Cyber-Warfare: The
North Korean response
by Marcus Noland | November 10th, 2012
We offer the following
from the 11 October 2012 (we won’t bother to translate into juche-time) Minju
Joson, a North Korean government newspaper, without editorial comment:
The United States Raised the Curtain on a Cyber Armament Race
“The United States is
going into full swing on cyber armament development lately. According to news
reports, the US Air Force command declared the opening of bids for procurement
of harmful programs containing malignant viruses for the purpose of disrupting
and destroying enemy computer networks and control centers. The notice on the
bidding emphasizes the US Air Force’s quest for capabilities to infect and
disable enemy work systems, servers, and other network structures by cyberattacks
and establish systems of temporary cyberspace control, and it includes the
development of programs for inflicting preemptive strikes against an enemy. The
US Department of Defense expressed its willingness to spend $10 million in the
initial stages of plan implementation.
Meanwhile, the US
Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency declared the
opening of bids for the development of surveillance programs to monitor the
state of security of enemy military infrastructure targets countering US cyber
attacks. Some $110 million will reportedly be spent on the development of those
programs.
Military experts see
this plan announced by the United States as a first step in a cyber armament
development race.
Until now, the United
States has categorically denied its cyber attack weapon development, saying US
military action on the cyber front will be strictly of a defensive nature.
However, in reality,
the United States has been actively pursuing cyber attack weapon development
projects, while overtly spurring cyber warfare preparations.
Late last year, the
US Congress approved cyber attack weapon development by the United States Cyber
Command and allocated huge amounts of money to this project.
According to what US
media reported, the US Department of Defense has already started full-scale
development of cyber attack weapons that can be used in a real war. This
program, codenamed “PLAN-X,” calls for the development of digital maps showing
the locations of tens of billions of computers worldwide, let alone the
disablement of enemy military communications and radar. It is an initiative for
rendering enemy military computers useless all at once in case of an emergency.
Not only munitions
companies but also private universities and even electronic game device makers
will reportedly participate in this cyber attack weapon development, which will
be handled by the US Department of Defense at the cost of more than
$1 billion over five years.
In short, the United
States is seeing the Internet space as a new military arena and seeking to gain
hegemony in this area.
As known, malignant
viruses are spreading widely through computer networks worldwide today, leading
to destruction and leakage of numerous classified data and paralyzing
electronic work systems.
The problem is that
the United States and other Western countries are exploiting this phenomenon as
an excuse for more blatant intelligence warfare, interference in internal
affairs, and aggression maneuvers against other countries.
Last year, when damage
was reported in a cyber attack on the United States, the US Department of
Defense automatically blamed it on an outside cyber attack and came out
actively advocating the need for cyber armament development as a counter. It
went so far as to announce something called “cyber strategy” that treats a
cyber attack launched from outside as an act of war and calls for a reprisal
involving use of force.
Although, from a
technical standpoint, it is possible to identify the outside network address
launching a cyber attack, it is difficult to find out who is responsible for
the attack launched from computers, experts say. As long as the attacker’s
identity is not accurately established, a military reprisal measure by anyone cannot
be justified.
Nevertheless, the
United States is blabbering that an outside cyber attack will automatically
constitute a “threat,” which is considered an “act of war” that requires a
reprisal at tack, and its purpose lies in the justification of its cyber
armament development and its bid to launch preemptive strikes at any given time
against countries it does not like by imposing cyber attack blames.
Now, the United States
continues to perpetrate cyberterrorism crimes against anti-imperialist, pro-independence
countries by throwing allegations against other countries under the pretext of
so-called “national security.”
In an article exposing
and denouncing the United States’ cyber warfare maneuvers against Cuba, the
country’s newspaper Granma divulged that the United States secretly introduced
satellite antennas and other equipment into Cuba, installed secret Internet
access points, and spread groundless rumors through them, thereby creating
social instability and seeking to cause
Cuba to disintegrate
from within. The newspaper also divulged that the United States is ratcheting
up anti-Cuba maneuvers by mobilizing all schemes by introducing the latest
programs into the country, creating a network outside government controls, and
establishing a system of sending and receiving digital documents.
It is an already
well-known fact that the United States developed a virus named “Stuxnet” to
scuttle Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities and sabotaged normal nuclear
activities by launching cyber attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Because of the United States’
such cyberterrorism crimes, information technology means, which should
otherwise be used to contribute to socio-economic progress and humankind’s
civilization development, are exploited for “intelligence warfare,” aggravating
confrontation and friction among countries.
Currently, there is no
international legal framework to monitor and control cybercrimes and provide
fair and accurate assessments of cybercrimes. That is why countries such as
Russia are calling for the creation of a new protocol assuming the nature of
international law against cybercrimes.
Foreign media
expressing strong concern over the United States’ increasingly intensifying
cyber armament development are sounding alarm bells, saying, “The United States
has effectively raised the curtain on a cyber armament race itself. The
consequences of such action cannot be anticipated.”
Now, many countries
around the world are denouncing the United States as the main cybercrime
culprit and strongly urging a ban on the development and use of cyber weapons.”
