Information Security News: A New Breed Of Hackers Tracks Online Acts of War

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/26/AR2008082603128.html

By Kim Hart
Washington Post Staff Writer
August 27, 2008; 

TORONTO -- Here in the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a new 
breed of hackers is conducting digital espionage.

They are among a growing number of investigators who monitor how traffic 
is routed through countries, where Web sites are blocked and why it's 
all happening. Now they are turning their scrutiny to a new weapon of 
international warfare: cyber attacks.

Tracking wars isn't what many of the researchers, who call themselves 
"hacktivists," set out to do. Many began intending to help residents in 
countries that censor online content. But as the Internet has evolved, 
so has their mission.

Ronald J. Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, calls the organization a 
"global civil society counterintelligence agency" and refers to the lab 
as the "NSA of operations."

[...]


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