Georgia turns to Blogger

Here's one for the blogging books. From the onset of fighting between Russia and Georgia, Georgian servers have been under sustained attacks from abroad. Mainy of their website were taken down or defaced. This is a capability the Russians (and the Chinese) are famous for developing - Chinese and Russian government hackers are suspected to routinely probe our own computer networks for weakness to be exploited in time of conflict. Although it certainly could just be hackers acting on their own.

But here's where it get's interesting, unable to fight off the attacks, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has started a blog right here on Blogger. This effectively outsource's their computer defence to Google. Blogger has hosted many blogs hostile to the US, but we aren't about to do anything about it. Russia, China or some of our other adversaries might not be willing to look the other way. Or, what if in a future extremist government under seige uses Blogger to maintain a web presence to futher genocidal goals. Or incite violence. Something for Google to ponder, like all technologies, Blogger may be used in ways unforeseen by its makers.

UPDATE: The NYT has a fascinating piece on the cyberattack - Before the Gunfire, Cyberattacks. Apparently, the cyberattacks began well before the shooting, raising the possibility that the fighting was either foreseen, or perhaps provoked by Russia itself.

According to Internet technical experts, it was the first time a known cyberattack had coincided with a shooting war.

But it will likely not be the last, said Bill Woodcock, the research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit organization that tracks Internet traffic. He said cyberattacks are so inexpensive and easy to mount, with few fingerprints, they will almost certainly remain a feature of modern warfare.

“It costs about 4 cents per machine,” Mr. Woodcock said. “You could fund an entire cyberwarfare campaign for the cost of replacing a tank tread, so you would be foolish not to.”