Russian cyberwar against Estonia?

[Dave Korn]

On 22 May 2007 14:51, Trei, Peter wrote:

> In fairness, its worth noting that the issue is also mixed up
> in Estonian electoral politics:
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6645789.stm
> 
> The timing of the electronic attacks, and the messages left by
> vandals, leave little doubt that the 'Bronze Soldier' affair is
> the motivating factor. Whether Russian Government agents were
> involved in the attacks is not proven, but certainly seems possible.

  Patriotic script-kiddies have been taking it upon themselves to contribute
botnet-driven DDoSen to pretty much every international incident going over
the past few years, from the US-vs-China hacker wars back in Code Red days, to
the Arab-Israeli conflict, to ... well, everything really.  The fact that
there's a real diplomatic incident going on may well be their motivation, but
it's not evidence that they are in any meaningful sense 'state actors'.
Occam's razor suggests that since the script kiddies will do this
/regardless/, i.e. spontaneously and unprovoked, there's no need to posit
additional sources of DDoS deliberately organized by the government (though of
course it doesn't exclude the possibility).  Why get your hands dirty when
some unpaid volunteer will provide you plausible (because truthful)
deniability? 

  Perhaps I should coin the phrase "Useful Skiddiots"!


    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

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