Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Loose Cannon

North Korea's military may be rusting away, but are they doing on the WWW what they can't do on the DMZ?

South Korean intelligence officials believe North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces committed cyber attacks that paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. government Web sites, aides to two lawmakers said Wednesday.

The sites of 11 South Korean organizations, including the presidential Blue House and the Defense Ministry, went down or had access problems since late Tuesday, according to the state-run Korea Information Security Agency. Agency spokeswoman Ahn Jeong-eun said 11 U.S. sites suffered similar problems. She said the agency is investigating the case with police and prosecutors.

In the U.S., the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the July 4 holiday weekend and into this week, according to American officials inside and outside the government.


What is happening in Northeast Asia? Either the North Koreans are messing with us or the Chinese are but using the North Koreans as a cover.

Either way, much as the Chinese seem to like having a loose cannon like North Korea threatening us with nuclear destruction, China probably enjoys having a little psycho-state ally able to get away with hitting us in cyberspace (or providing cover for China to do the deed).

China just doesn't want to rein in North Korea. We need to collapse the regime as the only way to end their nuclear threat to us, South Korea, and Japan.