When most people think of war (and, for that matter, terrorist attacks), they most often think of an outcome with physical destruction and loss of life. But war (and terrorism) is most often waged to meet a desired end, whether to gain territory, reduce the strength of, or distract an enemy, or to simply cause damage. Cyberwar can be used here as well. It's just more subtle -- and therefore, can be all that more effective.

Traditional war is more like a bullet to the chest. Cyberwar is like a cancer -- just as dangerous and deadly, but far more torturous over the long term. And like cancer, we've yet to find a cure for cyberwar.

Let's talk for a moment about how a cyberwar might play out. Let's game it.

We've seen some early attacks already. In May, the National Journal reported about a suspected Chinese cyberstrike that purportedly took out a "9,300-square-mile area, touching Michigan, Ohio, New York, and parts of Canada, lost power; an estimated 50 million people were affected."

A full on cyberattack is likely to begin with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. A DDoS is a form of attack designed to bring computer systems and networks down by overwhelming them with a flood of data from many computers at once. The attacks on George were DDoS attacks.

Unlike traditional war and even terrorism, cyberattacks aren't going to be initiated just by nation-states and entities with a political agenda. Individual companies and even just bored computer users are also going to be initiating devastating attacks.

One such attack occurred over the Memorial Day weekend and was aimed at a small Internet video broadcaster named "Revision3". These guys are the good guys. They create their own video programming about technology and culture, and make that programming available for download online. I've known some of their key people from other publications where I've worked and they're producing quality programming.

But they were attacked -- a full, premeditated, no-holds-barred attack -- by a company called MediaDefender. MediaDefender has had clients including Sony, Universal Music, and the central industry groups for both music and movies -- the RIAA and MPAA.

So why would MediaDefender initiate a denial of service attack against our friends at Revision3? It may have been a mistake. Revision3 distributes its totally legitimate programming through a totally legitimate network called BitTorrent. But BitTorrent is also used to distribute pirated movies and music. MediaDefender has made it their very shady business to initiate terrorist-like denial of service attacks against BitTorrent users.

There's no real reason for MediaDefender to attack Revision3, except that they've been scanning BitTorrent hosts and attacking them indiscriminately. The damage to Revision3 was subtle. There were no explosions and no deaths, as you'd see in a traditional terrorist attack. But Revision3 is a new, small company and relies on being able to distribute their programming. A few more attacks like this and Revision3 is out of business, with 20 or so families losing employment.