Notable Iraq War blogger recalled for second deployment

A long-time critic of the U. S. military’s “stop-loss” policy, Colby Buzzell, author of war blog “My War,” has himself been recalled for his second deployment in Iraq:

On way out of my building two weeks ago, I checked my mailbox and found a letter from the Department of the Army with “Important Document” printed in all caps on the middle. I immediately felt sick, so I went back to my room, locked the door, grabbed a beer from the fridge and stared out my window for a while. People outside were all wearing sunglasses and walking about enjoying the sun. I took a picture.

Before receiving his latest orders from the Army, Colby has split his time between freelance journalism and photography classes thanks to the G. I. Bill. Besides writing for San Francisco Gate and Esquire, Buzzell has published his compelling memoir My War: Killing Time in Iraq. However, his future is now uncertain:

I know I won’t get any sympathy at all from the “you dumb ass you signed the contract!” crowd, which is fine, but I really was looking forward to applying my GI Bill to photography classes so I could learn how to take pictures. But now, thanks to not enough Americans volunteering for military service, I now have to worry about my picture appearing on the second or third page of my hometown paper with the words, “it was his second deployment” in my obituary.

Consumer electrics as weapon technology: pre-paid cellular repurposed as GPS tracking device

Yesterday, Hackzine reported on the The Open GPS Tracker, “a small device which plugs into a $20 prepaid mobile phone to make a GPS tracker. The Tracker responds to text message commands, detects motion, and sends you its exact position, ready for Google Maps or your mapping software.” The project homepage lists a very impressive feature list including the following:

• SiRFstar III receiver gets a fix inside most buildings.
• Sends latitude, longitude, altitude, speed, course, date, and time.
• Sends to any SMS-capable mobile phone, or any email address.
• Battery life up to 14 days, limited by mobile phone. Longer life possible with external batteries
• Manual locate and automatic tracking modes controlled via text message.
• Automatic tracking mode sends location when the tracker starts moving,
  when it stops moving, and at programmable intervals while moving.
• Alerts when user-set speed limit is exceeded.
• Retains tracking messages if out of coverage, and sends when back in coverage.
• Retains and reports last good fix if it loses GPS coverage.
• Remote reporting of mobile phone battery and signal status.
• Extended runtime mode switches phone on and off to save battery life.

There are a number of interesting applications including keeping track of your children’s driving habits or, as Hackzine notes, creating a “‘lo-jack’ system that would let you find your car if it was stolen, only with this your car’s location is only being reported to you instead of a monitoring station, actually increasing your privacy.” However, there are a number of more nefarious uses this device could have. As has been widely reported, cellular phones have been used for the remote detonation of IEDs in Iraq and elsewhere. This device could be used in conjunction with a vehicle-borne IED in which the driver is not privy to the attack. Also, it could also be used as a covert listening device, or “bug,” with the appropriate modifications. The possibilities are endless.

By no means does this discredit the Open GPS Tracker project. These type of “hacks”–creative repurposing of technology–are only as good or evil as their users, and projects such as this one should be encouraged. However, it is important to note that as consumer electronics become more sophisticated their capability to be weaponized grows.

Here are some more pictures from the project:

“Webtifada”: Al-Qaida and emergent threats on the web

Olivier Guitta of The Counterterrorism Blog provides a fascinating look at Al-Qaida’s web presence in his article “Europe facing radicalization over the Web.” Guitta covers a number issues including Al-Qaida’s use of established instant messaging services like Skype as well as software that they have developed in-house such as “Secrets of Mujahedin.” Guitta writes,

Also after years of research, al-Qaida has developed software called “Secrets of Mujahedin,” that allows secure exchange in Arabic on electronic networks. It has allegedly been in use for over a year on clandestine forums close to al-Qaida, especially for jihadist groups in Iraq and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. This has been a formidable weapon for al-Qaida and numerous intelligence services and private companies have been trying to break it [emphasis added].

Although details in the article are vague, the term “secure exchange” could include any number of things such as steganography, encrypted messaging, or anonymizing technologies. By calling this a weapon, Guitta does not overstate the issue. However, managing risk is not a solely technological problem. For this reason, neither an “arms control” nor “arms race” paradigm–that is, attempting to disarm or ‘outgun’ threats–provides a suitable answer to problem. In fact, cultural violence is itself the pressing vulnerability to be addressed rather than the ever-increasing number of technological threats. Long-term solutions must address this fact.

Top U. S. military bloggers interviewed in New Zealand Herald

In his recent article “Blogs of War,” Christopher Garland interviews notable U. S. military bloggers Colby Buzzell and Matthew Burden. Although their perspectives are very different, both are staunch advocates for uncensored blogging from the battlefield. Buzzell, a specialist in a Stryker Brigade Combat Team, attracted international attention with his raw experiences of Iraq in “My War,” which became a lightning rod in the debate over military censorship. Burden, a former military intelligence officer, created “Blackfive” after becoming frustrated by the the gap between traditional news media and the lived experiences of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Garland writes, military bloggers might enjoy greater freedom thanks to some prominent endorsements:

[General David Petraeus] also recognised the new means in which information is delivered from the battlefield to the civilian world. “Milbloggers (military bloggers) have become increasingly important, of course, given the enormous growth in individuals who get their news online in the virtual world instead of through newspapers and television.” Petraeus added his appreciation to bloggers “for (blogging) in ways that do not violate legitimate operational security guidelines”. Despite pushing for the freedom of speech, the sharing of sensitive material continues to be the US Army’s primary concern.

