On Wednesday (US time), Dave Winer published a post entitled ‘Are we starting a full-out war on the Internet?‘. This may seem a bit extreme or at least overly dramatic to many, but given the goings on in relation to Wikileaks, and the ongoing fallout from the release US Embassy Cables, it has certainly given me pause to reflect on the question.
Winer states upfront:
I’m afraid it (the storm surrounding Wikileaks) also will draw us into a future that I’ve believed was coming and didn’t want to talk about.
This also reminded me of something that was said in the BBC documentary series I saw on TV here in Australia not long ago, The Virtual Revolution. At one point it asserted that mass warfare on the Web is a strong possibility for the 21st century, and it will be our choice as to whether we take it in that direction, and to what extent.
As far as I know, humans have always been in violent conflict with each other to varying degrees. Is there any reason to think life and actions online will be any different? I certainly hope so. There is the hope that we are heading into a new era where mass warfare may become a thing of the past, as our online global civilisation further develops. Not that there will not be conflict, it’s just that it may look more like civil conflict. In a more globally connected world, to what degree will it be ‘them and us’?
DDOS attacks such as the ones we’ve seen on Wikileaks, and then in retaliation from supporters, on multiple companies that withdrew their digital services from Wikileaks, are nothing new. As I write this, I see that Sarah Palin says she is also under heavy attack from London–based supporters of Wikileaks. What is new is the very high profile nature of this situation, and that it involves the US government, and many other governments around the world. It also goes to the heart of the rapidly changing media industry; many would say an industry in crisis.
As Winer implies, what we have seen in the past few days is a kind of mob mentality emerge, both online and off. It’s all in the spirit of “fighting the good fight” for free speech, on more than one side of the debate in fact. And before we know it, we could be in the middle of an online war that we find it impossible to extricate ourselves from.
As @deekdeekster on Twitter pointed out as I was thinking out loud about writing this post, “the implications of mob internet rule are scary, as much as the strangling of free speech”. There is certainly something to that.
There’s also something to the assertion that governments have been pushing around other governments and their people, and it’s not a surprise that people resent that, and citizens should know what governments are doing in their name. That is indeed a solid reason why Wikileaks (and other whistleblower organisations) should be vigorously defended, and be allowed to continue to exist.
It remains to be seen whether this is how 21st century wars will partly be fought, but it seems highly likely. Many societies are becoming more and more dependent on digital networks. What the present international situation shows is that we are getting to the point where attacking, disrupting and targeting information and the flow of information, and indeed revealing previously secret information, can have a major impact on the world as we know it.
