On Monday, Google rolled out three new initiatives to ensure the openness of the Internet and access to the service -- even in the face of government crackdowns on the web. As Foreign Policy notes [4], one of those tools is a proxy plug-in -- creatively titled uProxy -- that uses a peer-to-peer system to create secure Internet connections. Another tool, Project Shield, promises to protect human rights organizations and NGOs from so-called DDoS attacks, which take down a website by directing a flood of traffic toward it and overwhelming it or rendering it unusable. The last project rolled out this week is something called the Digital Attack Map, which is embedded below. It's a fascinating, interactive map that monitors DDoS attacks around the world -- an effort Google hopes will raise awareness about the problem.
The map, which draws on data collected by the network security firm Arbor Networks, provides a nifty visualization of an issue that's been in the headlines constantly over the last year or so.
The result is the first real visualization of what cyberwar looks like in real time. So what can we learn from the effort? Here are some incidents that jump out in playing around with the map.
Source: Google and Foreign Policy [4]