The Grey Lady just ran an ominous piece on the undeterrable world of cyber war. It raises a number of the very real problems with virtual warfare: Cyber attacks are non-attributable – while the headline-grabbing hacks of Chinese dissidents’ Gmail accounts probably came from China, some initial evidence pointing that way is inconclusive. Those in charge […]
I spent a night last week working with some friends and colleagues on crisis mapping the disaster in Haiti using a remarkable piece of software called Ushahidi – “testimony” in Swahili. Crisis mapping is taking in live information from a disaster or conflict zone via the Internet and mapping it to physical locations on the […]
The Underpants Bomber had quite an internet presence and even a Facebook profile, according to the Washington Post. Yet another reminder to get your Facebook privacy settings right. You don’t want to end up like these guys. Steve Coll justifiably asks why such clear evidence of increasing Islamic radicalization was not unearthed after Daddy called […]
PDF files exploiting a a vulnerability in Acrobat Reader were sent to a passel of defense contractors this week. A sophisticated attack, the files when opened exploited a vulnerability that had been patched in Reader just days prior, and handed control of the newly zombified computer over to master servers in Taiwan. Most impressive was […]
Attended Secretary of State Clinton’s policy address on Internet Freedom yesterday. It’s fun to see HRC on the big stage; I worked for her during the 2008 primary, and always enjoy hearing her speak. This was by definition a major address; the Secretary does not do many of these in a year, and as such […]
Greetings and salutations, gracious readers! My name is Chris Doten, and I’ll be your guide as we tour the networked wilderness of international relations in the Internet age. I’ve spent years working with computers, networks, and web applications, got myself a foreign policy degree from Tufts’ Fletcher School, and have bummed around in China and […]