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| 1 |
ID:
173775
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this article, we study the political use of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, a particular form of cyberattack that disables web services by flooding them with high levels of data traffic. We argue that websites in nondemocratic regimes should be especially prone to this type of attack, particularly around political focal points such as elections. This is due to two mechanisms: governments employ DoS attacks to censor regime-threatening information, while at the same time, activists use DoS attacks as a tool to publicly undermine the government’s authority. We analyze these mechanisms by relying on measurements of DoS attacks based on large-scale Internet traffic data. Our results show that in authoritarian countries, elections indeed increase the number of DoS attacks. However, these attacks do not seem to be directed primarily against the country itself but rather against other states that serve as hosts for news websites from this country.
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| 2 |
ID:
133730
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| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
How does the Chinese government's adoption of microblogs affect local governance and social contention it is tasked to manage? This case study explores the extent to which government microblogging could serve as: (1) a battering ram to spearhead reforms; (2) a virus bringing unexpected consequences; and (3) a reinforcer of authorities' existing power, that is, politics as usual. After studying a Chinese municipal government's microblogs (weibo ??) in depth from the perspective of local governance, we find that official microblogs do not in the short run lead to organizational change. Instead, Chinese local government microblogs function largely as 'beta-institutions' experimenting with ways to interact and negotiate with their microblog publics and microblog service providers and aimed at improving social management and political legitimacy. Local governments are also evolving gradually from service providers to 'service predictors' with enhanced capabilities to deliver individualized services and institute state surveillance via commercial service providers. These developments warrant further studies of the long-term implications of microblogs as part of the government information ecology.
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| 3 |
ID:
179281
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| Summary/Abstract |
Undersea communication cables are the core critical infrastructure of the digital age. 99% of all transoceanic digital communication—financial transactions, emails, or voice messaging—is transported through undersea fiber-optic cables. The global submarine cable network is a critical infrastructure that does not receive the analytical attention it deserves. We argue that cable security is a core dimension of current and future international security governance. We present the first systematic survey of the academic discourses that investigate the politics, governance, and protection of submarine data cables. Three rather narrow literatures study the cables (1) as under threat from hybrid warfare and terrorism, or treat the cable network narrowly as a (2) technical or (3) regulatory problem. We demonstrate the need for broadening out the research agenda and addressing key questions of security governance and geopolitics of this increasingly critical infrastructure.
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