War is all hell

One would think that making fun of the machinery of government in the United States might bring with it a certain amount of danger. Retorts from angry federalists, getting shadowed by the secret service, all in the name of, as our own dear Democrats

One would think that making fun of the machinery of government in the United States might bring with it a certain amount of danger. Retorts from angry federalists, getting shadowed by the secret service, all in the name of, as our own dear Democrats say, keeping the bastards honest. However, Whitehouse.org, run by Brooks Talley, is just about the first collateral damage in the hacking war going on between China and US.

Whitehouseorg has come under serious DoS, or Denial of Service, attack reaching up to 27Mbps in volume. The attacks have for now been stopped at the router, but Talley is looking for a more elegant solution. Whitehouse.gov has also been under attack from people who are capable of doing a little more research to make sure there target is legitimate, but what will this lead to.

Like Operation Desert Storm years ago, where the term collateral damage came to prominence in the media, perhaps we'll see the media take up this new war in a similar way. Instead of journalists standing on their hotel roofs to watch missiles burn overhead, maybe we can watch routers light up like a christmas tree - turn out the lights and the green LEDs look uncannily like those ghostly images of Baghdad's night sky during the air attacks. Burnt hard drives will replace burning oil wells, and hack hangouts like Attrition.org, where hacks are archived for all time, could replace the venerable bomb camera footage we all came to know and love.
Whitehouse.org, the parody
Whitehouse.gov, the real thing, but still funny