Cyber Pearl Harbor Will Be From Stateless Entity Like Al Qaeda

The Al Qaeda simply does not have the brain power, or it would have done it already. They have no qualms. They do not deliberate, hum and haw. They just don't have the capability.

But the cyber Pearl Harbor will not be enacted by some state, not Iran, not China, not North Korea. It might not even be an organization like the Al Qaeda, however loose. It is more likely to be a group whose structure is akin to the group Anonymous. All members are faceless and anonymous.

But that can not be mistaken for acts like that of Wikileaks. Or Kim Dot Com. Releasing secret State Department cables is not Pearl Harbor. Pirating movies is not Pearl Harbor. And there will be legitimate cyber developments to weaken the nation state and empower the individual, the global citizen. That would be a welcome development.

But a Cyber Pearl Harbor by definition would have to be an act of evil. 9/11 was the modern day Pearl Harbor.

Panetta warns US could face ‘cyber Pearl Harbor’

Maintaining watch on Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and especially the Al Qaeda makes sense, but room has to be made for a new hitherto unknown entity.

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Wikileaks And SOPA

Image via CrunchBase

I see a connection between the two. In both cases the traditional nation state felt threatened, or still does.

The NYT’s Bill Keller on why we should defend WikiLeaks

Internet technology is bringing about a fundamental rethink on the relationship between the individual and the state. And state actors often times act defensive. The embrace part is when politicians use social media.

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Met The Sixth Bihari

Cover of Denise RichardsI showed up for what I thought was a panel discussion on Assange and Wikileaks earlier in the day, instead much of the discussion was about denial of service attacks.

But the Q and A session surfaced the sixth Bihari I have met in America. The dude went on and on about how great Bihar was but global media, social and otherwise, had not been paying attention to the glorious history and greatness of the 80 million Biharis. It was one of those and your question is moments. My man. Fellow Bihari.

Slumdog Millionaire: A Movie About My People
Third World Guy

Seven Social Media Week Events

Image via WikipediaI tried very hard to limit myself to few Social Media Week events this year. First I decided on one: the party Thursday. Then I added one more. Then one. And I am like, that's it. But now looks like I will have attended seven Social Media Week events by the time the week is over, one of them on LiveStream. That counts. I got to witness the entire panel discussion, and got to ask a question on Twitter.

This morning the UN panel discussion was great, except the moderator chunked off the Q and A session. What a bummer. I approached him later and asked the question anyway.

"What is happening in Egypt right now, we did this successfully in Nepal in 2006. I was the only Nepali in America to have worked full time for it. We did good. That inspired protests in Tibet and Burma, both of which were mercilessly crushed. Iran's was another failure in 2009. Tunisia was a success, but Egypt is struggling. Social media is important. My blog was my primary tool when I did what I did, not phone calls, although those I did, not events, I attended quite a few. But at the end of the day social media is just a tool. Ultimately the challenge of a political revolution and of confronting the ugly, concrete versions of sexism in some parts of the world are social and political in nature. The solutions are primarily political. Would you agree?"

Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever

Shhh, Don't Tell Anybody

Don't tell anybody, I am going to a Wikileaks event.

Learning The Wrong Lessons From Wikileaks

Image via WikipediaVint Cerf: Chief Internet Evangelist: Google: Governments shouldn’t have a monopoly on Internet governance: Gooble Public Policy Blog

The beauty of the Internet is that it’s not controlled by any one group. Its governance is bottoms-up .... the UN Committee on Science and Technology announced that only governments would be able to sit on a working group set up to examine improvements to the IGF—one of the Internet’s most important discussion forums .... we don’t believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance. The current bottoms-up, open approach works—protecting users from vested interests and enabling rapid innovation. Let’s fight to keep it that way.

This issue is kind of like net neutrality, it is kind of like free speech. Like some Iranian authorities like to say, we are for people speaking freely, but the free speech should be in moderation. Either there is free speech, or there is no free speech. You take away net neutrality and the web has become cable television.

Assange: An Information Bin Laden? I Think Not

Image by New Media Days via FlickrFor the past week word was he was hiding in a cave in Great Britain. Now looks like he has been caught. If he had a lawyer he was in touch with on British soil, I mean. It was only a matter of time.

The only time I got alarmed was when he yesterday threatened to let go the thermonuclear weapon. He was going to give people the encryption key so they could see everything he had managed to get. I was not worried about more private talk important people might have had. There were information sources in countries with shady regimes. If they knew who you were, you likely disappeared, and not voluntarily like Assange did.

Why Are They Still Communicating Through Cables?

Image via Wikipedia

Whatever happened to email?

New York Times: Cables Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years ..... The disclosure of the cables is sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict. ..... The cables, a huge sampling of the daily traffic between the State Department and some 270 embassies and consulates, amount to a secret chronicle of the United States’ relations with the world in an age of war and terrorism..... The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be “a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe.” .... When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. ...... China’s Politburo directed the intrusion into Google’s computer systems in that country .... The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002 ....... Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda ..... while Mr. Putin enjoyed supremacy over all other public figures in Russia, he was undermined by an unmanageable bureaucracy that often ignored his edicts. ...... nearly a decade after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the dark shadow of terrorism still dominates the United States’ relations with the world ..... adding Australians who have disappeared in the Middle East to terrorist watch lists .... American officials managing relations with a China on the rise and a Russia retreating from democracy........ “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours” ..... The authoritarian ruler of a conservative Muslim country, Mr. Saleh complains of smuggling from nearby Djibouti, but tells General Petraeus that his concerns are drugs and weapons, not whiskey, “provided it’s good whiskey.” ..... describe the volatile Libyan leader as rarely without the companionship of “his senior Ukrainian nurse,” described as “a voluptuous blonde.” ...... Qaddafi was so upset by his reception in New York that he balked at carrying out a promise to return dangerous enriched uranium to Russia. ...... Mugabe “a brilliant tactician” but mocked “his deep ignorance on economic issues (coupled with the belief that his 18 doctorates give him the authority to suspend the laws of economics).” ..... Private Manning said he had delivered the cables and other documents to WikiLeaks. ..... The State Department’s unclassified history series, titled “Foreign Relations of the United States,” has reached only 1972 . ..... several hundred date from 1966 to the 1990s. Some show diplomats struggling to make sense of major events whose future course they could not guess. ..... In a 1979 cable to Washington, Bruce Laingen, an American diplomat in Tehran, mused with a knowing tone about the Iranian revolution that had just occurred: “Perhaps the single dominant aspect of the Persian psyche is an overriding egoism,” Mr. Laingen wrote, offering tips on exploiting this psyche in negotiations with the new government. Less than three months later, Mr. Laingen and his colleagues would be taken hostage by radical Iranian students, hurling the Carter administration into crisis and, perhaps, demonstrating the hazards of diplomatic hubris. ...... In an era of satellites and fiber-optic links, the cable retains the archaic name of an earlier technological era. ...... the drama in the cables often comes from diplomats’ narratives of meetings with foreign figures, games of diplomatic poker ..... half brother of the Afghan president .... trying to win over the Americans with nostalgic tales about his years running a Chicago restaurant near Wrigley Field. ...... “He appears not to understand the level of our knowledge of his activities. ....... Even in places far from war zones and international crises, where the stakes for the United States are not as high, curious diplomats can turn out to be accomplished reporters, sending vivid dispatches to deepen the government’s understanding of exotic places. ..... ‘Ramzan never spends the night anywhere.’