Al Jazeera is a broadcasting company based on Qatar, but their packaging is mostly western. With this write-up I intend to discuss a documentary brought out by the Al Jazeera about Cyber warfare.
Using just a computer countries can now control and penetrate other countries with ease. Even without manpower and so on. Governments of some countries use social media such as Facebook to recruit people, even as spies and noone can actually control this. An understood fact is that through social media the information that comes out almost cannot be filtered. Julian Assange of Wiki Leaks is of the opinion that "Facebook was the most appalling spying machine ever invented."
Hacking kits are available easily on the internet. A group called Anonymous launched hacking attacks on MasterCard, Amazon and so on in countries like Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, using LOIC which is a hacking kit that is easily available online. Countries are increasingly understanding the importance of the Cyber world. Obama has described Cyber space as a strategic national aspect. Iran has developed a Cyber Police.
Iran in 2009 used social media like Twitter and Facebook to mobilize people for protests against the presidential election (an example of Cyber Activism).
Israel is technologically advanced, they have almost 8000 pHD holders in the field of GSM alone. This is astonishing considering the small size of their country. In 2010, Lebanese found Israeli spy devices in their territory. It was like they had extended their network to this neighboring country.
There are many examples related to this. Such as Echelon which was developed originally by the US during the Cold war. This can be used to turn any phone into a microphone using which anything that happens around that particular phone can be recorded and monitored even if the phone was switched off. Another example of cyber warfare is the monitoring and killing of Osama Bin Laden by the US.
To watch the video:
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