Welcome to Malicious Life in collaboration with Cybers. I'm Ren Levy.

A quick note before we get started, the episode you're about here references the development

of China's censored internet in the 90s and early 2000s.

We covered that subject in episode 91, the Great Firewall of China, part one.

You don't need to have listened to that episode to follow the story you're about to hear, as the references are not critical.

Rather, you can think of this like a movie sequel.

You'll follow along even if you haven't seen the first,

but you might get more out of it if you have.

So if you didn't, back when we released it,

you might want to pause here and listen to that episode.

What is Cyber War?

It's such a trendy term these days that it's hard to tell.

On the news you'll hear that the U.S. is in a cyber war with Russia or with China or with Iran.

Russia is in a cyber war with the US and Ukraine and half the continent of Europe.

And there's China and Israel and who cares?

Seriously, if Russia hacks into the U.S. Department of things that don't concern me

or into some politician emails does it even matter? It doesn't

seem like war. Remember real war? You could get shot in a real war. Cyber Wars seem kind of sucky in comparison.

I was thinking about this recently actually after a discussion I had with Bill Hagestad.

Yes, good day. My name's Bill Hagestad, a retired lieutenant colonel, U.S. Marine Corps.

Served almost three decades serving our country a couple of tours in Iraq.

Bill has a different kind of view on what cyber war is all about.

...