Huge interest brings Wikileaks offline
as published by wikinews.org

"The Wikileaks web-site, which publishes sensitive and censored material submitted by anonymous contributors, has experienced unprecedented levels of Internet traffic today through public interest. This interest has caused the website's servers to be unable to meet the enormous demand of over 164 gigabytes of download traffic within twenty-four hours, leading the site to be temporarily inaccessible." » Full story

I'd like to believe all that I read in this article, but I am suspicious for several reasons.

• First, and foremost, just about anybody that gets their news from the Internet has been aware for weeks that the video, 'Fitna' was going to soon be available in one form or another. That means Wikileaks, LiveLeak, youtube, and all the lesser host sites should have been prepared for the surge in traffic.

• It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or super-computer programmer to predict a leak. What hasn't been leaked in the last few years? Every thing from CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity, to the private records of the Church of Scientology's 'Operating Thetan' documents has found their way onto the Internet.

• All of the Authorities, corporate or governmental seem to arrive at the same conclusion with little argument or disagreement ( stay calm, be happy ). It's just too...accepting. Too proactive to be real politics ( or show-business ).

LiveLeaks.com was also forced to pull it's video, 'Fitna' yesterday. You can view their video statement that there where threats, and that the decision was made for the good of the many. No one is saying if the video will ever be put back on-line. I have read nothing to indicate that LiveLeaks.com suffered from the same overload as Wikileaks.com. LiveLeaks.com enjoys less credibility than Wikileaks.com, and has suffered large Internet related problems recently ( The UN may have pulled some strings to block them from certain search engines, in retaliation for some scandals created...that's another story... )

A year ago, in February, Pakistan blocked youtube from broadcasting in their country. That's not so bad, but it had the net effect of shutting down youtube ( world-wide ) for several hours. Pulling the plug on a web-site is one thing, but worse things have been happening recently.

And that is the direction I'd like to take today. There are far worse threats to our life-style, and freedoms than the fate of a provocative video, that merely echoes the sentiments of a ultra-conservative fringe of global society. Our own efforts to fight Global Terrorism may actually jeopardize our own liberty. How so?

Besides the death and destruction caused by the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a rapidly escalating 'cyber-war' being fought silently around the world. I say silently, because governments and corporations are hesitant to broadcast their vulnerabilities ( and there are many ). At the risk of sounding like a 'conspiracy theorist', we should all be made aware of a pattern of events indicating that many governments are conducting exercises, maneuvers so to speak on the Internet, and in the blog-o-sphere. Exercises designed for defense against cyber-war, and more active than passive.

In these exercises, one would expect that the Powers would determine a certain level of acceptable collateral damage. That damage would be to our civil liberties that seem to be eroding with every act of censorship. One would also expect manipulation of the media ( Internet ), and propaganda to be a large part of the exercise, as the Powers develop their tools and their skills for larger battles. Provocateurs would most certainly be employed, with or without their knowledge or consent.  Implying that Geert Wilder is a small player, on the much larger world stage. All indications support this theory.

The Evolution of Cyber Warfare;
as published by cfr.org

• "In the spring of 2007, when Estonian authorities moved a monument to the Red Army from the center of its capital city, Tallinn, to the outskirts of town, a diplomatic row erupted with neighboring Russia. Estonian nationalists regard the army as occupiers and oppressors, a sentiment that dates to the long period of Soviet rule following the Second World War, when the Soviet Union absorbed all three Baltic states. Ethnic Russians, who make up about a quarter of Estonia’s 1.3 million people, were nonetheless incensed by the statue’s treatment and took to the streets in protest. Estonia later blamed Moscow for orchestrating the unrest; order was restored only after U.S. and European diplomatic interventions. But the story of the “Bronze Statue” did not end there. Days after the riots the computerized infrastructure of Estonia’s high-tech government began to fray, victimized by what experts in cybersecurity termed a coordinated “denial of service” attack. A flood of bogus requests for information from computers around the world conspired to cripple (Wired) the web-sites of Estonian banks, media outlets, and ministries for days..."» Full story 

• On March 1, 2008 the Armenian Government shut down all media, including the Internet for twenty days. I've been following these events closely, and would speculate that something similar to the events in Estonia was occurring in Armenia. Specifically, a riot was timed to coincide with an Internet Assault.

  While the Internet was indeed shut down, somehow, blogs were posting throughout the blackout. Their Government new this could, and probably would happen, as the people there have a long tradition; samizdat. That's Old School, and those techniques have been replaced by satellite technology. The point is; the Armenian Government had a different reason for the blackout ( necessarily a threat worse than the social unrest caused by the blackout, possibly a coup, but more likely extortion ) and the Armenian Government was a victim, rather than the perpetrator of the ( speculated ) crime.

These photos of former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan were posted by artmika Photos taken shortly after the police are said to have attacked the protesters.

Armenia is still under the strong influence of the Kremlin and a very closed society, unlike Estonia which has moved with leaps and bounds into the western, open model of society. It is appropriate to assume that Armenia would not openly solicit out-side aid, being entrenched in there own, very real shooting war.

These are two examples, of Governments under cyber assault. And the break-down of Wikileaks, LiveLeaks, and the short outage of youtube are  just a few among thousand of assaults on Internet Industries. The number of cyber assaults is growing exponentially, both in frequency, and in the size of the victim.

The Netherlands is a minor battle-field in this new-age cyber-war, and minor battle-fields are used to test new weapons. One of the first victims of war, is civil liberty. Fitna was an exercise in Civil Liberty. The overload was predictable, and will likely be the subject of much cyber-forensics. The collateral damage was in the hearts and the minds of people everywhere.

I should note one major difference between the two examples given, and the removal of Fitna. In both examples, there were well planned and coordinated riots, that took the lives of, and injured many.

Testifying before Congress;
as published at fbi.org

"...it is not enough to prevent foreign countries from stealing our secrets—we must prevent that from happening while still upholding the rule of law. It is not enough to stop the terrorist—we must stop him while maintaining his civil liberties. It is not enough to catch the criminal—we must catch him while respecting his civil rights. The rule of law, civil liberties, civil rights—these are not our burdens; they are what make us Americans..."

Robert S. Mueller, III
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation

Statement Before the House Judiciary Committee

July 26, 2007