Files
Abstract
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are a cyber weapon which in many ways represents the duality of the internet when it comes to political freedom, contention, and expression. Scholars have shown them to be a tool of political expression as a digital analogue of physical protest in society’s public squares. Conversely, DDoS attacks have been evidenced as a tool of repression where governments utilize DDoS attacks to silence dissidents, independent media, and opposition groups. This project investigates how DDoS attacks in both international and domestic politics are used as a tool of repression and expression. The first chapter provides an overview of the project, outlines these two seemingly opposing mechanisms, and presents the big-picture contributions of the project to the literature of politically motivated cyber-attacks. The second chapter looks at DDoS attacks as a tool of repression by looking at DDoS attacks as a tool of censorship to block reports of human rights violations. I provide evidence that more autocratic countries are increasingly likely to use DDoS attacks to block opposition media in the weeks after reports of human rights abuses. The third chapter looks at countries embroiled in violent civil conflict. This chapter presents evidence for DDoS attacks as both a tool of repression and expression. Civil conflict has many different actors (governments, opposition/rebel groups, various third parties) who might use DDoS attacks both to block information and/or express political anger digitally when democratic methods fail. I find evidence that in more autocratic countries, violent civil conflict increases the likelihood of a DDoS attacks against domestic targets within those countries. In chapter four, I look at DDoS attacks as a tool of political expression between state actors on the international stage by reanalyzing a puzzle presented by Ryan Maness and Brandon Valeriano (2016).They evidence that DDoS attacks oddly lead to more conflictual relations between states than other cyber-attack methods despite the fact DDoS attacks are often the least damaging attack method. I propose this is because DDoS attacks themselves are a tool to express this displeasure. The last chapter provides a brief conclusion and directions for further research.