Cyber Warfare

The concept of war has always been a massive problem for society. Throughout history there are vast examples of wars between superpowers and countries that have resulted in mass devastation and that have also changed and even benefited society. Historically, war has been portrayed as a bloody battle on a field between two armies, using swords and spears. As time passed, new technological developments meant new methods could be used in war, such as guns and bombs in WW1 and WW2. One of the more recent developments of war is that of the nuclear kind. This extremely dangerous has the practice has the ability to literally destroy mankind and the world itself. This is shown in such disasters as Hiroshima and Chernobyl, where thousands of people were killed and effected, and living areas were labelled unsuitable for people to live in because of the infection and devastation it has and still is causing. However, a new type of war has been declared, in terms of Cyber warfare.

It's most commonly thought that technology will be the making of humankind and it can only make our lives better. However the development of the Internet and cyber space, this new form of war, which is quite literally a virtual war, can effect reality and cause a lot of devastation without even physically harming anyone, completely contrasting to the stereotype of war. 


As Deena mentions in her blog, ''Even militaries now have branches committed to defending and running cyber warfare.'' This shows the seriousness of the matter that there has to be a specially trained team to tackle the issue. I investigated Deena's point and this article enlightened me that institutions such as the Army and Navy are teaching cadets ''to combat increasing security threats to the nation’s computer networks''. 

In my blog post titled ''Digital Divide'' I mentioned how we are dependent on technology, and mentioned how Egypt's government turned off the Internet for the entire country. In this workshop and outside we discussed and researched the concept of EMP weapons. According the linked article, they do exist and to be honest it's quite a scary thought. Now I'm not technical or interested in complex science in any shape or form, and all the mentions of words such as 'flux' and 'compression' is only making me think of Doc Brown and Marty Mcfly, however researching into the topic has led me to believe the invention isn't such a bad thing. It's built to bring down Military's, not communities, and would therefore be much less of a disaster  than that of a nuclear bomb. 

Now this weapon is said to be obtained by American forces, who thankfully for us our are best friends. However, if an opposing side got hold of this weapon and set it upon the Luton area, we would have literally no electricity, and all this research would go to waste because there would be no Internet to see it any more  (Please, please don't do it until I've submitted this!). It would quite literally take out all electricity. Put simply, it'd be like a massive microwave with the door open, sending out waves to destroy electricity. It's not just the internet, we'd have no lights, no cars, no phones, no TV's, no hair straighteners, no fridges or freezers, no ovens. It'd be like going back to the stone age. Would you survive? Could you? I don't think I'd want to live in a world without Spotify. 







References/Read more

Cyber warfare: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare
Teaching defence: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/army-navy-air-force-academies-groom-cadets-for-cyberwarfare-to-face-national-security-threats
Explaining EMP weapons: http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb4.htm