Cyberwar reality

Cyberwar reality

The Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) made the first physical
contact in the cyberwar this month when a group of Portuguese
youths sympathetic to the cause of East Timor separatists
allegedly tampered with its Internet homepage. The damage was
kept to a minimum, and the website was immediately repaired.

This is not the first time an official Indonesian website on
the Internet has been attacked by the same hackers. As reported
by Republika daily newspaper, previous victims include the sites
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Agency for the
Development and Application of Technology, the National Institute
of Sciences and the state-run Airlangga University.

The way the hackers arbitrarily picked targets suggest they
are not as much politically motivated, as simply a bunch of kids
out playing, or abusing, the cyber technology. Tampering the
websites belonging to education institutions serves no political
purpose at all.

Still, it would be wrong to dismiss the hackers lightly or
underestimate the potential damage they could have caused.

In this cyberspace era, the Internet has become a powerful
tool to disseminate information, whether it is news or
propaganda. The Internet revolutionized information technology
beyond most people's imagination only a few years ago. Not only
can news now be delivered as it happens, the technology is also
available on an even wider scale than previous information media.
This can only enhance democracy.

But there is a downside to the Internet technology. Anyone
with access to a computer and a telephone line can have access to
the Internet, including bulletin boards and news groups. This
means that all kinds of news and information can be found on the
Internet and one can even create their own homepage. This often
makes it difficult to distinguish between news and propaganda.

This is one of the reasons why many Indonesian government
agencies feel compelled to open their own websites. When ABRI
decided to launch its homepage in 1995, for example, one of its
goals was to counter what it called "garbage" information in
cyberspace that sought to discredit Indonesia. ABRI and other
government agencies have launched counter operations in the war
of propaganda on the Internet. The Internet has now become an
inseparable tool for Indonesia in its diplomacy.

One Internet expert said government agencies have not fully
exploited the advantages of the Net. They have not moved beyond
establishing their websites, downloading data and information,
and hoping that people would come to them and read.

They can certainly do a lot more than that.

In this cyberspace era, in which anyone who has control or
access over information wields power, mastering the information
technology has become even more imperative. The recent hackers
incident exposed weaknesses in the security of the government's
homepages. It was even more disconcerting to see that some people
have retaliated by attacking the homepages of the hackers. While
the action of the hackers was deplorable and goes against
established Internet ethics, retaliation in kind does not make it
right. Like in any war, there are rules and ethics to observe in
a cyberwar.

But there is an even more important factor than having access
and mastering the Internet technology in the war of propaganda:
credibility. One can establish a state-of-the-art homepage that is
foolproof from hackers, but it is meaningless if one does not
have credibility. This, more than anything else, ultimately
decides who wins the cyberwar.