In the last year or two, I’ve become very interested in cyberflexing. Because I’m a member of a National Academy of Sciences study (in progress) on the subject of “Ethical and Political Implications of Offensive Information Operations,” I must mention that what I’m saying here are personal opinions on many of the issues and not conclusions of the study group. Some of the bigger unsolved issues in these areas include: The botnet problem Why can botnets be so easily assembled? Mainly because there are bazillions of unpatched Windows machines on always-on connections, and everyone with a clue disclaims responsibility for them. “Unpatched” means they have known, exploitable security vulnerabilities and can be abused by kiddies …

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