Why North Korea Wasn't Behind the July 4 Cyberattacks (UPDATED)

vesilv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday July 13, 2009 · 1:58 PM PDT

2009/07/13 · 13:58

UPDATE: Wired's take is below...

Found a great piece by Cyberwonk, an anonymous cyber policy blogger. The claim: there's a fair chance that North Korea had nothing to do with the attacks that everyone's been attributing to them. Interesting, especially now that Republicans are, of all things, calling for cyber retribution!

The press loves a good villain, and so the story seems to make intuitive sense: the nuke-testing, IBCM-firing, SCUD-launching North Koreans launch a cyberattack in yet another moment of classic brinksmanship to protest the United Nations, US imperialism, ROK aggression, and prove their own might. The progression is obvious. Right? Not really.

More of Cyberwonk's points after the jump, but the crux of the case is:

a) Half of the reason North Korea tests weapons is to cement Kim Jong-Il's popularity inside the country, but cyber attacks don't gain you popularity in a country with virtually no internet access.

b) If they wanted to shake things up on the international stage and show their strength, wouldn't they have taken credit?

Poll

78 votes Show Results

Is North Korea behind the July 4 cyberattacks?

78 votes Vote Now!

Is North Korea behind the July 4 cyberattacks?

Yes, absolutely - who else?

9 votes

Nope - if they were, why didn't they take credit?

35 votes

Jury's still out for me.

34 votes

RSS