A New Breed Of Hackers Tracks Online Acts of War
'Hacktivists' Update Their Mission
By Kim Hart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
TORONTO -- Here in the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a new breed of hackers is conducting digital espionage.
They are among a growing number of investigators who monitor how traffic is routed through countries, where Web sites are blocked and why it's all happening. Now they are turning their scrutiny to a new weapon of international warfare: cyber attacks.
Tracking wars isn't what many of the researchers, who call themselves "hacktivists," set out to do. Many began intending to help residents in countries that censor online content. But as the Internet has evolved, so has their mission.
Ronald J. Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, calls the organization a "global civil society counterintelligence agency" and refers to the lab as the "NSA of operations."
Their efforts have ramped up in the past year as researchers gather evidence that Internet assaults are playing a larger role in military strategy and political struggles. Even before Georgia and Russia entered a ground war earlier this month, Citizen Lab's researchers noticed sporadic attacks aimed at several Georgian Web sites. Such attacks are especially threatening to countries that increasingly link critical activities such as banking and transportation to the Internet.
(Continued here.)
By Kim Hart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
TORONTO -- Here in the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a new breed of hackers is conducting digital espionage.
They are among a growing number of investigators who monitor how traffic is routed through countries, where Web sites are blocked and why it's all happening. Now they are turning their scrutiny to a new weapon of international warfare: cyber attacks.
Tracking wars isn't what many of the researchers, who call themselves "hacktivists," set out to do. Many began intending to help residents in countries that censor online content. But as the Internet has evolved, so has their mission.
Ronald J. Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, calls the organization a "global civil society counterintelligence agency" and refers to the lab as the "NSA of operations."
Their efforts have ramped up in the past year as researchers gather evidence that Internet assaults are playing a larger role in military strategy and political struggles. Even before Georgia and Russia entered a ground war earlier this month, Citizen Lab's researchers noticed sporadic attacks aimed at several Georgian Web sites. Such attacks are especially threatening to countries that increasingly link critical activities such as banking and transportation to the Internet.
(Continued here.)
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