One of the greatest threats to dictatorial regimes is the ability of the opposition to organize using the internet and text messaging. The Iranian regime understands this and has acted accordingly. Sovereign countries like Russia and China have both recently used cyberwar to attack governments they wish to unseat or destabilize. Russia most recently deployed these tactics during its attacks on Georgia.
In what is perhaps the largest coordinated example of cyberwarfare in history, many Georgian web sites were blocked while the country was being simultaneously invaded by Russia’s air and ground forces last weekend.
They have also been probing the United States systems:
The Cold War may be over, but the global battle over information security is heating up, as U.S. intelligence experts struggle to fend off relentless cyber attacks emanating from China and Russia on critical databases.
The New Yorker magazine published this week an interview with U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Mike McConnell in which it reported that the Defense Department currently is detecting about three million unauthorized probes on its computer networks every day. The State Department fends off two million probes daily, intelligence experts said in the article. – SC Magazine 1/17/2008
By attacking government servers, these countries have been able to cut off critical governmental functions and disrupt communications within agencies of foreign governments. The United States has apparently never deployed these tactics. The Iranian regime is cutting off access to its own telecommunications services from its people. Could we aide in doing the same to the Iranian regime? What tools are at our disposal?
The Iranians are arming militias to fight in Iraq, Israel, and Afghanistan. It would seem to me that if we have the capability to aide the protesters and we believe regime change is possible, we should be willing to support the Iranians on the cyberfront. Perhaps we are.
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