Well, it hit slashdot and Internet Evolution in the last couple of days: These two states are taking aim at each other in cyberspace as well as in the physical world.

From my limited point of view, it appears to be a case of a lot of indiscriminate Palestinian hackers vs a fairly well organized high tech Israeli industry. An innovative idea that Israel is promoting is a distributed computing project that... does a DoS attack against selected Palestinian targets. As some on slashdot put it "volunteering to be part of a botnet". Probably the more important issue is in regards to legal status. If someone in the USA takes part, do they become a hostile combatant participating in the conflict? And before anyone leaps to declare an answer, think on this. If one says yes (they are, after all, helping attack online infrastructure, albeit in favor of a nation at war), would Palestinians be justified in sending someone to shoot them? If you are a combatant... Doesn't matter your weapon, they can respond how they will... And if no, do foreigners really have the option of participating in conflicts like this?

Full articles:

For the politial and social ramifications, best to read:

On Internet Evolution

For the more abreviated read:

On Slashot

And for the more technical side:

Internet Storm Center Diary

Enjoy the read.

disclaimer: I try to post on this subject impartially, I do not intend any slight to either side of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Neither side is wholly right, nor is either wholly wrong. That being said, I favor those who fight for their racial survival, not those who fight to destroy someone else's race.

It seems that rather than being "two states" doing this, it's civilian groups and individuals...something that is apparently not stressed by the media. I would guess that participation by outsiders could be seen as terrorist activity, but this activity still occurs on a smaller scale even if the immediate conflict is taken out of the equation. But that's just my foggy morning view, without considering or researching any laws concerning this type of situation.

I support neither side of this conflict (they're both completely wrong...the Holy Land is just outside of Cleveland), but these links are pointing to what I see as very slanted journalism, particularly the first one. The Palestinians are being shown as a hostile evil force, while Israel is the righteous defender of justice. But they're both behaving badly.

Scarily enough, I have to agree with you, neither side has played nice.

Sorry, I could not find any other sources to balance it out.

By and large, this sort of thing really muddies the situational waters. I am fairly sure that both sides have some kind of "official" cyberwarfare capacity, whether that be specific individuals or military groups or whatnot. And by and large, having a cyberwar seems just as legal as any other form (and they are all to be avoided, even if legal). But what happens when there are "militias" and volunteers running around? History has demonstrated that there are usually patriots who are eager to take part in a conflict, and sadly to say, warfare on the internet is likely to increase that. After all, in a physical war there is the deterrent of getting shot to keep enthusiasm down. But online? Provided they back up their data, what's the worst that will happen? Their PC gets fried permanently. But by and large, the most likely obvious "damage" would be having to re-install one's OS. Not really the same kind of threat as getting a bullet to the chest, really.

So that being said, volunteer participation is likely to rise.

What is your opinion on that? I am not really looking for legal interpretations, but more looking for what it *should* be. Should it be illegal? Should it be encouraged? Is this something that is likely going to be significant in the future?

I don't think war itself should be legal, and by extension neither should cyber war be legal.
I'm not saying all war is necessarily wrong, but I don't see the logic behind having rules of war that everyone is supposed to follow. As I see it, any group that starts a war is wrong; if you are defending yourself from that group, fighting is justified. If someone attacks your servers, setting up a system to take out that threat is acceptible.

true, but in my book,letting someone attack you first may not allow you to fight back.
my buddy daniel growing up his mom used to say don't start no fight, end it.
well daniel never got a chance to end one.
on the other hand my buddy vincent would start it before the other guy could start it.

but looking at those two groups, they both have no compromise.
israel keeps trying to extend it's borders displacing many palestinians, and the palestinians wants to kill them all.
it's the hamas that keeps taunting and when israel retaliates unfortunately they unleash hell and the civilians catch the worst of it.

this crap will never end.

A massive dos attack can lay out entire co locations for weeks on end if executed correctly. If cyberwars were organized entire countries could lose a huge form of communication. I think that's right up there with shooting a rocket at cell phone towers. When you consider the time and money to fight a dos attack vs the time and money to put up a new tower. It may be cheaper to put up a new tower after it's been attacked than fight the cyberwar. I would call this more of a economical warfare against a country. If those providers have to pay out of pocket to protect themselves from cyber crime and their government has no interest in helping them foot the bill then that could create job loss and slow down infrastructure progression.

If someone syphons the gas out of my car every night and I gotta fill the car up just to go to work every single day I'm going to see a reduction in other area's of my life. Entertainment, addictions and nutrition.