Cyber War Heating Up

China is believed to have already launched, or tried to launch, cyber attacks against the U.S. According to Strategy Page it looks as though the U.S. is getting ready to respond in kind:

The U.S. Department of Defense has long advocated going on the offensive against criminal gangs and foreign governments that seek (and often succeed) to penetrate U.S. government and military Internet security, and steal information or sabotage operations. Without much fanfare the Department of Defense has made preparations to do just that.

Since the military cannot afford to pay enough to recruit qualified software and Internet engineers for this sort of work, it has turned to commercial firms. There are already some out there, firms that are technically network security companies, but will also carry out offensive missions (often of questionable legality, but that has always been an aspect of the corporate security business.)

Some of these firms have quietly withdrawn from the Internet security business, gone dark, and apparently turned their efforts to the more lucrative task of creating Cyber War weapons for the Pentagon. It may have been one of these firms that created, or helped create, the Stuxnet worm.

Most of the Internet combat so far has been done under peacetime conditions. In wartime it's possible (especially for the United States) to cut off enemy countries from the Internet. Thus potential American foes want to maintain an official peacetime status so the United States cannot use its ability to cut nations off (or nearly off) from the Internet and remove easy access to American (and Western) targets. Thus the need to make attacks discreetly so as to make it more difficult for an enemy to target stronger attacks against you, or threaten nuclear or conventional war.

The first Chinese target (and those in North Korea, Cuba, and elsewhere) that ought to come under attack are the computers that keep track of their political and religious dissidents.