Sidepocket Posted June 8, 2007 Posted June 8, 2007 Estonian Justice Minister Rein Lang, one of the survivors of the recent denial-of-service attacks that hit some of the country's websites, concedes the Russian government may not have been responsible after all, Agence France-Presse reports. But he says Estonia will ask the European Union next week to classify the incidents as terrorism. "We're inclined to view such things as acts of terror, just as the Americans view them now," Lang said at a press conference. Dear Estonia: Terrorism generally kills people, sometimes lots of them. Websites being made unavailable by a flood of unwanted traffic isn't terrorism. It's something far, far worse. It's Cybarmageddon! So here's my offer. If any Estonian official uses my word at the meeting of European Union justice ministers next Wednesday, I'll transfer my newly-registered domain name cybarmageddon.com to the Estonian government, gratis. Trust me, this will be worth something. Already the Google hits on cybarmageddon have soared from zero to around 20. Botnets and DDoS attacks aren't going away, and we in the press will inevitably tire of using clichés like "Cyberwar!" and "Cyberterror!" to describe them. You can own the Future of Warfare! --------------------------------------- Ah, hysteria. A few backs back, when Estonia's government websites were hit with distributed-denial-of-service-attacks, ordinarily-smart people were quick to point the finger at Russia -- and declare this to be first full-scale cyberwar, if not the future of warfare itself. Leading newspapers dispatched their correspondents to Eastern Europe, to uncover what had happened. Great magazines planned massive coverage. Never mind the fact that no one was hurt by the onslaught of ones and zeros. Never mind that the connection to Russia was dubious, at best. Then, just as quickly, the "cyberarmageddon" fell apart. Researchers could find no links to the Russian government. And now, as our brothers at Threat Level note, Estonian ministers are conceding that "the Russian government may not have been responsible, after all." The prime minister asking Moscow for help in tracking down the perpetrators. "It is clear this is criminal activity. I hope Russia will co-operate in those cases with Estonia," Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told a news conference in Helsinki, according to Reuters. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/06/e...ia_drops_c.html http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/06/cyberwar_panic_.html http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/eu-should...072008-h9r.html http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/o...y-opinion-print http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNew...671620620070606 http://www.infowarcon.com/content.php?id=t...mp;size=2500#z3 Quote
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