Anonymous vs. the Attackers of Charlie Hebdo

A few years ago the Anonymous hackers collective announced it would be taking on the notorious Zetas cartel in Mexico. A member had been kidnapped, and in response dissemination of information about the criminal organization was planned for release. This did lead to the Zetas letting the kidnap victim go, but the Zetas promised retribution if there was a release, said retribution aimed at the victim's family.  Others simply considered Anonymous as overreaching and risking violent bloody death for something that would make no difference at all to the Zetas.

With this as background, the possibility that Anonymous might really do something about Islamic State or Al-Qaeda seems similarly ill-conceived. On further reflection, though, it might be a better match than initially perceived. While this might not be anything like the organizational analysis that might truly be needed, it goes to the differences between

• A state organization, i.e. a government, with defensive and offensive capabilities aimed at protection of the members of the state and pursuit of their common goals.
• A criminal organization based on a profit motive.
• A terrorist organization with ideological goals (which may be based on religious thought)
• Whatever organizational type one might assign to Anonymous, although their goals are ultimately ideological in scope.

To start, though, there's an important distinction already: The Zetas had an exploitable connection to Anonymous, namely the previously kidnapped member. Conversely, the reason Anonymous considered taking action was because of the kidnapping. This naturally weakens the anonymity that the group depends on. It would be like Batman starting his crime-fighting career by saying he was avenging the Waynes: It's too much of a clue to toss out there at the start. If, instead, information had appeared in public places with only a Guy Fawkes mask to show where it came from - and no connection to anyone - it might have been an effective method to weaken the cartel.

Although at least one commentator noted that the government is completely owned by the cartel, so releasing the info would do nothing helpful at all. Open source intelligence group Stratfor finishes their assessment with

Being identified and detained by Scotland Yard or the FBI is a far different situation than being identified and detained by Los Zetas.

In any case, without a focused assault on key nodes of infrastructure, you can't hope to eliminate all of them - and it only takes the attention of a few organized criminals to have the attention of them all. That is an advantage of having a hierarchical organization with well-defined and concrete goals: Someone starts messing around, all resources can be focused in that direction, and the only justification needed to do so is "are our goals in jeopardy." Anonymous depends on people using their computers to support the operations they want to support. They would not be able to apply sufficient force to the Zetas, because the methods of attack are too diffuse to affect the cartel's concrete goals of making money and acquiring power. While there is an advantage to anonymity, it's not clear that it makes any difference to this inherent imbalance.

But attacking Al-Qaeda in this way might work. Al-Qaeda has a de-centralized structure as well,  and could be said to lack key nodes - a successful attack on one node will normally have no effect on the overall organization. Any impact requires eliminating enough individual notes to degrade communication, operational effectiveness, etc.  Which means the winner will be the side that can eliminate nodes more effectively, by having more people and/or better skills. That could be Anonymous.

("Hey - Al-Qaeda has used diffuse tactics against the United States successfully!" Yes, but not against concrete goals of the United States.  "Money and power" can be broken down specifically for a criminal organization, since the goals are related directly to its leaders, who aren't responsible to anyone else. Any criminal organization will have to have particular areas it controls and areas it wants to enter.  This doesn't scale up to a state with millions of citizens, many of whom have differing opinions on what the purpose of government should be.)

The question would be relative advantage and alignment of purpose with ideology: Will there be more people attacking jihadist websites or defending them?  Will the defenders be more or less skillful than the attackers? Given equivalent forces, is the advantage to the defenders advantage or the attackers? (Probably the former - keep the site up, you win.) Who does anonymity help more, here? While hard to tell for sure, it seems like this would be a win for the attackers - that more people would align themselves to that side than the other.

Melting down the .... whatever

Hackers attacked a German steel mill. After getting network access in what sounds like standard ways, they used it to acquire control of the blast furnace. Hilarity ensued.

(In some network-based fields "melting down the database" can be used to refer to major issues that are impacting its usability. This is rather worse, of course.)

Although this isn't really a Data Wars item - it's more standard cyber-warfare, attacking infrastructure by taking advantage of our connected world. It's still impressive and a reminder of what the future world will look like. At least until it settles down and achieves a more steady state.

Privateers of the Data Wars

How My Mom Got Hacked is a description of an attack using Crypto Wall, a type of malware that encrypts your files then demands a ransom to decrypt them.

It's another possible way a Data Wars scenario could play out. Encourage a bunch of your guys to set up offensive operations like this and...well, that's really about it. Privateers didn't need to pay back their letters of marque; those were a help to their issuing government simply by decreasing enemy resources. (That it carried a negligible cost to that government was another advantage.)

Evidently there was a requirement for privateers to treat those captured "courteously and kindly." For reasons straightforward, and not necessarily altruistic,  this is followed by the folks behind this aforementioned hack, too - when the payment was made just a little too late for reasons outside of Mom's control, the ransomers accepted it anyway, upon explanation.

