Internet Cannon

             With all of our talks about the censorship in the Internet, I stumbled upon and interesting article about China’s newly acquired Internet cannon. Yes….I did say cannon. Now if you don’t know what an Internet cannon is, you are probably wondering what it is. More commonly known in the hacker community as a Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC or WebLOIC), an Internet cannon is a type of computer program used to force traffic overloads (or denial-of-service) onto targeted websites. Basically it uses the Internet to blast out cyberattacks. Although it is called a cannon, it is more like a simple program on a computer, not a literal cannon.

            China is using this LOIC termed the “Great Cannon” to force an overflow of Web traffic and malicious code onto sites its government wishes to squash in the name of censorship.  What happens is that is a website is overwhelmed by traffic, real or manufacture, no one will be able to visit it. This new cybertool is being used in conjunction with China’s Great Firewall,” which already blocks access to sites like Facebook and Twitter on Chinese networks.

            As bad and terrible that sounds, you may be wondering to yourself, what kind of country does that and would build such a weapon. Well…the United States has a similar program. From the information provided in the Edward Snowden leaks outlines U.S. government systems that can intercept and redirect Internet traffic to a site of their choosing. Although there have been no known instances where the U.S. has used an Internet cannon-type attack in domestic censorship.  They appear to uses these systems more for surveillance whereas China appears to blatantly use them for an aggressive form of censorship. The only problem that is really an issue with China’s new Great Cannon is if the Chinese government is found to be attacking U.S.-hosted sites, which would lead to an international cyberdispute on our hands.