Across the political divide, noted Iraq War critic Senator Ted Kennedy has also voiced opposition to the screening of soldier blogs by Army officials. After the military’s screening regulations on email communication, Senator Kennedy sent a letter to the acting secretary of the US Army, Peter Geren, asking him to reconsider the army’s position on military blogs. Kennedy worries that restrictions on blogging will cause even further disconnection between the American public and the troops serving abroad. “Soldiers, their families, and the public who read blogs and use other public forums will lose valuable insights into the lives of our soldiers if the policy continues to be enforced,” he wrote. “This loss is particularly troubling, since it comes at a time when there is a deep need for Americans to connect with their soldiers.”

As Buzzell and Burden argue, military blogging goes a long way to overcome the perceived distance between the home front and the front lines. Not only does the war become more “real” for the general public but also soldiers’ experiences are less likely to be hijacked by various agendas. However, it will be interesting to see how the political and military machines co-opt the “Web 2.0″ phenomenon for their own purposes. Senator Kennedy and General Petraeus’s endorsement of blogging shows us that this phenomenon is already underway.

Chinese hacker groups threaten CNN over Tibet coverage (Updated)

While protesters continue to disrupt the Olympic torch ceremonies in Greece, many of China’s supporters plan to launch their own protests against those who they believe to be misrepresenting the country’s intervention in Tibet. Western media outlets have been a frequent target. Recently, CNN drew the ire of Chinese officials when a commentator referred to China’s leaders as “goons” in reference to China’s crackdown on unrest in the region. Today, The Dark Visitor reports that the Chinese hacker community may join in these protests:

To coincide with the European protests, several Chinese hacker groups are calling for a DDOS attack on the CNN website to begin at 8:00pm on 19 April 2008. While only three websites have openly posted about this attack, my guess is that many more calls are going on behind closed doors.

During a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, hackers controlling thousands of compromised computers overwhelm their target with traffic in an attempt to render a computer resource–typically a web site–unavailable to its users. One of the most notable examples is the 2007 Estonian cyberattacks, which arose from a dispute between Russia and Estonia following the removal of Soviet war memorials. Many cite this attack as an example of the growing threat of cyberwarfare.

This is not the first time China’s involvement in Tibet has attracted the attention of hackers. Recently, pro-Tibet websites have been targeted in order to attack the sites’ visitors. These events continue to demonstrate the increasing weaponization of the Internet, and its role in creating a weaponized culture.

Update (4/18/08): The Dark Visitor is now reporting that the protest is gathering support–even outside of the hacker community. Among the sites calling for a DDoS attack on CNN.com are Guilin University of Electronic Technology. Check back at The Dark Visitor for breaking details.

Welcome to WeaponizedCulture.org!

In “Our Tools of War, Turned Blindly Against Ourselves,” Rob Nixon discusses the perils of depleted uranium in the high-tech arsenal of the U. S. military. Although it is claimed that precision-guided munitions–so-called “smart bombs”–reduce collateral casualties, their use of depleted uranium introduces environmental contaminants to the battlefield that produce casualties, civilian and military, long after the immediate violence of the combat action. Nixon writes,

War deaths from environmental toxicity demand patient, elaborate proof. Spikes in renal collapse; infertility; leukemia; testicular, brain, and breast cancers; and clusters of infant malformations are harder to link to war’s technologies than is a bullet through the head. The military statistician can simply count corpses within a given place and time, subdivide those columns into combatants and civilians, and draw a line beneath his sums. Such calculations conform tidily to our preconceptions about the time frame within which a war is waged. However, to view war through the prism of ecological time demands a different ethical attention span, one that strives to give the slow, discounted dead their due.

Nixon’s insight into the incalculable nature of this “slow violence” can be extended to the unintended consequences of weapons technology, not only on the environment but also culture itself. In the case of latter, weapons technology can transmit the values, assumptions, and prejudices of the culture that created it. When this phenomenon reproduces violence of the said weapon, the product is a weaponized culture–a culture that itself can be a destructive tool.

WeaponizedCulture.org is dedicated to the study of the confluence of war, technology, and culture to investigate this unique phenomenon. Through interdisciplinary research, this website will study weapons, new technologies that have been adapted for warfare, and their lasting effects in the world around us. Examples will include topics such as the latest developments in small arm design, emergent research on cyberwarfare, and technology’s influence on cultural beliefs and practices. Moreover, this blog will also discuss weapons and technology in popular culture, literature, film, and new media.

My hope is that WeaponizedCulture.org will become a ’staging ground’ for new interventions in cultural studies and the social sciences into the arena of war and technology.

More posts will follow!