Evil

Even more than previous events involving The Interview, this suggests that there's something more going on here.
 

Consider for a second that each Saturday Night Live episode is created starting on Monday morning, eventually finishing up Saturday afternoon and early evening. Sketches are written up on Tuesday, then a read-through on Wednesday determines those that can be produced - which doesn't guarantee getting on the final live show. Sony pulled the movie from distribution on Wednesday. Mike Myers is no longer a regular cast member and really doesn't show up very often. So this was pitched, written, proposed to Mr. Myers, accepted by him, and set up as the cold open - a key part of the show, one that will impact the entire show's ratings for that night - between Thursday and Saturday.

It's possible that it had more of a head start - many of the jokes could have been written at any time in the last few weeks. It might have been in the planning stages earlier than Wednesday, with any specific jokes about the movie being added at the last minute. However, it does seem unpolished overall, as if it was a last minute addition to the show - the audience appreciation appears as much for the idea of the sketch as for its execution. Perhaps Lorne Michaels wanted to make a statement, as George Clooney did, and was willing to take some risks to do so.

That comment about killing a movie by moving it to January brought up a separate consideration, quite aside from North Korea's actual intentions or Michaels' desires: Imagine for a moment that, rather than looting data and leaving, the hackers had managed to subvert key points in the Sony information infrastructure. Perhaps an email goes out from the head of the studio saying that the date of the film will be changed because, oh, Seth Rogen preferred a staggered release that allowed interest to build up over time, or the Christmas slot was needed for a film with real Oscar potential. And suppose emailed responses came back from department heads that said, sure, we're all for it. It might be difficult for anyone to walk back what they said or agreed to, if there was [email] evidence that they had supported the change.

A skilled enough group might be able to take over communication networks, which could become equivalent to taking over the organization. If the Data Wars become reality, that could be the way they become worthy of the name.

Assets

It's not a given that the Crisis is about Data Wars, and even less clear how something like that could really be the sort of event that people will be reverently honoring 80 years from now. Really, how valuable is data, really, and who would fight over it or because of it?

One way that might make sense is as a new Cold War  - cold as in without bullets or explosions. But by acting in secret, releasing data people believe secure, and acting on said data in other ways, you can affect policy and possibly demand terms. 

If someone could credibly attack and hold on to critical assets, they are engaging in warfare   We should be calling it cyberwar, though, if the assets are systems - it's only data wars if, well, it's about the data.  

Which means Sony's capitulation seems more of a cyberwar - unless it turns out specfic data was the key to forcing the issue. Which seems unlikely. It is worth noting that ,as an overall terrorist threat,  they gained credibility due to their other successes. 

At some point data would seem to be a subset of cyber. Still what on the data side alone would be more than intelligence and approach actual attacks? We have seen some of that so far - where's the line?

Ripples

The aftereffects of the Sony hack are becoming more significant than they originally appeared. The initial impact was an embarrassing release of movie files, some employees getting spooky alerts on their computers, and the recognition that this was a major breach.

Then came the release of employee info, and the need to give people identity theft protection because of the scope of data that was pilfered and made available.

North Korea decided to deny that it had anything to do with it, while calling it a "righteous deed." The followup from the attackers demanding that The Interview be shelved made that denial seem disingenuous, though.

Now, emails are being released  make people realize how really un-private their email communications are. It might have been okay to know that your company could legally read whatever was sent over their system. Now, people are going to understand that ANYONE could potentially read anything sent over email. One executive may exit her job over private email comments about Obama. Other emails suggest an ongoing pay gap between men and women, even in the rarefied area of  actor's back-end points for A-list actors.

The initial idea of Data Wars was ill-formed, and might not actually happen. It might never be anything more than another form of asymmetrical warfare. It seems likely that the group that attacked Sony, even if state-funded, is not that large in numbers or in budget. So far the attacks haven't been life-threatening, even if some people's lives aren't as fun as they used to be. There's no reason, so far, to think that simple data access could really be physically dangerous to large numbers of people.

The ripple effects of this hack, though, are making it clear that our interconnected world is acquiring new vulnerabilities all the time, that there are ways to attack that don't depend on bloodshed and that  there are always those looking for creative ways to use new weapons.

Hack

It's difficult to take a story seriously when it sounds like the plot to a poorly-considered movie that still somehow managed to get green-lit because a huge star thought the script hilarious. It's more difficult still when such a movie is proposed as the actual starting point for the events. When the ultimate goal is a serious posting about the state of the world and how it is headed toward a dangerous and deadly series of conflicts, such a doubly-ludicrous starting point can make it even more difficult to manage a coherent proposal.

