The First World Information War

The war has begun, hackers from all over the world are donning ‘V for Vendetta’ Guy Fawkes masks as part of Operation Payback and attacking the websites of ‘enemies of free speech’ in an attempt to punish those who tried in vain to halt Wikileaks release of United States secret cables. MasterCard, Amazon, PayPal, Swiss PostFinance and even the US Senators website have fallen victim to a loosely connected worldwide group of hackers calling themselves ‘Anonymous’. Today a 16 year boy was arrested in Holland on suspicion of being part of the group, using his home computer to hack the MaterCard secure service.

The conflict between the ‘Anonymous’ hackers and Washington has highlighted the net’s power to act as a thorn not only in the side of authoritarian regimes but western democracies, on our right to information and the responsibility of holding secrets. It has also asked profound questions over the role of the net itself. This is unchartered territory for human rights campaigners. There are no rules of engagement, no international treaties or conventions for the participants to adhere too. Neither the hackers nor Washington are worried about being accountable for their actions in this cyber war. The power held by both sides to disrupt and shut down popular sites on the world’s most powerful information tool must be a concern for us all.

‘Anonymous’ leaders have distributed the hacking software tools to allow anyone with a computer to join Operation Payback. So far more than 9,000 users in the US have downloaded the software and 3,000 in the UK. This puts software designed to trigger “denial of service” attacks on websites into the hands of tens of thousands of people, instead of just a small band of online brothers. It only took 3,000 people to take MasterCard and Visa services offline last Wednesday.

The current cyber war raises many questions, for example…..

Should weapons of mass disruption be free to download to anybody who wants them?

How do you hold accountable a hacker group like ‘Anonymous’ accountable when members disappear by simply logging out?

Do online companies need legal protection from governments who exert pressure on them to pull services to customers whose ideology they don’t agree with?

Why has the internet failed to democratize the world as expected?

We don’t yet know who will win the First World Information War but this is the time to start to ask ourselves the important questions, like what rights inherently apply to the internet? Because the only internet rule the world seems to agree on is that access to the internet uncensored by governments and ‘hacktivists’ is a human right. But we need more than that solitary rule to police the worlds greatest communication tool.