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Internet Warfare

In today's article, I will try to introduce you to different aspects of Internet warfare. Much like the term information warfare, the term Internet warfare is often misunderstood. To understand Internet warfare, you must know that there are different classifications of it. Let's start with those classifications. From there, we can discuss warfare at its most advanced levels. The classifications are

• Personal Internet warfare
• Public Internet warfare
• Corporate Internet warfare
• Government Internet warfare

More generally, Internet warfare is activity in which one or more participants utilize tools over the Internet to attack another or the information of another. The objective of the attack may be to damage information, hardware, or software, or to deny service. Internet warfare also involves any defensive action taken to repel such an attack.

I will restrict my discussion to the personal part only since it is what my target audience expects. The rest three aspects require quite deep understanding of the subject and will unnecessarily lengthen the discussion. As we proceed in this direction, I may consider divulging in this matters.

I will utilize today's session for discussing in detail the internet phenomena dreaded most by both, private individuals as well as public organizations- E-mail Bomb.

The e-mail bomb is a simple and effective harassment tool. A bomb attack consists of nothing more than sending the same message to a targeted recipient over and over again. It is a not-so-subtle form of harassment that floods an individual's mailbox with junk.

Depending upon the target, a bomb attack could be totally unnoticeable or a major problem. Some people pay for their mail service. To these individuals, an e-mail bomb could be costly. Other individuals maintain their own mail server at their house or office. Technically, if they lack storage, one could flood their mailbox and therefore prevent other messages from getting through. This would effectively result in a denial-of-service attack. In general, however, a bomb attack is simply annoying. Various utilities available on the Internet will implement such an attack.

One of the most popular utilities for use on the Microsoft Windows platform is Mail Bomber. It is distributed in a file called bomb02.zip and is available at many cracker sites across the Internet. The utility is configured via a single screen of fields into which the user enters relevant information, including target, mail server, and so on.

Which is the best e-mail bomber, you may ask. Well, that is a debatable question. People argue that Avalanche is the best. Yes, it is fast and effective but the interface is non-intuitive and lacks the punch. I feel, Aneima is one of the most dangerous e-mail bomber around. That's because it is very easy to use. Even a novice may be able to completely mess-up your e-mail account. And it is dead fast too.

Now the most likely question in your mind is how do I protect myself from this hazard. Well, to say frankly, there is no way to do it. But don't be dishearten. There are ways to minimize the damage. Firstly, do not give your primary e-mail address (the one given by your ISP) to anyone, not even your best friend. That's because if anyone happens to bomb this account, you may be unable to even access the internet as your mail account is clogged. Secondly, get as many free e-mail Ids as you can (I have 32 now, hah). And use them to give to the new babe you met on Yahoo!! chat or to the macho man on the IRC. If he/she happens to be of the malicious kind, you are still safe. Who cares if this account gets clogged. You didn't pay a dime for it.

There are tools available on the net which allow you to recover from a bombing session. The effectiveness of such tools is not tested or guaranteed.  So make sure that you don't need to use them. And if you follow the above tips, I guarantee that you won't have to. Email bombing was a major issue few years back. Today, with the plethora of email accounts available, bombing has been restricted to script kiddies only. Bombers are used just as a annoying tool rather than a harassing one. So be sure that you are on the safer side.     

– Mayur Kamat
March 8, 2000

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