The Hackers of Damascus
You can probably tell that I'm catching up on my reading tonight! My other offering is this fascinating article on The Hackers of Damascus. For those who are warriors in our readership, the article offers a detailed description of the moves and counter-moves in cyberspace that are part of the conflict between Assad and the dissidents. Here's a small taste from the introduction:
Much has been written about the rebellion in Syria: the protests, the massacres, the car bombs, the ho
Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
You can probably tell that I'm catching up on my reading tonight! My other offering is this fascinating article on The Hackers of Damascus. For those who are warriors in our readership, the article offers a detailed description of the moves and counter-moves in cyberspace that are part of the conflict between Assad and the dissidents. Here's a small taste from the introduction:
Much has been written about the rebellion in Syria: the protests, the massacres, the car bombs, the house-to-house fighting. Tens of thousands have been killed since the war began in early 2011. But the struggle for the future of the country has also unfolded in another arena—on a battleground of Facebook (FB) pages and YouTube accounts, of hacks and counterhacks. Just as rival armies vie for air superiority, the two sides of the Syrian civil war have spent much of the last year and a half locked in a struggle to dominate the Internet. Pro-government hackers have penetrated opposition websites and broken into the computers of Reuters (TRI) and Al Jazeera to spread disinformation. On the other side, the hacktivist group Anonymous has infiltrated at least 12 Syrian government websites, including that of the Ministry of Defense, and released millions of stolen e-mails.
Paul Rosenzweig is the founder of Red Branch Consulting PLLC, a homeland security consulting company and a Senior Advisor to The Chertoff Group. Mr. Rosenzweig formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security. He is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University, a Senior Fellow in the Tech, Law & Security program at American University, and a Board Member of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy.
