India and Pakistan: A virtual
peace By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - For many in India, the Internet is
one abiding indicator of the way in which India-Pakistan
relations are progressing. For most of the history of
interactions between the two neighbors, the virtual
forces (since they came into existence in the late
1990s) in the two countries have been ranged at opposing
ends. They have taken the form of spamming, abusive
graffiti, and hacking key sites, as well as defacing
others. For example, during the height of the Kargil
conflict in 1999, hate mail from India inundated
then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif's official e-mail.
That was then - it is a different story now.
Many reports highlight that the Indo-Pak bonhomie that
reached a peak early in January when Pakistani President
General Pervez Musharraf met Indian Prime Minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee has extended to the Internet. And for
many, the newfound love between the citizens of the two
countries has passed the ultimate barometer of truth -
in the subcontinent, it is either war or cricket.
The Indian cricket team embarked on an epic
month-long tour to Pakistan on Wednesday, the first such
tour in 14 years, which is a direct result of the peace
process in place between the two countries. With
emotions reaching maniacal proportions during such a
contest, the least one would have expected were a series
of virtual powwows between the people of the two
countries.
Yet the talk could not have been
further from such encounters. Chat sites are inundated
with netizens on both sides sharing peace messages.
Topics of discussion include the prospects of a combined
India and Pakistan cricket team to take on a world
eleven, a possible Nobel Peace Prize for Vajpayee and
Musharraf, travel prospects with restrictions removed
between the two countries, business, cuisine, weather
... everything but war, when a cricket series between
the countries is often considered the closest
approximation.
To understand why this is so
significant, it would be instructive to peep a bit into
the recent past. The Internet has been a virtual war
zone between the two countries over the past few years.
Some organized Pakistani hackers have made several
attempts to hack into Indian sites - especially those
containing data on sensitive information relating to
nuclear test management - to access sensitive
information related to the country's security. Indian
netizens have never resisted pummeling the Internet with
anti-Pakistan messages at the slightest instigation.
The first high-profile instance of Pakistani
hackers breaking into an Indian network happened when
the Bhaba Atomic Research Center (BARC) computers were
defaced with anti-bomb graffiti shortly after India's
Pokhran II nuclear tests in 1998. The BARC site was
hacked by three members of Milworm, a Pakistan-based
hacker group. Ever since, BARC servers have been
favorite targets of Pakistani hackers. Intelligence
officials say that several spy programs have been
detected in the BARC server, from time to time.
Other sites targeted include those of the Indira
Gandhi Center for Atomic Research (IGCAR) and the
Nuclear Science Center, with attempts to access crucial
data secured under severely firewalled servers. The
Intelligence Bureau (IB) has been handed the
responsibility to track the new breed of equipped and
trained hackers. Reports suggested that there were at
least a couple of successful attempts to break the codes
of the sites.
The first intrusion into IGCAR was
reported in January 2001 when G-Force, a Pakistani
hacker group, defaced its main server. Subsequently,
other servers in IGCAR have been repeatedly hacked by
G-Force. Indian officials have identified one hacker as
Rsnake, who is said to have copied the master database
from IGCAR and provided some data to Pakistani
intelligence as proof of his access. Officials say that
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) realized
the importance of hackers after BARC was hacked in 1998.
The first Pakistani hacker group - Pakistani
Hackers Club - was formed by two "hacktivists" who used
the pseudonyms DoctorNuker and Mr Sweet. DoctorNuker
took to hacking when he was a computer-science student
at Karachi University. Along with fellow hacker Dizasta
(real name: Fahad Shamshek Khan), he started hacking
into critical Indian and US servers. DoctorNuker, say IB
officials, was the first hacker whose skills were
recognized by the ISI, and under the latter's directives
focused on critical Indian government servers
(especially those relating to nuclear and atomic
establishments). The most active Pakistani hacker in the
recent past has been a person impersonating Rsnake, who
started hacking from the Netherlands, where he was
working with a group of portals. Inspired by
DoctorNuker, he started the hacker group G-Force from
Holland.
Interestingly, there are no known
Indian hackers or virus writers, at least on the
worldwide stage. A study by Symantec, the world's
largest Internet security provider, says: "The Indian
mindset is far too advanced and more productively
employed to participate in the seamier side of the IT
[information technology] revolution."
But this
has not prevented the people of India and Pakistan
indulging themselves to the choicest of text and verbal
wars over the Internet whenever the occasion arises -
war or cricket. Intelligence sources in India say the
country has not let its guard down in maintaining a
strict vigil over possible hacking from across the
border. At the same time, it is also likely that
organized hacker groups that mushroomed in Pakistan will
decline, say the officials.
"The ISI was trying
to ride piggyback on the hatred that existed between the
two countries by tapping into hacker groups, several of
which were impromptu formations," says an official.
"With the numbers going down it will have a definite
impact on the attempts to access data here," he adds.
It is interesting to note that Symantec has
drawn up a clear profile of the proverbial hacker,
identified to be in the age group 14-23 years and
deriving diabolical pleasure out of breaking secret
codes. The contour has emerged from Symantec's research
into attacks recorded by its software. There has been an
emergence of virtual communities of people of similar
mindsets who share knowledge in pursuit of a common
intent. There has also been a rise in the number of
female virus writers.
With the "diabolical
pleasure" of attacking each other on the decline, real
peace between India and Pakistan is likely to inundate
the virtual world.
Siddharth
Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.
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