Authorization for punitive strikes against the Syrian government proceeds slowly through the US Congress, and France's line, while hard, isn't unilateral. Cyber operations will figure prominently in any punishment of the Assad regime, as they figure prominently in the regime's defense: offensive cyber operations seem increasingly overt.

Widespread hacktivism, patriotic cyber-rioting, and deniable but state-controlled hacking invert the old progressive bumper-sticker: their participants think locally, but act globally. This represents a trend with which businesses must henceforth cope.

Last week's spike in Tor usage now appears (as suspected) to be botnet-driven, but interest in anonymizing products and services remains high, as shown by offerings and R&D. Noteworthy are Toshiba's announcement of a quantum cryptography breakthrough, and the ambitions of Estonian crypto startup Guardtime.

Government interception of Internet communications is a global phenomenon, and one needn't consult Wikileaks to know that industry plays a large role in providing this capability. (Still, if you're interested, Wikileaks has released industry-focused files—FinFisher features prominently.)

Several cybercrime exploits are active, including an aggressive social engineering campaign against French-based multinationals, the Obad.a Trojan (which exploits mobile botnets in novel ways), and Hesperbot (a banking Trojan with Zeus-like functionality, but representing a new malware family).

Banks worry about man-in-the-browser attacks. Banks and brokerages indeed have cause for concern over cybercrime, since it appears that they tend to bear its costs.

BlackBerry beefs up enterprise-security credentials as it prepares to sell itself by November.

The US Justice Department will release many FISC documents by next Tuesday.