I recently attended an Infragard meeting that featured an interesting lecture titled “Freedom of the Cyber Seas” given by Aaron Turner.

The article presented an interesting comparative analogy of the historic Pirates of the Barbary States and nowadays hackers. The thesis revolves around the measures taken by the United States to defend itself from pirates in the early days of independence and international trade. Aaron compares the Tripoli, Morocco, Tunis and Algiers sponsored Barbary pirates to paid hacker coalitions. Much like ancient pirate fleets, hacker groups are being hired by nations to attack other nations, such as the Russia Georgia incident. These hackers could be considered internet mercenaries or modern day pirates.

The article also parallels the extortion demanding pirates with modern day computer security protections. If the pirates didn’t exist, no tribute would need to have been paid for safe travels. If malicious hackers didn’t exist, there would be no need to spend a fortune on security products for safe internet travels. Aaron preaches drastic measures, such as Jefferson’s philosophy “Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute”, is needed to properly defend the United States in the new “sea”, the world wide web.