The Old One-Two

While defense analysts had their attention focused on North Korea's missile tests, conducted over the Fourth of July weekend, the North Koreans seemed to have been engaged in a duel game of simultaneously conducting a "denial-of-service" attack on the Department of Defense-in addition to the Treasury Department, Secret Service, the White House, the New York Stock Exchange, and who knows where else both in the US and in South Korea. Though it has been called a "sophisticated" cyber-attack, it did no damage, nor did it compromise any security firewalls.

So how do you handle such a provocation? I would be tempted to knock out the North Korean power grid. That shouldn't be hard to do, frankly. This would also provide a good excuse to knock out their nuclear testing facilities, and anything else we can think of, just for good measure. I don't expect the Administration will go that route though. On the other hand, what else can they really do otherwise that they aren't already doing?

The scariest thing about this? The Defense Department didn't even know they were being attacked until they found out in the press. The only people here who knew it was going on was the Department of Homeland Security, who said nothing at the time to anybody.

You have to wonder exactly what the North Koreans were trying to accomplish. It looks to me like they were trying to disable both the South Koreans, and ourselves, probably with the aim of massing an invasion of the South. Of course, since there were no signs of troop movements near the border, at least not so far as we have been told, you have to wonder whether they planned to lob a few missiles at certain strategic targets in Seoul.

I look for Kim to bite the big one here really soon. The North Koreans will have to have something in the way of saving face after such an unmitigated embarrassment of a failure. Blaming Kim, after he is gone, would seem to be the best option. If I am right, there might be a power struggle once he is dead, a power struggle that might leave Kim's son holding the short end of the stick.

UPDATE-I don't really know what to make of this, but on NBC News with Brian Williams tonight, even though this was the lead story of the broadcast, you would think no one has any idea who was behind the attack. Sure, they mentioned once that the South Koreans suspected North Korea, but that was almost a "by-the-way", something not to be given a great deal, or even a little credence.

What is the reason for this? I don't mean to imply that NBC News is sympathetic to North Korea or to Kim Jung Il, but I do wonder if they, while obliged to report the attack, are loathe to say anything that might detract from what they would have us believe to be a major accomplishment of Obama, during his visit to the G8, in securing support for a strong stance against the Iranian nuclear program.

As incredible as it might seem, I think they might also be wanting to plant seeds in the minds of their viewers that this attack might well be a result of some kind of domestic terror group-probably a right-wing one.

I can't prove any of this, of course, but I find it remarkable that all of the sources I have read concerning this attack seem adamant that the most likely culprit-in fact, the seemingly most obvious and only suspect-is North Korea. Yet, they get barely a mention, and that almost in passing.

Make of it what you will.

UPDATE II-It seems a lot of people might have jumped the gun. According to this report from Reuters, the cyber-attack, while its too early to tell for sure whether North Korea was or was not involved, almost certainly did not originate from within the country, which does have a sophisticated cyber-spy network. According to many analysts, the Denial-of-service attack was too unsophisticated to come from North Korea, and points to the possibility of cyber-terrorists who might even, in fact, be unemployed IT professionals.

Okay, but I still think its pretty suspicious that the attacks were made on the US AND on South Korea simultaneously.