Anonymous attacks (Catch All)

[selil]

Percolating to the surface is what may be the first inter-faith online insurgency. Spurred by a rather perfunctory take down notice of a video the Scientology religion has been hammered by an online group called Anonymous. Attacks against servers, a fairly complex information/propaganda campaign, and use of para-legal (copyright, freedom of speech, parody, etc.) are being used.

I have no dog in the hunt of the validity of Scientology but this may be a good case study for scholars of small wars to learn the effectiveness and issues of stateless entity warfare and the resultant issues for society. Following on the heels of the Estonian conflict which was originally blamed on Russia and turned out to be a highly effective band of college students, and with a similar feeling, this conflict is a religion versus a non-state actor. The group "Anonymous" has in an interesting turn attacked all of the elements of information security (confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, and non-repudiation) paradigm very rapidly.

The group Anonymous is posting "secret" materials, changing data in the Scientology systems, disrupting the operations of the Scientologists with distributed denial of service attacks, that would suggest information warfare in the other realms too. As scholars of small wars, with interests in insurgency, and with an understanding that this same attack vector may occur against as a highly coordinated attack against a state (e.g. Estonia) we should pay attention to this evolving form of attack and consider the ramifications for future conflicts.

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