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Looking into your link, without seeing the title or anything I thought I was looking a magnified scrubbing bubble.

Freaked me out for a second.

Those stupid bubbles and their accursedly smug faces always make me want to lash out. I usually make a big mess. Ordinary cleaners just won't do. Thus a viscious cycle begins in the MulluskO household. This is why I never leave my computer alone for more than five minutes at a time.

[follow the bubble link]

If you've seen anything about Project Land Warrior, you'd know that in addition to the generals watching Bond flicks, the read Robert Anson Heinlein and watch Aliens...

If you need a turbine-powered SUV, shop for an M1 Abrams.

I don't have my other links to details now but could retrieve if anyone's interested (i used LW as an example of a wearable computer for User Interface Seminar - i bet the only person in the history of such classes to use LW for wearables example and Abrams' IVIS system for car computers example :)

Surprisingly, most of the JP series has low flammability.. I don't recollect the numbers, but the black, the pink and the blue are 'match safe', and the yellow and a couple of the are not.

Oh, yeah. the colors. Airplane fuel is coloured to indicate grade so that you can take a small sample from the wingtanks and tell by looking at it if you've got the right sort of fuel for your bird.
Here has a quick blurb about why and other neat stuff about fuel. I couldnt' find a comprehensive fuel colour list, but I didn't look that hard.


Brant

I am a contractor that works with CECOM (Communications Electronic Command) and its affiliates. Anyway, there is a whole Digital Division project going on where the Army is trying to implement ABCS (Army Battlefield Control System) distance learning in a virtual battalion TOC (Tactical Operations Center). Basically, hook up 10 different classrooms across the country, 1 for each system, and play war! And I got to do the technical network analysis...ick.

Yes, these systems run on a special version of Solaris. And for you hacker types out there, some of my teammates use Linux boxes to red team (run attacks against) these military systems.

As for some websites, try Army Distance Learning, or Digital Training Facilities.

As for access to secret websites, some are password restricted but the higher up ones need to be accessed from a .mil domain. Beyond that is NIPRNet access only, and classified networks can only be accessed through SIPRNet.

I am a contractor that works with CECOM (Communications Electronic Command) and its affiliates. Anyway, there is a whole Digital Division project going on where the Army is trying to implement ABCS (Army Battlefield Control System) distance learning in a virtual battalion TOC (Tactical Operations Center). Basically, hook up 10 different classrooms across the country, 1 for each system, and play war! And I got to do the technical network analysis...ick.

Yes, these systems run on a special version of Solaris. And for you hacker types out there, some of my teammates use Linux boxes to red team (run attacks against) these military systems.

As for some websites, try Army Distance Learning, or Digital Training Facilities.

As for access to secret websites, some are password restricted but the higher up ones need to be accessed from a .mil domain. Beyond that is NIPRNet access only, and classified networks can only be accessed through SIPRNet.

I don't know where that unwieldy explanation for "ping" comes from. At any rate, "ping" an onomatopoeia of the sound old-time audible-range sonar makes, not an acronym. As Mike Muuss, the man who created ping says, "From my point of view PING is not an acronym standing for Packet InterNet Grouper, it's a sonar analogy."

Take a look at: http://ftp.arl.army.mil/~mike/comphist/ Compiled by the late (but Great!) Mike Muuss (creator of ping and BRL-CAD).

I remember that Clinton was able to do something on the federal level about assault weapons. Is this being challenged, or did they have some sort of loophole (anti-loophole?).

The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." USese adults have a right to bear arms in general, but which arms we may bear is "well-regulated" by Congress. Want a handgun or a recreational firearm? Wait a week and you can get one. Assault rifles are hard to keep "well-regulated" when they're sold on an open market; if you want to bear one, all you need to do is join the Army.

As someone who work for the Army for his entire working life as a computer operator then a programmer I can say that the Army owns any code developed on army time. Even if some of the work was done off duty, if it was done by an employee it still is owned by the Army. FWIW, though, all code developed by DOD that isn't classified as Top Secret is, by definition, "open source". DoD owns the implimentation of it but the code is public property. There's laws and regulations that govern this. You should be able to find the Army related ones at the US Army Publishing Agency's web site.

---

Anyway, self-healing is one thing, these blocks go one further, and the more they take punnishment, the stronger they get.

