Cyberwar!

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Hackers Attack Sites Considered WikiLeaks Foes,” seems to describe the same battle that has been going on during global summits when anti-corporate activists, commonly labeled as anarchists by their enemies, protest and counterattack against established organizations.

The hacking attacks occurred after Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, had published more than 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables through his web site, and organizations such as MasterCard, PayPal and Amazon.com suspended his account and ability to collect donations. Then, in a further development, Mr. Assange was detained on what some called nebulous sex charges prosecuted by a Swedish Court. The computer activists may be right about the latter, since the women in question admitted to having consensual sex with Mr. Assange and the charges were based on use or non-use of a condom.

The hacking attacks apparently succeeded in having an ecomomic impact, especially with the MasterCard site, where even a slowdown of services could cost the company millions of dollars. How this will all turn out is anyone’s guess. I do know that the structures of advanced civilization can be very fragile. Remember the mighty Roman empire was brought down by barbarian forces.

These activists are not barbarian, however. They are a very sophisticated network, each of whom is individually empowered by their personal knowledge of the Internet on which we all rely.