Cyber Warfare

Wes Fryer has a very interesting article entitled, "Cyberwarfare Capacity and Partial Quotes by Journalists" up at his website, Moving at the Speed of Creativity. He references a USA Today article entitled, "Military Beefs up Internet Arsenal." Fryer writes, "The article makes it sound like at least some members of U.S. military believe a capacity to “dominate cyberspace” can and should be developed. Perhaps that is accurate, but I would guess a capacity to act decisively [including fighting when ordered] is being developed rather than a capacity to “dominate.” I think the distributed nature of the Internet’s architecture insures no single entity can “dominate” it entirely."

Questions for Discussion:
1. What does it mean to dominate?
2. What is the Internet?
3. Terrorists can certainly take over confined places such as airplanes and buildings. Could a terrorist ever hijack the Internet? Why/why not? Would a terrorist have to control every website to control the Internet? Why/why not?
4. In his post, Mr. Fryer contemplates quotations, wondering whether readers might be better served if writers included entire quotations when possible, rather than simply excerpting them. He explains that writers definitely have this ability on-line. In what way does the power to determine what part of a quotation to include in an article parallel the power to control the Internet? What can we learn from this parallel?

Just some questions in response to a blogger who I find particularly interesting.