Cyber terrorist attacks on 4 July, US independence, on computers in the US and South Korea put the blame on Pyongyang. Those nasty, crafty Koreans in the DPRK, were up to their old black arts of mischief once again. The global news wires picked up this spicey bit of hanky panky, and broadcast it in print, on the radio, on television, and the bloggers had a field day in pinning the donkey tail of blame on North Korea. Certainly government circles in South Korea did not miss an opportunity to darken the role of the DPRK as cyber terrorists. For South Korean politicos and military anything untoward happening in Seoul had to had its source in the North, the more especially since the government of Lee Myung bak had launched a hostile policy against the North by burying for good the 'Sunshine Policy' of opening to Pyongyang, since the South Korean president took the reins of government in 2008.
As quickly as the news went around the world, and as widely the media picked it up chastising North Korea for gaily playing with the minds of South Korea's and the US' strategic websites, the brouhaha died down suddenly.
And the sharp barbs in the press against Pyongyang burst like soap bubbles in the sun mysteriously. Although South Korean computer software companies freely offered programmes to thwart future attacks from the North, a small item appeared in the prestigious NYT and in South Korea emanating from the Korea Communications Commission [South Korea]. The KCC findings found that sites in Germany, Austria, Georgia, the US, and South Korea hobbled government websites in South Korea and the US. North Korea was nowhere on the list!
Now there is such a thing as 'loop back' from a mother computer, but the KCC's report doesn't trace it to Pyongyang. Yet a mystery remains but one which raises more questions than it answers. All countries named besides the US, are America's allies. So it is questionable that Georgia which Washington wants in NATO would sanction North Korean designs. Well what about Austria, perhaps, but the report remains silent on a country which has long had a North Korean presence. And Germany, here, too, the charge remains without answer. Surely it is reasonable to question South Korea and US motives in the light of sharp tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang, and Pyongyang and Washington.
The footprint on 4 July for the US has a history of hackers within the 50 American states, usually prankster who enjoy a thrill or two on playing jokes. As for Seoul, well, it is not unusual for South Korea to pull a fast one by playing with its own computers to 'sock it to the DPRK', for obvious geopolitical motives.
Which makes Guam Diary look to the case of reasonable doubt that North Korea is the origin of this flare up in cyber terrorism. Seoul and Washington remain strangely voiceless after the publication of the KCC report.
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