Help! I've Been Cyberattacked!

Did anyone else catch Clay Shirky on NPR this morning? The story discusses Egypt's recent Internet shutdown, and in particular the U.S. response.

Congress is currently debating a cyber-security bill that would allow the U.S. government to "permit some limits on Internet traffic into and out of sensitive facilities such as a power grid" in the event of "cyberwar" or a "cyber-emergency." But as Shirky points out, "Might not Egypt's Mubarak have argued that his government faced a 'cyber-emergency' — a political one, perhaps, but still a cyber-emergency?"

The point is a salient one, though let's not forget the claim of the Senate sergeant at arms that "Computer systems of Congress and the executive branch agencies are under cyberattack an average of 1.8 billion times per month" (as relayed by Sen. Susan Collins). What exactly does "cyberattack" mean here? Shirky is arguing that "cyberattack" can mean nearly whatever the government wants it to mean, whether it's Mubarak's or Obama's. What kind of agreed-upon norms are there for a cyberattack? We know that if the World Trade Center gets knocked down by two hijacked planes, it's a violent act of terrorism that will inevitably lead to a military response (whether or not it's a wise one). But how exactly do we conceptualize "cyberattack"?

Is Julian Assange guilty of cyberattacking? Shirky's blog has some interesting soul searching about WikiLeaks; he explores the ways in which the WikiLeaks phenomenon is and is not similar to the Pentagon Papers leaks of the 1970s. Perhaps Congress is looking to craft legislation that will facilitate the extradition and trial of Assange, and convince us all that we should be willing to give up some Internet freedom when it's "for our own good."

But why should the state be so worried about its secrets? Hasn't Facebook already shared all of them with app developers and advertisers? (Oh, right, that's just everybody else.)