Once again the United States have spotted a danger threatening their infrastructure of informatics, though this time terror lies in the Far East. According to what has been brought to the spotlight by the “Wired” magazine, a lot of Asian nations are feverishly preparing for the battles that are to shape the wars to be fought in the 21 st century. Military analysts believe that nowadays China is in possession of the largest weaponry of viruses that can bring an end to military as well as civilian network operations. Some analysts maintain the belief that this is the evolution of the Maoist idea of the people's war. Instead of training farmers to send them to battlefields they train select hackers to strike the enemy.

Some brush fire in the genre took place a couple of years ago between China mainland and Taiwan. The Taiwan Ministry of Defense accused the Republic of the People of China of attacking the informatics systems of several ministries in the country. Some time ago, hackers from Taiwan struck the Ministry of Railways in China. On the other hand the Japan Ministry of Defense has declared the organization of a unit to be involved in the war of informatics, the task of which will be the generation of viruses capable of spreading confusion over the enemy's informatics systems. The only problem the land of the rising sun will have to come up with is of constitutional nature. Since 1945 Japan has been restricted to carrying out military operations within its borderline and a virus may easily break away from it to attack other countries' informatics systems.

It is also a fact that the target for South Korea is the North Korea and for that reason it has set up a team of hackers. Singapore has already acquired ill fame/notoriety abroad for the quaint war it has been carrying out against its neighbors mainly Malay and Indonesia, a war involving the dispatch of viruses. Of course, in the gloomy world of the war of informatics that may be in process in the networks we are communicating these days, nothing can constitute substantial evidence. A strike attempted by a minor hacker in Taiwan may as well be attributed to China. On the other hand, those involved in informatics defense may exaggerate the situation as a whole: the bigger the threat, the more funding to follow. In any event the war is being prepared, if it has not started yet.

By Pashos Mandravelis.

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