Nonetheless, that's where we are with the Thanksgiving hack of Sony Pictures. Rumors are circulating that North Korea was involved, because Sony is preparing to release a movie about news "personalities" who are first granted a chance to interview the leader of North Korea, and then tasked by the CIA to assassinate him. Whatever his failings as a leader or his country's failings as a fun place to live, basing a wacky comedy on an assassination is reasonably considered in bad taste. Malaysia had a similar issue with Zoolander, as did Roger Ebert.

Unlike Malaysia, North Korea has evidently decided to fight back with more than words. Several stories on the breach of Sony's computer systems - compromising everything from individual's computers to Twitter accounts to files containing completed digital copies of upcoming films - propose some combination of
1) Several U.S. agencies believe that North Korea was involved;
2) Multiple sources claim that The Interview is the reason that North Korea instigated the attack;
3) North Korea is not denying that they were behind it.

Another surprise is that such a sophisticated and successful attack was done by a nation that is not known for its prosperity. Still, it indicates that the data wars really could be asymmetrical, with economic robustness not being a requirement for success.

Regin

Another entry for the Data Wars: A sophisticated malware variant that Symantec suggests is supported not by some group of hackers, but a nation-state. The identity of the supporting state isn't given - probably because it isn't known. There are some clues, even allowing for false flags and red herrings:

• Russia has the most infections, followed closely by Saudi Arabia.
• Mexico is a distant third, but shares with those first two that it is an oil-exporting country.
• Then again, perhaps Russia is first because it's local - Symantec calls it an "espionage tool" and internal surveillance might be important.
• China isn't on the affected countries at all, and neither is the United States.
• References to Stuxnet, which is rumored to have been created by either the United States or Israel.

Although independent operators shouldn't be discounted: just because they are a group of hackers doesn't mean they don't have significant resources backing them.Then again, some significant resources may be backing them because these activities are helpful to their supporters.

PlayStation

Initially, the PlayStation network attack and associated Twitter bomb threat seemed like a prelude to the data wars.

Reconsidering, though, the bomb threat could have been done in other ways,  and the perpetrators would be in plenty of trouble whether they used Twitter, a phone call, or a letter using words cut from magazines.  It didn't depend on being part of the connected world.

Getting the information about the plane, however, did. Being able to directly affect a large corporations large and expensive assets is significant. As more large and expensive assets are online, this will be more possible. If there are those who can gain from such actions - monetarily, increased influence, or as a way to delay the inevitable - then these actions will increase.

It's a possibility worth considering.

Privacy

Facebook likes it now.

BBC is showing what happens when it can be traded off to produce entertainment (sic)

Russia is offering a bounty for helping eliminate it as an option..

And Forbes thinks it should be the big millennial Cause.

There are people who are trying to be better about it.

It's likely to be a big part of the data wars.

Dogbert joked about about how secretaries have always been power-users of information, but that was over 20 years ago.  Gigabyte drives the size of a toaster were amazingly compact data sources at the time. The Web hadn't been invented, and email was just catching on. Data becomes information, information becomes knowledge, and evidently knowledge really is becoming power. And power flows, as always, along the path of least resistance.

But which way is that?

Data

There are times when it appears the Crisis is going to be about all this data that is flying around the cloud - information about who people are, what they do, what sites they visit, what they use online services for. To date, it has been about marketing and advertising: You like The Hunger Games?  Why don’t you post how much you like Katniss, or whether she and Peeta really should get married. Perhaps you would like to see Divergent.  Mention Amazon and we’ll give you a dime - sell items through us and we’ll give you a cut. It could soon be a bigger deal than what your genetic code says about you. It can be used to tell what you thought, what you are thinking now - what you will be thinking about in a day, a month, maybe in a year.

There’s a black-and-white picture of a group of young adults in the 1940s, skiing in New Mexico. They’re smiling at the camera, clearly having a fine day on the slopes. There was a war on, though, and they were on a major front: The Manhattan Project. Although it was a day off, and looking at them there’s nothing that tells that they were doing anything exceptional.  Even less says that they were doing something that would eventually end the war - killing thousands along the way. One can further imagine asking, at that time, if that had occurred to them, and receiving in reply - what? “We’re doing something that has to be done,” or “If we don’t do this, they will.”   And references to brothers or uncles or husbands or ex-boyfriends who were (or had been) at Normandy, Ardennes, Bataan, or Pearl Harbor. One cannot easily hear them responding with apologies or second thoughts. 

Ten years before Hiroshima, only a few people even imagined that such a weapon could ever be produced. It seems ridiculous to think that a similar situation is possible from our online world. Whether in terms of  the growing knowledge that nothing can be hidden, or predicting what people (or groups of people) will do, or the vulnerabilities of connected infrastructure, it couldn’t be that world-changing.  

But still... but still... It is too easy to think of the young, earnest people at Google, Facebook, or Apple, not to mention less technical industries with similar reach. No doubt those Civics go out for recreation - to the slopes or the sand or elsewhere between - without any concern for what might be done, eventually. Except to think “If we don’t do this, they will.”