out to get those poor old Palestinians with their sticks and stones.

Let’s just say I don’t buy any of that.

Say you live in London or Toronto or New York and a rocket flies through your living room, missing you by inches.

Now say that happened thousands of times to thousands of people every year.  And these aren’t firecrackers.  They’re high-grade (though non-nuclear, though I don’t think that would stop Hammas from getting their fingers on them) weapons.  You would be incensed, and so would everyone else in your country – especially if the rockets were being fired by the government of a neighbouring country.  And your government is doing little or nothing about it.

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