After reading more about hacktivists, it really makes them seem more and more like cowards. Sure, they are using the power of millions of people while engrossing us with their steps via Twitter. However, they cannot be identified. In Wikileaks, protest, and the law: The rights and wrongs of hacktivism, a great point is made. "But in a free society the moral footing for peaceful lawbreaking must be an individual’s readiness to take the consequences, argue in court and fight for a change in the law. Demonstrators therefore deserve protection only if they are identifiable."
While it is illegal to do a DDOS attack, it is legal to attack someone in war. It is legal to state your opinion, and fight for what you believe in. The difference between a cyberwar and a real war is that you can easily identify who is attacking you so you can take proper action. This makes DDOS attacks much more dangerous than traditional war. It would be fair game as far as having enough manpower to destroy these companies who try to stop Wikileaks. However, in the time when these companies can get their sites back up and running, they do not know who to look at as their enemy.
Most importantly, at the end of every war is a solution. People do not engage in war for no reason at all, and the solution is how we declare a winner. In the case of DDOS attacks, there seems to only be a gain of power and information for a limited time. I have to ask the same question Jaron Lanier asks, what do these hackers do with extra information? "For more moderate sympathizers, if information is truth, and the truth will set you free, then adding more information to the Internet automatically makes the world better and people freer." We all know this is not the case. One can only imagine if our country was hit with a DDOS attack putting all of us at stake. Then we'd all be asking "who just did that?"
I know we're supposed to be devil's advocates for these comments, but it's hard to do so when I agree with what people say. This statement, "The difference between a cyberwar and a real war is that you can easily identify who is attacking you so you can take proper action" in second paragraph perfectly points out the problem with DDOS attacks. Like I said in my post, it is cowardly to attack and hide behind the cloak of invisibility.
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