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Category Archives: How the Net Works
Is Cyberwar the New Normal?
The Internet these days is often compared to the Wild West. It, too, is a wide open frontier with endless possibilities, loose rules, limited government controls and not a few rustlers and bandits lurking along its trails. But unlike other frontiers, the Net seems to steadily becoming more dangerous, not less. And there are now armies on the move. Hackers aren’t just computer whiz kids, online scam artists, or even criminal networks any more. Hacking has become a weapon of war. Stunning accusations in a recent report by Mandiant, a US online security firm, provide insights of just how persistent threats from government hackers working for certain enemy states have grown. The company has been investigating security breaches at hundreds of organizations around the world since 2004. Their tracking of threats has allowed them to identify more than 20 hacking groups within China. The largest of these, which they called APT1, for “Advanced Persistent Threat” has conducted vast hauls of information from hundreds of organizations since 2006. Madiant’s detective work on over 150 corporate victims for over 7 years paid off. They were able to identify APT1 as a unit of the People’s Liberation Army of China with a code designation of Unit 61398, precisely located its facilities in the middle of Shanghai, and even named three key developers. They watched APT1 compromise 141 companies in 20 industries, and studied in detail APT1’s sophisticated methodology – in one case, as … Continue reading
Posted in How the Net Works, Interesting Items, News, Security
Tagged CISPA, cybercrime, cyberwar, malware, security
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The Right to Internet Access
How essential is the Net? How vital is access to the Internet at all times? Does being cut off impair or maybe even threaten modern life? If you’re one of the many who would argue that yes, the ability to get online is absolutely basic to life, work, society, and entertainment, you’re not alone. And in a landmark ruling, the highest court in Germany agrees with you. Recently, the German Federal Supreme Court ruled that consumers can demand damages – financial compensation – for service outages. The case involved a suit by a man who lost his DSL connection for 2 months. For Germans, the decision places Internet access in the same small class of assets protected because they are necessary to survive and function in modern society. These include homes, telephones, and automobiles. Consider that: loss of Internet access is deemed as big an inconvenience as losing a car! This means that sanctions denying access may not be applied. German Federal Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said, “The judgment of the Federal Court shows that for an informed life, the network has become fundamental. It is a realization that the use of the Internet is a civil right.” This is not the first time a government had declared Internet access is a basic human right. France was first to do so back in 2009. Finland went even further later that year when it declared it would provide each citizen with … Continue reading
Posted in How the Net Works, News
Tagged broadband, copyright, cybercrime, Internet access, rights
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The Internet Goes Interplanetary
Future space explorers, both robotic and human, now have a new way to communicate with each other – by the Internet. While email has been used for some time from low Earth orbit, and astronauts have even posted to Facebook and Twitter, the actual connections utilize the standard radio point-to-point links that have been used all along. For modern fleets exploring space, which include far-flung satellites, spacecraft, rovers and maybe bases someday, this is insufficient, just as the traditional Internet would be. Point-to-point creates a single line of communication between two stations, such as ground control and say, a satellite circling Mars. Another such direct connection can create a line of communication between the ground and a rover on the planet. But the rover can’t communicate directly with the satellite. The network only goes through ground control. An “Internet-like” connection changes all that. Then, everything could talk with everything else – or it could except for the distance. The problem with installing the Net on such widely separated systems is that unlike communications in science fiction, radio waves move at the speed of light. The Enterprise can call Starfleet Command every time they run into the Klingons, but real spaceships anywhere beyond the Earth-Moon system will not find it so easy. While it’s only 1.25 seconds for a message to get from Earth to the Moon, to Mars it ranges from over 4 minutes to over 20. And that’s just … Continue reading
Posted in How the Net Works, Interesting Items
Tagged BP, DTN, NASA, protocol, space exploration, Star Trek
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