East Timor cyberwar on new global battlefield: The web
East Timor cyberwar on new global battlefield: The web
By Jules Bell
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia may be on the brink of a cyberwar, but
no blood will be shed in this conflict nor lives lost due to
bullets. The battlefield of such a war is the Internet, with
bullets the words, and soldiers the hackers.
The global communication system we have rapidly adopted as the
web is an information network in which our increasingly
cybernetic society plays, works, does business and now wages war.
It is becoming a conceptual space or site of political struggle,
and a global high-tech battleground which transcends national
geographic boundaries.
If the result of the Aug. 30, ballot for East Timor's future
is perceived by pro-Timor activists as unfair or overly
influenced by unrestrained intimidation on the part of pro-
Indonesian factions, the conflict may mutate from the soil of the
former Portuguese territory to the corridors of cyberspace.
Threats from proindependence hackers worldwide have sparked a
charged discourse between the rival political entities involved.
Pro-East Timor activist Jose Ramos-Horta, in a commentary in the
Sydney Morning Herald on Aug. 18, offered his support to more
than 100 mostly teenage hackers worldwide who are preparing to
sabotage Indonesia's computer networks -- including the aviation
industry.
The Herald reported that the Nobel peace laureate told hackers
to "go for it" if no loss of life would result, and warned of a
"desperate and ferocious" international campaign against
Indonesia.
He said if Jakarta denied East Timor its UN-negotiated
independence after the ballot, which may see a majority of voters
reject an offer of autonomy, the plan had his full support. "This
time, our manners will be cast aside," he said.
"This is terrorism against democracy," responded a senior
official of Indonesia's foreign ministry, Dino Patti Djalal,
speaking in the Melbourne newspaper The Age on Aug. 20. Djalal
said he had referred the matter to the coordinating minister for
political affairs and security, for "preventative action".
The Indonesian government has also been the target of past
accusations regarding hostile cyber activity. Reported on Aug. 19
at ZDNetUK's website, in January hackers allegedly working on
behalf of the government disabled the Irish ISP, Connect Ireland,
home to the East Timor independence movement's Internet site.
"These guys were real professionals," said the ISP's technical
manager John Plunkett, "they really knew what they were doing and
they caused some major league damage." The ISP also said it was
preparing for an impending computer war.
In suit with history's dominant political discourses and
resistance movements, the employment of the Internet for
political expression and conflict is an inevitable consequence of
the information revolution.
The inherent nature of cyberspace lends itself to political
activity. Activists can recruit from a global pool of computer
users, who it could be said relish empowerment through
technology. Information transmission is rapid and largely
unregulated. Further, a communication infrastructure's dependence
on the very thing that makes it possible, technology, is
ironically its greatest vulnerability.
Clans of hackers waging war in cyberspace is neither
particularly new nor uncommon. Cyberwarriors from China and
Taiwan have long attacked their rival nations' webpages, defacing
them with pictures, sound, animation and political commentary.
Successful attacks on institutions such as NASA, the CIA, the
Pentagon and particularly large multinational corporations occur
relatively frequently on the web. Even Amnesty International's
website was not spared the attention of hackers known as the
"four man dream team", determined to make their mark in
cyberspace.
Indonesian government webpages have also suffered their share
of cyberattacks. Hackers bearing names such as LithiumError and
Toxyn have to date orchestrated two major attacks on the
country's websites. The altered sites are exhibited like trophy
cabinets in archives freely accessible on the web.
In 1997, hackers attacked the Indonesian Department of Foreign
Affair's webpages, posting pro-East Timor political content
welcoming visitors to the "Fascist Republic of Indonesia" and
claimed; "East Timor is not Indonesia".
Calling themselves "Portuguese hackers against Indonesia", the
clan said they "hope to call attention to the necessity of self-
determination and independence of the people of Timor, oppressed
and violated for decades by the government of Indonesia". January
last year saw an anti-Soeharto hacker campaign deface 15
different government webpages, including Indonesia's National
Police and Golkar sites.
The threat to Indonesia's computer network extends beyond just
targeting government websites however, and the inevitable
question is: could hackers really disable Indonesia's computer
network? If hackers can break into the CIA's computer network,
then to what extent can they achieve the necessary access to
Indonesia's computer systems to disable them?
Ramos-Horta told the Herald that a "dozen viruses were being
designed to infect computers if there is fraud in the Aug. 30
ballot on the territory's future". He added that the team of
hackers from Europe and North America had prepared a campaign
that would cause economic devastation to Indonesia, directed at
computers controlling banking, finance, the military and
aviation.
The extent to which this will be successful if initiated, or
nothing more than a "threat" as described by Djalal, is difficult
to predict given the lack of past case studies. Ramos-Horta said
in the Herald that hackers had contacted him and demonstrated
what they could do, adding; "They definitely have the ability to
do this."
Speaking from their experience following the successful
cyberattack and disabling of their systems, Connect Ireland
reflected upon cyberwar. "It's going to be a new style of war.
You can see these tactics becoming part of official government
policy and a potential weapon," said the service provider's
project director Martin Maguire, after his experience earlier
this year, as reported at msnbc.com.
National Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Togar Sianipar said that
he was unaware of the hackers' threats. He said that the police
website had twice been attacked in the past, and that it was very
difficult to trace or prevent such attacks. Regarding the
potential for hackers to attack Indonesian computer systems, he
said the police would take it as a warning.
It is indicative of cyberspace that a territory the size of
East Timor is at the center of what has become a global issue,
and has attracted participants worldwide.
If a cyberwar does ensue, it will be an early example of what
will no doubt become a new style of warfare for the future.
Technology aside though, the dispute still rests with the
decisions and motivations of real people, whether connected to a
computer or not.