On the Possibility of Information Warfare?

denisonbigred asks: "With all of the talks about disarming Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and all of the news coming out about Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups use of technology, I tend to wonder what is being done about the possibility of informational warfare. There must be a few geeks over in Iraq, and angry, subversive, geeks must be at least as dangerous as Iraq's rag-tag army. Is this a legitimate concern, and does anyone know what, if anything, is being done to address it?"

Comments

uh oh

[DonFinch]

Lets hope no Iraqi hackers read all the /. posts on Microsoft security loopholes...

umm, yeah

[medcalf]

angry, subversive, geeks must be at least as dangerous as Iraq's rag-tag army

Iraqi Geek 1: By the beard of the Prophet, I hate those Americans. Hamid, let's hack into their computers and destroy them.

Iraqi Geek 2: OK, you hack into lifttheburqa.com, I'll hack into sexwithbarnyardanimals_butnotpigsbecausehtheyareun cleanafterall.com. We'll destroy their subversive pr0n!

(Six hours later) Hamid, what were we going to do again?

Heard 'round the world!

[Lord Bitman]

Iraqi Science Guy: "We have developed the new 'Thermonuclear Anthrax Bomb'!"
Subversive Iraqi Geek: "Imagine beowulf cluster of these!"

US Newscaster: "The idea behind the 'Thermonuclear Anthrax Cluster Bomb' is to take a lot of less powerful diseases, like the kind availible to the home consumer, and make them work together like one big disease."

The Office of Homeland Security: "The site 'Slashdot.org' appears to be planning terrorist actions. They say that they have a force at least as powerful as the Iraqi military."

GWB: "Terrorist Regimes, Dictators developing weapons of mass destruction, Internet users, and other evil-doers, must be stopped!"

Slashdot: "Here's a copy of the letter we got demanding that we turn over our server logs, and our responce. Post comments below."
Slashdot Poll: "The government's responce to our November 22nd posting on information warfare is:

A violation of our rights!

Perfectly acceptable considering the situation in Iraq

No surprise.

The perfect excuse for the DDOS attack I just started!

CowboyNeal is hiding in a mountain cabin somewhere in the northwest

The Office of Homeland Security: "Slashdot is encouraging a massive DDOS attack in responce to recent charges against it."
US Newscaster: "33% of inside sources have told us that terrorist leader CowboyNeal is hiding out in a mountain cabin somewhere in the northwest, though some have been quoted as saying "I'm in Canada, you insensitive clod!"."

Bin Ladin: "The recent uhh.. DDOS attacks.. are a great sign from.. what the hell is this shit? I thought I told you freaks to blow up buildings!"

Lord Bitman: "People who claim not to take this post seriously take this post way too seriously"