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Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan), the lead Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said the U.S. should conduct a “show of force or strength†against North Korea for a supposed role in a round of attacks that hit numerous government and commercial websites this week.
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“Whether it is a counterattack on cyber, whether it is, you know, more international sanctions . . . but it is time for America and South Korea, Japan and others to stand up to North Korea or the next time . . . they will go in and shut down a banking system or they will manipulate financial data or they will manipulate the electrical grid, either here or in South Korea,†Hoekstra said. “Or they will try to, and they may miscalculate, and people could be killed.â€ÂÂ
An ABC News commentator also called for an aggressive response. Michael Malone, who bills himself as “one of the nation’s best-known technology writers,†wrote in his Friday column that thousands could die in future internet attacks. One of his imagined scenarios is an eerie echo of the claim  heard prior to the first U.S. war with Iraq  that Saddam Hussein was killing babies in incubators.
“When do we get out of our defensive crouch and actively go after governments that are attacking us through cyberspace?†Malone wrote. “Will it be after a web Pearl Harbor catches us by surprise and crashes our financial markets  or kills thousands of people trapped in computer-controlled transportation systems run amok, or in a darkened city trapped in a blizzard or heat wave, or babies in microprocessor controlled incubators? And long before then, why can’t we respond to such an attack by a foreign government not with bombs or missiles, but by crashing that country’s digital infrastructure?â€ÂÂ
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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.