Tuesday, August 27, 2013

If I Were a Jihadist, Part III (Adios New York Times)

Back on Valentines Day 2011, I waxed poetic/operatic and changed the words to a song made famous by Johnny Cash as well as Bobby Darin (see the post here), changing the lyrics of If I Were A Carpenter to If I Were A Jihadist. I pointed out that I wouldn't have to painstakingly hack specific target sites. I'd just take down the Domain Name Servers. I called it the "…(cyber) nuclear option."

Well, guess what? That whacky Iran-supported FTW Syrian Electronic Army with their backs against the wall have done a small version of just that. They didn't have to hack the New York Times. They just went after vulnerable DNS servers (see the Time Magazine story here). Et tu Huffington Post and Twitter feeds of The Associated Press, Al-Jazeera English and the BBC.

The guy I passed in New York's Times Square had the right idea as he waved his bible and shrieked, "The End is Near!" He did give me a funny look I winked at him and said that I'd been saying the same thing. He might not have been some poor soul off his meds, after all. When I said he must know how the Old Testament prophets felt, he kind of recoiled. Then all I did was raise my hand to straighten my hair and he started to run away. Go figure.

So my question is, are you willing to leave world cyber security up to a bunch of politicians and generals who don't know an outer join from a double hernia, and who sit around a table wringing their hands after each "extinction-event scenario dry run"just as real as the Armageddon movie comet headed for the earth, or might you at least participate a public debate on Real Internet Security and the Enforcement of Such by Licensed and Bonded Cyber Privateers?

I concluded my article with these words:
One way or another the Internet is probably going to cease to exist as we know it. Either because of a physical pygmy in North Korea or a mental pygmy in Tehran. And remember, in a world full of emotional pygmies, the patient man is king. 
Think "DNS Security" my friend. Then just try to get a good night's sleep.

Selah.

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Implementation suggestions for THE MORGAN DOCTRINE are most welcome. What are the "Got'chas!"? What questions would some future Cyber Privateering Czar have to answer about this in a Senate confirmation hearing?