the Informer

The next world war won’t be fought with tanks and guns, instead, mice and keyboards have taken over.

Internet warfare has come to a head recently with the issue of SOPA and PIPA as the “hackivist” group, titled “Anonymous” succeeded in shutting down the Department of Justice server and also other federal sites after the government took down a popular site, Megaupload.

Anonymous, a group that formed is an Internet meme in 2003 has come into the news recently with the large scale attacks. In 2008, Anonymous became associated with international hacktivism along with protests and other actions with the goal of promoting Internet freedom and freedom of speech.

Displayed by the popular sign of wearing Guy Fawkes masks popularized by the comic books and movie “V for Vendetta,” Anonymous has no real leader or controlling party. It is a collective power of individual participants.

With the recent threat of SOPA and PIPA, Anonymous has already sent out threats that the government sites would not be the only ones they would take down. They have threatened to attack other sites if SOPA and PIPA were to pass through Congress and also if Megaupload does not go back online.

The other issue at hand is the fact that Anonymous has not just hit American sites. Recently, they have turned their attention to ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in Europe that is very much like SOPA in the sense that it is a copyright infringement treaty that critics claim affect Internet censorship. In response to ACTA, Anonymous took down some Polish sites in protest.

However, the Polish officials have been quoted by the Associated Press saying that the attacks “in no way changes Polish law or the rights of Internet users and Internet usage.”

This brings up the larger question in hand, Internet warfare. With the world so dependent on technology, shutting down the Internet affects every aspect of life.

It is not like war in the past where it may or may not actually affect you personally. In the past, you may or may not have guns outside your door or bombs dropping onto your town. In the case of Internet warfare, everyone goes down.

Think about it. All of your banking, loans, and other personal information are all attached to computers. If another country were to be able to hack into our computer systems, the country would be in complete peril without our most precious resource.

While some may dismiss the attacks of Anonymous, this is not something to ignore. The fact that a group of individuals can take down even federal sites is scary. It displays an overwhelming power that quite frankly, is nothing like we’ve seen before.

This is the new kind of war and we need to be ready for it.