I worked for the Construction Engineering Research Lab for a couple of years, and I must say I agree. The lab had a number of projects going on about simulating battle situations (movements of units, use of terrain, and so forth, largely aimed at understanding the environmental impact of the maneuvers). Unforunately, it seems the projects are all years away from being able to simulate current war conditions. The models are generally primitive and run on legacy systems, despite being under active development. I think you're absolutely correct in saying these simulations are aimed at finding a general course for military R&D, and not intended to accurately represent the future of combat. (I know the simulations that CERL does are quite different from what this article is talking about, but i think the analogy is quite relevant.)

Yes, because the next version of this will appear in your internet-enabled car, replacing the steering wheel, in order for you to type on your head-up display whilst driving.

--

Yes, there are certain things that men and women are inclined to be better at, or that are exclusive to one gender. Men tend to be physically stronger than women; women tend to be more dextrous than men. Only women can bear children, and only men can produce sperm.

The catch is, society is often bent on enforcing inclinations as fact. Yes, AC, men do tend to make better football players than women. But there's a sizeable and vocal population that tries to insist that women can't or shouldn't play football. Nevermind that the woman in question may be able to hit her receivers 19 times out of 20 with perfect spirals, or can call plays like nobody's business. These same types mock men for doing things like ballet. Clearly, women are better equipped as a whole for the required dexterity and fluidity of motion; why should a man even be trying to do ballet, when he'll never be as good as a woman can be?

When was the last time that you heard a man complain when somebody said that he should not stay at home with the children and cook and clean? Do men whine and say "I can if I want?" No. They accept it.

Oh, bullshit. Men whine like nobody's business, just like women. I know plenty of pampered little mama's boys who tremble at the mention of "manual labor" (or "changing a diaper",) and I know plenty of women who silently put up with hell on a daily basis.

A little less whining and a little bit more productive output would do this world a hell of a lot of good.

I assure you that there is far more energy wasted in trying to deliniate acceptable men's and women's activities than is wasted in just letting people do what they set their hearts, minds, and bodies to. Women have a large number of purely artificial barriers they must overcome to do so today; being told that they're better designed for some things instead of other, more manly things is one of them.

Of course, society generally recognizes this fact when the men folk all get sent overseas to fight in wars and somebody has to do all the little things like build battleships and repair tanks.

Of course, that's just the exception. Women don't really belong in manufacturing and construction jobs, do they?

information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.

I'm pretty sure that most pacemakers are highly insulated and shielded against radio, electrical, and magnetic interference. Although I just looked around and it said a high level of EMP could disable a pacemaker ( Radio-Frequency Radiation ) I don't know how high of a level the EMP would have to be.

Got a paper by the "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers".
It's 467 pages long and talks about electromagnetic impulses and how you can shield your facilities.

Get it here (pdf, directly from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Homepage) or here (text format).

cheers
mike

Got a paper by the "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers".
It's 467 pages long and talks about electromagnetic impulses and how you can shield your facilities.

Get it here (pdf, directly from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Homepage) or here (text format).

cheers
mike

For those who are involved with the US Federal Government web sites there is an excelent resource available for you. It's called the DoD Webmasters list, though it isn't limited to just "dot mil" users. Information on this list can be found at http://www.army.mil/webmasters/faq. The archives are available there, too.

We have had lots of very good discussions on the issues of design and functionality in there.

---

For those who are involved with the US Federal Government web sites there is an excelent resource available for you. It's called the DoD Webmasters list, though it isn't limited to just "dot mil" users. Information on this list can be found at http://www.army.mil/webmasters/faq. The archives are available there, too.

We have had lots of very good discussions on the issues of design and functionality in there.

---

Like most people here I use Ping daily. Like most people here I had never heard of Mike Muuss.

But from what Ive read of his writing on his homepage (linked from above) and his letter to the InterNet Historical Society (linked from above) it seems Mike would have had a wry sense of humour.

Mike seems to have been a massive influence on great area's of computing (Internet, TCPIP, UNIX) and that should be celebrated and tech people should be Thankful for his efforts, and due honour paid now that he has passed.

But when a person dies, absolute reverence does not exclude comments of some brevity.

I am SURE, as I would have, foreseen the 100% Packet Loss jokes coming when I was dead - and I would have found the idea very amusing and quite complementary... Ill assume Mike Muss dosnt mind*...

*I know this sounds presumptuous but I think I you would see my point... Apologies to those who find it so nonetheless.

If you hadn't noticed, Mike received the lifetime achievement award from USENIX in 1993.

http://ftp.arl.army.mil/~mike/

--Garthnak

This link was included in the Nanog link, but was unlabeled...it's Mike's Story of Ping. He sounds like a neat person just from his writing style.

Wow, no plays on "ping of death" yet?

