Cyberconflict

Cyberconflict, defined as conflict in computer-mediated environments, may be characteristic of the global age. Cyberconflict began as early as 1994 when the Zapatista guerrilla movement in Mexico transferred its mobilization online and linked with the antiglobalization movement through the Internet. In the late 1990s, John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt expressed the idea that conflicts around the world will increasingly revolve around knowledge and the use of soft power. Additionally, these RAND Corporation theorists defined netwar as the low, societal type of struggle, while cyberwar refers more to the heavy information warfare type of conflict. In this entry, the focus is on the netwar type of cyberconflicts, as historical incidents are explained and their implications for global politics and security are considered.

Cyberconflicts can act as a “barometer” of real-life conflicts and can reveal the natures and conflicts of the participating groups. Even before the advent of Internet 2.0, two types of cyberconflict were prevalent: ethnoreligious (between ethnic or religious groups fighting in cyberspace) and sociopolitical (conflicts between a social movement and its antagonistic institution).

The protagonists in sociopolitical cyberconflicts fight for participation, power, and democracy. Groups are brought together into a web of horizontal solidarities to which power might be devolved or even dissolved. The Internet encourages networked organization and mobilization, a version of the commons that is ungoverned and ungovernable, either by corporate interests or by leaders and parties. An early example of hacktivism (online activisim) was the Seattle anti-WTO (World Trade Organization) mobilization at the end of November 1999, which was the first to take [Page 346]full advantage of the alternative network offered by the Internet.

Also, dissidents against governments are able to use a variety of Internet-based techniques to spread alternative frames for events and to provide an online democratic public sphere. Online efforts, such as prodemocracy, activist, or antigovernment websites, point to the fact that people believe in the power of the medium enough to organize and run thousands of these types of sites. In many cases, activists are able to initiate and control events and mobilize and recruit others for their cause; examples include antigovernment sites in the Islamic world, in China, and in Latin America, as well as sites for antiglobalization and single-issue protests and mobilizations on both national and international levels.

Ethnoreligious cyberconflicts primarily include hacking enemy sites and creating sites for propaganda and mobilizational purposes. In ethnoreligious cyberconflicts, despite the fact that patriotic hackers can network, there is a greater reliance on traditional ideas, such as protecting the nation or fatherland and attacking for nationalist reasons. The Other is portrayed as the enemy, through closed, old, and primordialist ideas of belonging to an imagined community. For instance, in 2001–2003, the Israeli-Palestinian cyberconflict involved the use of national symbols, explicitly drawing attention to issues of national identity, nationalism, and ethnicity. Also, the language used by hackers relies on an “us” versus “them” mentality, where the Internet became a battleground and was used as a weapon by both sides. Full-scale action by thousands of Israeli and Palestinian youngsters involved both racist email and the circulation of instructions on how to crash the enemy's websites. Similarly, in the Indian-Pakistani cyberconflict (2001–2002), the Indian army's website was set up as a propaganda tool and was used as a weapon, as particular discourses mentioned religion (religious affiliation), the word brothers (collective identity and solidarity), and our country (a promised land).

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