28 Nation States With Cyber Warfare Capabilities

The 2nd edition of Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping The Cyber Underworld will contain 4 new chapters plus a new Forward by former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and an Afterward by Professor Catherine Lotrionte of Georgetown University. One of those chapters is entitled "Cyber Warfare Capabilities By Nation State". For those of you who can't wait for the 2nd edition to come out, here are the 27 28* States:

1. Australia
2. Brazil
3. Canada
4. Czech Republic
5. Democratic People's Republic of Korea
6. Estonia
7. France
8. Germany
9. India
10. Iran
11. Israel
12. Italy
13. Kenya
14. Myanmar
15. Netherlands
16. Nigeria
17. Pakistan
18. Peoples Republic of China
19. Poland
20. Republic of China (Taiwan)
21. Republic of Korea
22. Russian Federation
23. Singapore
24. South Africa
25. Sweden
26. Turkey
27. United Kingdom
28. United States*

This is not a complete list, but it's a start. We may roll it over into an up-datable website and add the states that we missed for the book (e.g., all of the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, additional states from Africa and South America, etc.)

* UPDATE: (29 Sep 2011) I left the U.S. off the original list because it's covered under one of the other new chapters! Sorry, everyone. :-D

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Turkey's Arrest Of Anonymous Members More Political Than Legal

Turkey is one of those countries like China, Russia, Ukraine, and many others where the government has a "useful" relationship with its indigenous hacker population. The recent news that 32 alleged members of Anonymous have been arrested in Turkey is a perfect example of what not to do if you're a hacker and you want to be tolerated by the Turkish government. I doubt that anyone would claim with a straight face that Ankara has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to prosecuting hackers. Remember what happened last year with Sweden?

When the Swedish parliament passed a resolution recognizing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire (now the nation state of Turkey) in 1915 and 1916, the Turkish government protested the action with official protests and by calling off the 2010 meeting of the American-Turkish Council. Additionally, on March 17, 2010, Turkey's Prime Minister threatened to deport 100,000 Armenians back to their homeland. Coinciding with their government's protests, Turkish hackers defaced over 600 Swedish websites. No arrests were made in Turkey.

In July 2009 Turkish hackers defaced Chinese government websites after the Turkish government expressed concern over the treatment of the Uighur people in the Xinjiang region of China. No arrests were made then either.

Then there's the case of Agd_Scorp, an infamous Turkish hacker who was arrested by Turkish authorities only after Microsoft teamed up with NASA and pushed Ankara to do something about his perpetual targeting and defacing of both their organizations websites. Turkish authorities made an arrest, prosecuted him and he was released after spending about 30 days in jail but that never would have happened had outside pressure not been applied.

The lesson for hackers in Turkey is clear. Don't "f" with us and we'll leave you alone. And that's probably solid advice for hackers in most states.

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