________

No, the fact of the matter is that the USA was 'screwing over' Latin America well before the Cold War gave us a more plausible excuse. Check your facts next time you spout off about American superiority.

PS. I'm an American too and I'm not exactly proud of all the things my country has done in the past (and continues to do to this day.) We are not neccesarily "the good guys." We are an empire like any other, which happens to carry the biggest stick at the moment.

Fun fact of the day: the term 'gook' did not come out of Korea or Vietnam -- American Marines were using it to refer to natives of Haiti as far back as 1915.

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Here is a link to the Army Landwarrior system which uses ruggedized 4x1x8" dual-processor pentium systems to help foot soldiers. It's part of the Advanced Warfighting Experiment. The systems are encased in gel to ruggedize them, cool then and shock proof them.

The scary part - they run win 2k

Here is a link to the Army Landwarrior system which uses ruggedized 4x1x8" dual-processor pentium systems to help foot soldiers. It's part of the Advanced Warfighting Experiment. The systems are encased in gel to ruggedize them, cool then and shock proof them.

The scary part - they run win 2k

Therefore, the strategy is not to build the super-fort, the one that keeps bad guys out no matter what. That doesn't work.

Instead, modern thinking on security is all about layered defenses which raise the cost of attack to (hopefully) unacceptable levels to the attacker(s), as well as preserving flexability and resiliancy.

Although IANAMH (I am not a military historian), I have read enough to generally agree with these ideas. I don't disagree with Schneyer's main thesis, I just am not that surprised by it.

Here is a fairly interesting article called From Sandbags to Computers: What's New in Field Fortifications and Protective Structures. Maybe we can analogize some of modern military tactical theory to cyber-defense.

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In a hundred-mile march,

The reservoirs created by large dams can require massive relocations of existing settlers. An estimated 1.3 million people, for example, will be moved in order to accommodate the notorious Three Gorges dam project in China. Additionally, the reservoirs can obliterate archaeological sites.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, a major concern about dams is how they affect salmon populations, as described here: "The dams impede juvenile and adult migrations to and from the ocean by their physical presence and by creating reservoirs. The reservoirs behind the dams slow water velocities, alter river temperatures, and increase predation potential. Reduced water velocity increases the time it takes juveniles to migrate downstream, higher water temperatures may have adverse effects on juvenile and adult behavior, and predators find prey more easily in slower-moving water."

Some folks also claim that the reservoirs of large dams actually contribute more to greenhouse-gas emissions (if these are really anything to be concerned about) than coal plants due to the increased amount of decaying biomass.

Personally I'm hoping two developments will help solve the energy-generation question: (1) microgeneration with small gas turbines and (2) instantaneous market-driven pricing and smart controllers that will cut aggregate power consumption.

• Military Development (see section on "Infrasound")
• Article on Non-Lethal Weapons (see section on "Acoustics")
• Oh, just do your own Google search for this topic.

I think that because of the battery weights, the older bigger styles of cars may be better targets for diesel-electric hybrids. You have to haul a lot of battery with the current technologies.

Check out the US Army HumVee project here and a little more information here. Several minutes of dedicated web searching should turn up more informative links, but hear's the gist I remember from news stories:

• The original point was to reduce IR and noise signals, in particular to not have a good IR signal for a missile to home in on (but don't those electric motors get really hot ? anyway . . .)
• The batteries in the bed of the vehicle provided some protection from large anti-vehicle landmines (this might be wrong, I'm remembering it, it wasn't in the linked stories above)
• It could climb a steeper grade due to the weight of batteries lowering the center of mass
• Better fuel mileage
• better acceleration (I was surprised to learn that most electric motors can accelerate a car pretty well, if the car isn't loaded down with batteries to give it a decent range)
• smaller payload due to all that battery weight

I have wondered what kind of diesel generator they have. I wonder if you could do better than a piston engine with a small turbine whose rotors or blades were permanent magnents forming the armature of a high-speed generator.

Anyway, I would not mind having an econoline van with this type of setup on a smaller scale.

General Shinseki's statement on the future of the Army
The Army's Vision
In the first article General Shinseki's writes about the Interim Armored Vehicle which is the medium tank I spoke of in my previous post. These vehicles will help combine the current light and heavy forces into a medium force, the Brigade Combat Team. A force able to deploy anywhere in the world in 96 hours...

General Shinseki's statement on the future of the Army
The Army's Vision
In the first article General Shinseki's writes about the Interim Armored Vehicle which is the medium tank I spoke of in my previous post. These vehicles will help combine the current light and heavy forces into a medium force, the Brigade Combat Team. A force able to deploy anywhere in the world in 96 hours...

