This is one of the most advanced cyber battles I’ve seen and what is even more important is the involvement of citizens using social media to enter the trenches of this web based cyber war. Sides have been taken as protesters from around the world have collaborated and planned attacks, rallies, and protests via social media, especially Twitter.
via Wired – “Web Attacks Expand in Iran’s Cyber Battle“…
“We turned our collective power and outrage into a serious weapon that we could use at our will, without ever having to feel the consequences. We practiced distributed, citizen-based warfare,” writes Matthew Burton, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who joined in the online assaults, thanks to a “push-button tool that would, upon your click, immediately start bombarding 10 Web sites with requests.”
Distributed citizen based warfare… And I thought citizen journalism was cool – this definitely trumps that on a scale we’ve not seen before. Social Networks have provided millions of interconnected networks of people to band together and organize mass protests and attacks in an unprecedented manner.
This type of Information Warfare has shown a new side to the power of mass amounts of people interconnected on the web. However the Iranian “government” isn’t simply letting this happen. Since much of the Iranian web infrastructure is centralized, the pro Ahmadinejad side has struck back…
Taking a page from the Chinese government’s playbook, the Iranian government was quick to shout down social communication websites, once the protests began in earnest. Twitter seems to be playing a significant role in the organization and documentation of protester’s actions. The #iranelection tweeter page was one of the more active, with updates and reports from different parts of the city, and encouraging words, such as this last tweet that was posted: “If we ever succeed then the power goes to the people for fact & not as a formality. this is the 1st Net Revolution #iranelection.” To counter Twitter, agents of the Iranian government have been banning IPs, and shutting off Internet access. via neoseeker
This distributed citizen based information warfare has caught the eyes of the U.S. State Department…
The U.S. State Department doesn’t usually take an interest in the maintenance schedules of dotcom start-ups. But over the weekend, officials there reached out to Twitter and asked them to delay a network upgrade that was scheduled for Monday night. The reason? To protect the interests of Iranians using the service to protest the presidential election that took place on June 12. Twitter moved the upgrade to 2 p.m. P.T. Tuesday afternoon — or 1:30 a.m. Tehran time. via Time.com
I’ve come to wonder what it would have been like to watch the American, Bolshevik, or French revolutions in real time… It would have changed everything.
If you are looking to participate, check out “#iranelection cyberwar guide for beginners”
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