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Wiggins of Opposed Systems Design has a meaty post on “Info Militias and 21st Century People’s War” — on China’s efforts to create Internet Brigades (really, a term relating to Russia) and other things: a new kind of “people’s war”, or really a new fashion of same.
For that matter, this sort of effort wouldn’t even need to be aligned with a state. Imagine an online campaign (like the movements to put red ribbon .gifs on blogs to show support for AIDS research or “click here to donate” links) where an explicit or a secret component of the movement was making each member’s computer a part of the movement’s personal zombie net. Explicit support might be a bad choice, since it would make members vulnerable to charges of supporting hacking with no offsetting benefit. A better strategy might be to have members download an “information orientation package” or some such material that would include the trojan. Members would then have deniability (”I’m just a victim of another nasty trojan!”) and the group would still get its zombie net. A small team of skilled hackers could then use these resources to further the group’s policy goals.
See also:
”Online 5GW? Online 4GW” at Soob.
Version of a Wikipedia article on the Russian Internet Brigades — also at Soob.
Current Wikipedia article on the Internet Brigades.
An odd romp which may be related, someday, at GayGamer.net: “PS3 Doubles Power of Folding@Home”.
And another here on D5GW, with a new question: Will so-called Internet Brigades, or China’s Info People’s War, be able to utilize MMORGs? (Kent’s Imperative also pondered the reality of a new “Wizards War.” Since we’re talking zombies…and co-optation via zombies.)
Posted by Curtis Gale Weeks on Sep 29, 2007 11:47 PM
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5 Comments
Interesting,. What we are seeing are individuals super-empowered by technology pulling together (with gains from network effects) for causes (with or without state assistance) that are political or non-political. These might be for the benefit of a state even if not requested by the state. There is 4GW and 5GW in this.
I would join an InfoWar Militia. Who would organize it? Who would call it shots? Or would there be a cyber notice board of sorts…”hey who wants to go hacking the Burma Junta’s overseas accounts this weekend”. Secrecy would be tough.
But I suppose a small group of techies and info war pros financed by a wealthy like-minded patron, could look to co-opt a larger group of willing volunteers.
You can see this on the left in the way they have turned the once fun Reddit and DIGG into lefty POV playgrounds…the quickly Swarm any dissent and bury it.
I think that we may find that these Internet Brigades or online militias might take a different approach to security. Anonymous, authenticated posting could sidestep the overhead cost of total secrecy while making it difficult for white hats to identify and counterattack the key hackers. Radical transparency might crop up here first.
This concept probably pushes the boundaries of plausibility past their breaking point, but I’m curious how far this can go. Thanks for providing a forum for carrying the ball further.
cheers,
Wiggins
PSlog,
What if each person is calling the shots, for himself, but all work loosely together, sharing information, on the basis of MBNing? (see my comments at that other post)
On the other hand, there is the open acknowledgment of the effort at places like Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group — which I suppose could be considered a type of bulletin board. The interesting thing here is that one might not need to coordinate specific activities — “hey who wants to go hacking” — but merely that certain overall goals and memes can plant the ideas that 1) the hacking needs to occur because the target is an S.O.B., and 2) heck, hacking is quite possible. The people with the combination of capability and motivation may take it upon themselves to do it.
Wiggins,
I am generally of the opinion that all these connections may be sussed out by those most in control of the ‘Net, given enough time. There are records, IP addresses and so forth. Problem is, a lot of time might be required, and only groups (state-sponsored or else Google-type entities) will have access to the records necessary for piecing things together.
This reminds me of a recent article or blog post on Burma and why the military may not be cracking down quite as much as it would have in the past. The argument was given (among several factors) that internet connectivity has limited the military dictators’ ability to wall off what occurs within Burma. Similarly, when Google went to China, I thought: “Aha! Hate it as much as you want, but now Google has its foot in the door for conducting or enabling 5GW activities!” China may well be the most advanced nation on the world as far as limiting the effects of Internet connectivity, but it’s certainly not perfect — mostly because it does not have full control/access. So these things make me wonder if the whole debate about the U.S.’s ultimate control over the Internet — ICANN and IANA — which represents an edge that other nations will protest more and more as 5GW develops, may only intensify.
A virtual militia is forming up now to engage enemie, adversaries and oppositional elements in cyber space.
Looks like what Hammes describes as a 4GW - type effort, to me. YMMV.
People’s Information Support Team