IP: Civilian Hackers Go Online to Fight

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

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>Civilians "contribute" to Infowarfare against Yugoslavia.
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>- -
>James D. Wilson
>"non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem"
>William of Ockham (1285-1347/49)
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>- -----Original Message-----
>From: owner-cypherpunks@toad.com [mailto:owner-cypherpunks@toad.com]
>On
>Behalf Of Luther Van Arkwright
>Sent: Thursday, April 15, 1999 11:39 AM
>To: InfoSec News
>Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com; iufo@world.std.com
>Subject: Civilian Hackers Go Online to Fight
>
>
>http://www.foxnews.com/stage11.sml
>
>E-Strikes and Cyber-Sabotage:
>Civilian Hackers Go Online to Fight
>7.19 a.m. ET (1119 GMT) April 15, 1999
>By Patrick Riley
>
>
>Richard Clark is not in the military, but when he heard news reports
>earlier this month that NATO's Web site had been attacked by Belgrade
>hackers, he wanted to do his part to help the allies. So he turned to
>his keyboard.
>
>Using software available on the Internet, the California resident sent
>an "e-mail bomb" to www.gov.yu, the Yugoslav government's main Web
>site. On April 3, a few days and 500,000 e-mails into the siege, the
>site went down, Clark said.
>
>Clark does not claim full responsibility for the cyber-sabotage; he
>assumes others may have had similar ideas. But he is confident he
>"played a part."
>
>He is just one of untold numbers of civilians on both sides of the
>conflict who have gone to battle from their desktops, raising new
>questions about the role of civilians during times of war.
>
>The Internet Onslaught
>
>Although classified NATO or Yugoslav information is not connected to
>the Internet, tactics like e-mail bombing ? sending mail non-stop to
>the same address until it floods its server ? can still cause major
>trouble. Crashing public Web sites could cut off main channels of
>propaganda or disrupt important budgetary information that militaries
>do store online.
>
>"If you got the right access you could actually turn their machines
>off," stated Clark, who said he served in the Army and has worked for
>the Department of Defense and the FAA, and now runs a private firm
>which sets up computer networks. "That has a whole snowball effect."
>
>But he admits his was a low-tech attack. He likens it to "stuffing a
>T-shirt down your toilet and flushing it."
>
>"There's probably real hackers out there trying to do it, doing things
>that are far more sinister than what I was doing," he said.
>
>Indeed this appears to be the case. The Boston Globe reported that an
>American hacking group called Team Spl0it has broken into several Web
>sites and posted statements such as "Tell your governments to stop the
>war" and a coalition of European and Albanian hackers calling
>themselves the Kosovo Hackers Group has replaced at least five sites
>with black and red "Free Kosovo" banners.
>
>On the other side, in addition to the attacks on the NATO site ?
>suspected to be the work of Serbs ? Russian hackers have gone after
>U.S. Navy sites.
>
>Any damage caused by such stunts, however, is often quickly remedied ?
>the Yugoslav site was back online soon after its early April troubles.
>
>And the biggest attack on Yugoslavia's information infrastructure has
>come not from the hands of hackers but from NATO bombers blowing up
>bridges used to carry wires, and even from the Yugoslav government
>itself dismantling communications systems to deprive its people of
>outside information.
>
>Vigilantes and 'Hacktivists'
>
>Still, encouraging civilians to participate in a diplomatic or
>military conflict "would set a dangerous precedent," said John
>Vranesevich, founder of AntiOnline, a Web site that tracks the hacking
>culture. He worries that vigilante "hacktivism" in the name of a
>nation could have War Games-like consequences.
>
>"You could have shut down communications to a country and all of a
>sudden it looks like something our country did on an official stance,"
>he said, adding that diplomatic relations with Beijing were strained a
>few years back when a site run by hackers Legions of the Underground
>posted a declaration of war against China.
>
>"I think hacking is a bad idea, no matter what it's directed at," said
>Peter Tippett, president and CEO of the International Computer
>Security Association, a Reston, Va.-based consulting firm.
>
>Such terrain should be left in the hands of the military, he said. "If
>the military thought it was appropriate to attack the infrastructure
>of Yugoslavia they would certainly do it," he said. "They can do it if
>they want to and they would be far more effective than a kid with
>tools of the Internet."
>
>The Department of Defense, the State Department and the FBI's National
>Infrastructure Protection Center all declined to discuss ongoing
>cyber-warfare. The Department of Justice did not return a call for
>comment.
>
>Clark hopes the military is doing its best to hack Serb systems. "It
>would seem to me that you'd want to use all your assets at a time like
>this," he said.
>
>He says his own vigilantism is therefore easily justifiable. "This is
>war and everyone should do their part," Clark said. "I think the
>illegality stops when you're at war, really."
>
>Brief Triumph
>
>But before Clark could revel in his victory too long, he got an
>unpleasant response from his Internet service provider. The ISP,
>Pacific Bell, cut off his service. (However, he said, he can still log
>into his e-mail account through a friend's computer.)
>
>While he expected the Internet and phone company might inquire as to
>his activities ? especially if the mail had bounced back and clogged
>PacBell's server ? he said he didn't expect such punishment.
>
>A PacBell spokeswoman said Internet behavior like Clark's violates its
>spamming policy ? and war is no excuse for that. "In general, they
>don't change their policies based on what's going on in the world,"
>she said. "Somebody else could come back and say they need to spam
>this dog site because 'they didn't take good care of my dog.'"
>
>"How, in a time of war, can my ISP cancel my account for attacking the
>enemy?" he asked via e-mail. "This is not right. We can pound these
>military targets with bombs, but a private citizen cannot hack the
>enemies' Web presence? This is just ludicrous!!"
>
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