Beyond Firewalls — Internet Militarization

angry tapir writes "One of the discussions at the Source Boston Security Showcase has been the militarization of the Internet. Governments looking to silence critics and stymie opposition have added DDOS attacks to their censoring methods, according to Jose Nazario, senior security researcher at Arbor Networks, with international political situations spawning DDOS attacks."

Comments

How dare the military invade our internet

[Flibberdy]

It's not like they started it or... Oh wait... D'oh

Well, yes.

[tygerstripes]

It was inevitable, surely. Once governments came to realise that the web was becoming a legitimate medium rather than an entity, they would obviously start to employ it in the same way they have every other.

I have to ask: is this story about governments wising-up in the ways of the intertubes and turning it to their advantage, or about the fact that this was discussed at a conference? I'd have thought the former was self-evident, and the latter was completely un-newsworthy. Maybe we can discuss specific examples of political internet jiggery-pokery, but this kind of vague allusion is just going to prompt hot-air discussions with no real content, isn't it?

Re:Militarization?

[morgan_greywolf]

Sadly I think that many people would be more upset about a day's outage of their bank than a real shell and mortar attack in Somalia, Iraq, or the Gaza Strip.

Well I think that many people would be a lot more upset about a shell and mortar attack on any city in their own country than a day's outage at their bank. I speak from experience.