(Link is to the American (only one?) projext).

___________________

If you're coming to the library to do research, then unless you just happen to be researching porn or hate groups, you'll probably enjoy the fact that there's not someone on the computer across from you staring at women in all sorts of unnatural positions.

Hrmm, Lets take a look at some of the popular "hate groups" these various blocking software blocks, shall we?

National Organization for Women
Covenant of the Goddess and The Witches Voice, Wicca is a nationaly recognized religion in the US
Yahoo Search Engine
MIT Project on Mathematics and Computation
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratories
The University of Arizona
Stonewall Inc., gourmet coffees, teas, food and gifts.
...and of course...
Peacefire, A site telling people how to disable this blocking software

The problem with commercial blocking software is the lists of blocked sites are not published, and often contain OVERBLOCKS, Stonewall Inc is blocked under the "Gay Sites" area of Cyberpatrol, but it has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality.

This is the reason we need to keep these "filters" out of our libraries and schools.

-- iCEBaLM

"The US Army leadership culture will need to evolve to deal with a different type of soldier. Currently, those professionals who best understand emerging IT find a hostile climate in the services. People adept at using the new technology are ridiculed as being "nerds" or "geeks" and not true soldiers. However, 21st-century Army leaders need to recognize that moving and shooting apply to the information medium as well. When the fog and friction of combat begin to stress the information systems, a successful leader needs to be technically proficient to continue the mission with degraded systems and improvise new solutions."

("If you can hack, Uncle Sam wants YOU!")

Any /.ers who think that the military is just for testosterone-crazed lunkheads should also take a look at some of these papers. Yeah, the pay sucks compared to Silicon Valley IPO-mania, and it's a "government job" in the sense of a lot of regulation and what-not, but there's still a lot of fascinating work, both on a technological ("look at this neat tool!") and human ("how can we get more out of our people and processes") related, going on, and there are some really smart people working their asses off on it.

Many of the principles the military is trying to encourage can be applied directly to business. Place your "Natural killers" in positions where they can slay your competitors. (They sound perfect for marketing and sales!) Make sure your support personnel aren't just $5/hour drones who say "try rebooting and reinstalling Windows", but that they've got the clue to figure stuff out for your customers when the chips are down. Lead your company or your team, or find someone who can - so you can let them do the leading while you develop the cool technology without having to worry about the day-to-day hassles of management.

And back to the original topic of the Spartans at Thermopylae - I once heard that the Klingons of Star Trek were loosely based on the warriors of feudal Japan. I think we've pretty much dispelled that myth today, and made sure that the book review more than qualifies as "news for nerds" :-)

"A natural killer is a person who has a predisposition to kill--he enjoys combat and feels little or no remorse about killing the enemy. These men have existed throughout the history of warfare, and their feats have often been hailed as heroic. They constitute less than 4 percent of the force, yet some studies show that they do almost half of the killing."

Fascinating. Looks like the spartans were able to condense those few into a single elite unit.

but this also raises some interesting questions about Our system of social values, since the military naturally wants certains values in people that are not always the best ones to have in a peaceful society.

I used to wonder about why there should be rules of engagement until I was issued this book during Officer Training. War is horrible, but as we have demonstrated time and again, we will continue to wage it. In order to extricate our sorry asses from it, we need to be able to trust each just enough to render an end to such a conflict.

Ruses of war are legitimate so long as they do not involve treachery or perfidy on the part of the belligerent resorting to them. They are, however, forbidden if they contravene any generally accepted rule.

The line of demarcation between legitimate ruses and forbidden acts of perfidy is sometimes indistinct, but the following examples indicate the correct principles. It would be an improper practice to secure an advantage of the enemy by deliberate lying or misleading conduct which involves a breach of faith, or when there is a moral obligation to speak the truth. For example, it is improper to feign surrender so as to secure an advantage over the opposing belligerent thereby. So similarly, to broadcast to the enemy that an armistice had been agreed upon when such is not the case would be treacherous. On the other hand, it is a perfectly proper ruse to summon a force to surrender on the ground that it is surrounded and thereby induce such surrender with a small force.

Treacherous or perfidious conduct in war is forbidden because it destroys the basis for a restoration of peace short of the complete annihilation of one belligerent by the other.

I used to wonder about why there should be rules of engagement until I was issued this book during Officer Training. War is horrible, but as we have demonstrated time and again, we will continue to wage it. In order to extricate our sorry asses from it, we need to be able to trust each just enough to render an end to such a conflict.

