Ya see No Spam, this Forum is quite normal after all to be taking an interest in the Yugo situation...

Yugoslavia War Also Raging In Cyberspace

By Andrew Flynn The Canadian Press

www.canoe.ca

4-16-99

TORONTO (CP) -- War has come to cyberspace.

But this is no science fiction thriller with space lasers and menacing cyborg villains -- it's the real thing.

The conflict in Kosovo is the first major military campaign to be fought in the Internet age and both sides are using the Web to express their opinions, wage propaganda campaigns and disseminate information.

But there has been more than just information traded around the world through the Web. NATO has had problems with computer hackers flooding its Web site ( Military computer systems aren't generally connected through the Internet and are under higher security than normal networks, NATO officials said last week.

The information war on the Web is not always being fought nicely. While it often offers an escape from reality and the benefit of anonymity, the Web is unregulated and has no inherent standards of balance or fairness.

All sides have their official versions of what the fighting is all about.

The official Web site of the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ( It also posts extremely grisly photos of what it says are civilian casualties of NATO airstrikes -- shattered limbs and burns being treated at a Belgrade hospital.

"We will be presenting a new illustrated case of a civilian casualty every day until peace comes to Yugoslavia," the site says.

"We hope you will understand our intention and think of this presentation only as the humanitarian act, raising the question whether war is inevitable in solving conflicts."

The somewhat sterile sites of the Canadian ( Military sites offer details about the equipment and personnel being used in the air strikes ( The Canadian-based Web site of the Serbian Resistance Movement ( The rebel Kosova Liberation Army has its home on the Web as well, where it publishes in English, German and Albanian ( Casualty lists and descriptions of atrocities from purportedly first-hand sources are also available on the site.

The news business has also found the value of a medium that can instantly connect distant corners of the world.

News organizations around the world have been using their own Web sites to mirror their coverage -- CBC Newsworld, CNN, Time magazine, major newspapers and others have multimedia sites that offer text, audio clips and video.

They've also been using e-mail to get first-hand accounts describing the devastation and havoc caused by NATO airstrikes within the war-stricken areas of Yugoslavia.

"I think that's part of a new form of journalism," says CBC News Online executive producer Ken Wolff.

"Our coverage of Kosovo exists on so many different levels -- you've got letters from the people, you've got in-depth analysis, expert opinion, video, interactive maps, the picture gallery.

"It probably hasn't changed traditional journalism -- how the papers and TV cover Kosovo -- but I think a lot of people are waking up to the fact that there's a different sort of story here."

But the rules of Internet journalism are still being written, Wolff says. Verifying that people using e-mail are who they say they are is almost impossible, for one thing.

"My gut reaction is that most of them are because there's some raw emotion that you can't fake," says Wolff. "But we do have a policy to warn readers that e-mails must be taken for what they are."

The irony in all of this Internet debate is the fact that very few in Kosovo actually have access to it. According to ZDnet, the online clearinghouse for Ziff-Davis publishing's Internet and computer magazines, only 20,000 to 50,000 of Serbia's 10 million inhabitants have access to the Internet.

In the Kosovo province, there are virtually none of the basic telecommunication services that make Internet access possible. So while the wired world argues the fate of the region, the natives of stricken Kosovo have no idea that a parallel virtual war is being fought in cyberspace.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 17, 1999

Answers

Where are the links, Andy?

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), April 17, 1999.

Andy,

This is another off-topic posting -- there's not one word about a Y2k connection. Neither did you note in the title that it was off-topic, as so many other starters of off-topic threads do.

Why don't you try my suggestion of posting it in a forum where it would be on-topic? Why don't you do as other off-topic posters do, and label your thread as off-topic in the title?

-- No Spam Please (No_Spam_Please@anon_ymous.com), April 17, 1999.

I'd like to know who gave andy the right to attempt excluding certain people from several threads.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 17, 1999.

Old Git,

It was a joke - where's your sense of humour?

Bill,

Link at www.sightings.com

No Spam - I don't have to explain myself to you, if you do not perceive a thread to be applicable to y2k according to YOUR definitions then simply pass digitally by.

You are making a complete fool of yourself (if that were possible).

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 17, 1999.