While Kim Jong-un´s regime has hacked other countries, US attempts to damage his nuclear programme face tough challengesThat the United States has been working to hobble North Korea´s missile programme through cyber and electronic strikes is important, but not especially surprising. Pyongyang´s technological advances, if not yet as impressive as it claims, are real and alarming. Sanctions have had limited impact. Intelligence on the country is so inadequate, and its technology so advanced, that a preemptive military strike - reportedly one option the White House wants to consider - would be very unlikely to eradicate its capability and very likely to provoke a damaging response. The US also has experience: working with Israel, it is believed to have used the Stuxnet computer worm to wipe out roughly a fifth of Iran´s nuclear centrifuges and delay its nuclear weapons programme.This time, results appear to have been mixed. Discussions of state-directed hacking often focus on its advantages as a form of asymmetric engagement, allowing countries such as North Korea to counter their relative military weakness. But this case exposes a different kind of asymmetry. Though the US is infinitely wealthier, better armed and more powerful than North Korea, it is much more vulnerable in one regard: it is an open and democratic society and its citizens expect access to freely flowing information. Continue reading...
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