War, it’s not just in real time anymore.   The recent, brutal conflict between Russia and the Republic of Georgia has provided the world a glimpse into the future battleground previously confined to the realm of science fiction: computer warfare.

Weeks before the current armed engagement in the Caucasus began, computer security firms in the United States started noticing a massive streams of data directed toward websites run by the government of Georgia, intended to overload the system’s servers, shuttin the system down in a technique known as Distributed Denial of Service, or D.D.O.S. attacks.

The assault on the Georgian computer systems were a warm up for an all out cyber war against the information infrastructure of Georgia once open hostilities began.   Upon the incursion into South Ossetia by Georgian forces, an all out attack on virtually every government controlled website in Georgia as well as private websites bearing the .ge domain native to Georgia began raging.

Although the Georgian cyberwar is the first to coincide with real world military action, this was not the first cyberattack by Russia, or pro-Russian hackers, against a former Soviet Republic.   Last May after the Baltic Republic of Estonia dealt with riots amongst its minority Russian population after announcing plans to move a statue to Soviet soldiers in its capital of Tallinn, a cyberattack was launched against the country, coinciding with rioting by the government funded Russian Nationalist paramilitary youth organization NASHI, or “Ours”, outside the Estonian Embassy in Moscow.   Those attacks were defended with the help of adroit computer specialists.

The recent Georgian cyberattacks have been somewhat more successful than thos in Estonia but still websites like the Georgian News remain up and running.   The Georgian government has also found workarounds of its own, posting news dispatches on Google’s blogspot at the URL http://georgiamfa.blogspot.com.   Beyond straight up D.D.O.S. attacks intended to shut down networks, hackers have also defaced websites with propaganda, such as the posting of photos of 20th Century dictators such as Adolf Hitler on the website of the National Bank of Georgia.   A similar defacement was placed by hackers on the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a not particularly subtle or nuanced photo montage of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Hitler side by side and sometimes sharing similar wardrobe (seen right).

You can takepart by contacting Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev at the Kremlin to urge for peace both within the Republic of Georgia and in cyberspace.

LINKS:

Washington Post: Longtime Battle Lines Are Recast in Russia and Georgia’s Cyberwar

Salon: Machinist: Cyberwar Rages on in Georgia

US News & World Report: In Georgia, A Parallel War Rages Online