WikiLeaks “Cyberwar” Nonsense from “Security Experts” Who Don’t Understand 4chan or Anonymous

I find it funny how the mainstream security community takes Anonymous so seriously because it doesn’t understand it. See this recent CNN article, for instance.

Anonymous did not only “start” with 4chan, Anonymous still easily can be regarded as the cyber army of 4chan and its immediate network. Its not as shadowy, distributed, or effective as it’s always made out to be. It really is mostly a bunch of children, and though a bunch of children should not be underestimated, their greatest power is quantity, not quality. The group is easily distracted and needs plenty of morale to keep going. Ideologically, it is fragile. It is more dependent on the directions of central figures than commonly thought. For instance, “moot” could halt 90% of the intensity of the attack overnight by issuing a statement. Moot, meanwhile, is already in the process of selling out and becoming part of the establishment.

The security experts being asked for commentary …

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Constant Rape in Chad and Darfur

A new Harvard-back study found that Darfuri women at refugee camps in Chad and Darfur are frequently being raped. Big surprise. Here’s how it works: you go to get firewood, and you get raped.

Like Joe Biden, I believe that there needs to be a military force in the region to put a stop to the genocide and rape. So far, only about 9,000 African Union and U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in Darfur to protect and provide relief for 2.5 million civilians. This is not nearly enough. When hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children civilians are being murdered, tortured, and raped, it is humanity’s business. There needs to be a much larger military coalition, made up of all willing nations.

The Janjaweed are relatively small in number, just 20,000 by some estimates, and with primitive technology. They are essentially bandits with AK-47s on horseback, highly susceptible to missiles or machine gun fire from aircraft. The Sudanese government declines that it is supporting the group. Sudan has …

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Has Science Found a Way to End All Wars?

Given adequate food, fuel, and gender equality, mass conflict just might disappear.

This was published by Discover magazine two days ago. By John Horgan:

Frans de Waal stands in a watchtower at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center north of Atlanta, talking about war. As three hulking male chimpanzees and a dozen females loll below him, the renowned primatologist rejects the idea that war stems from “some sort of blind aggressive drive.” Observations of lethal fighting among chimpanzees, our close genetic relatives, have persuaded many people that war has deep biological roots. But de Waal says that primates, and especially humans, are “very calculating” and will abandon aggressive strategies that no longer serve their interests. “War is evitable,” de Waal says, “if conditions are such that the costs of making war are higher than the benefits.”

War evitable? That is a minority opinion in these troubled times. For several years I’ve been probing people’s views about war. Almost everyone, regardless of profession, political persuasion, or age, gives me the same answer: War will never end. I asked 205 …

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The Automation of Warfare

Reading today’s post over at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology reminded me of this image. The topic at hand was the mechanization of warfare, and the worrisome development of an auto-turret that is accurate at up to half a mile. The image is of Metal Gear D, from the video game series of the same name (minus the D). If human civilization continues as it has, then there are a lot of machines like this in our future. Over at the Lifeboat Foundation blog, I have a few words to say on the militarization of space.

There is a conundrum in the concept of the arms race. The best way to keep the world safe is to have the biggest guns, period. But it’s also an easy way to destroy the world. Keeping the world safe with mere words is impractical. Thus, someone must always have the biggest guns. Anti-authoritarian, well-intentioned people like to whine at length about this. But we have to accept that …

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