Two items I came across today tell two sides of the same story: Computer network attack and defense are a growing part of 21st century warfare.
The first item adds to the mounting body of evidence that Islamists and terrorists are seeking to use computers and the Internet to wage holy war. The Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Focus yesterday reported that Islamists, sparked by the Pope's recent comments, have set up a new Web site "to help organize an electronic jihad against websites that insult Islam and Islamic sacred figures." The Terrorism Focus story continues:
The site has been well publicized on more established jihadi websites. Jihadi forums are posting quotes from the Quran in order to encourage and convince jihadis and regular Muslims of their duty to engage in electronic jihad and to attack anti-Islamic sites in order to shut them down. Furthermore, postings from August on the Electronic Jihad site already claim that they successfully shut down the Israeli website http://www.haganah.co.il. Thus, it seems that while street protests in response to Western criticism of Islam have died down in the Islamic world, the battle is still raging on the internet.
The piece is very short, so you can read the rest for yourself.