Ruses of war are legitimate so long as they do not involve treachery or perfidy on the part of the belligerent resorting to them. They are, however, forbidden if they contravene any generally accepted rule.

The line of demarcation between legitimate ruses and forbidden acts of perfidy is sometimes indistinct, but the following examples indicate the correct principles. It would be an improper practice to secure an advantage of the enemy by deliberate lying or misleading conduct which involves a breach of faith, or when there is a moral obligation to speak the truth. For example, it is improper to feign surrender so as to secure an advantage over the opposing belligerent thereby. So similarly, to broadcast to the enemy that an armistice had been agreed upon when such is not the case would be treacherous. On the other hand, it is a perfectly proper ruse to summon a force to surrender on the ground that it is surrounded and thereby induce such surrender with a small force.

Treacherous or perfidious conduct in war is forbidden because it destroys the basis for a restoration of peace short of the complete annihilation of one belligerent by the other.

• Services that require RT service levels, and thus run at a higher level than any Linux code.
• Services that do not require RT guarantees that may thus run as Linux processes.

It's probably fair to say that things like eCos, RTEMS, VX-Works, and QNX should not worry too much about Linux; if the application involves life-and-death control issues, I'd rather prefer to use one of those. In critical cases, the maker of an embedded system will have source code access, whatever the cost.

But there is certainly room for Linux to crowd out lower grade things like WinCE in less critical "Soft RT" applications where the cost of the solution is a critical factor.

I'm not quite sure if I have this right, but I believe that one of the nuclear disarmament treaties the US holds with the former USSR specifically allows an ABM facility to be placed in North Dakota and nowhere else.

I won't get into the little economic-political debates with any Alaskans on /., but North Dakota does make a lot of sense. First, we're in the middle of North America, providing equal coverage to both coasts. An Alaskan installation would cover Hawaii but wouldn't be able to cover the east coast as effectively.

Additionally anyone who has ever visited northeastern North Dakota has seen the relatively massive Airforce presence in the region. Though most lay empty, the state is dotted with nuclear missle silos, enough where (I think) North Dakota would have been the world's 3rd largest nuclear power if the state had seceded. Then there is the still functioning Cavalier Air Station which watchers the north pole for incoming nukes... And one cannot forget the abandoned but friggin cool Nekoma installation whose purpose actually was ABM. [Picture - Best I Could Find]

From http://www.redstone.army.m il/history/vigilant/chap4.html

SAFEGUARD

The parallel mission responsibility of ARADCOM to develop and deploy a ballistic missile defense system for CONUS was continued until the functions were assumed by the Ballistic Missile Defense Program Manager on September 3, 1974.

This September 3 handoff from ARADCOM to the program manager preceded, by 13 months, the date that the SAFEGUARD complex in North Dakota became operational. This complex, called the Mickelsen Complex after ARADCOM 's third commanding general, Lt. Gen. Stanley R. Mickelsen, was located 100 miles northwest of Grand Forks. Its reason for being was to defend 150 Minuteman missiles located nearby and to provide a "light" defense of the upper-Midwest of the continent against ballistic missile attack.

Donald Baucom gives a succinct description of the Mickelsen complex in his book, The Origins of SDI: In a number of ways, the Mickelsen facility was a technological marvel. The 80-foot-tall truncated pyramid that housed the antennas for the MSR dominated the flat landscape around the town of Nekoma. The structure's four-foot-thick concrete walls were sloped at a 35-degree angle to provide hardening against the effects of nuclear blast. Each sloping surface of the pyramid held a radar antenna that was 13 feet in diameter and contained five thousand phased-array elements.

The four faces of the MSR allowed it to search for targets coming from all directions, and it could acquire these targets at a range of 300 miles. The MSR worked in conjunction with a PAR near Cavalier, North Dakota, 25 miles northeast of the missile Site. This was also a phased-array radar, but it was designed to search in only one direction - toward the north. In the event of a Soviet attack, the PAR would detect incoming missiles at a range of I 800 miles, about the time the warheads were passing over the North Pole. Detection at this range would allow only six minutes to plan the battle against the approaching reentry vehicles. Computers associated with the PAR would determine the trajectory of incoming missiles and pass the information to the MSR for control of the defensive missiles that would attack the warheads.

Two types of missiles were employed in the SAFEGUARD system. The high-altitude SPARTAN missile was built by McDonnell Douglas. It was a three-stage, solid-propellant rocket armed with a nuclear warhead that killed warheads by blast and X-rays that were lethal to warheads several miles away. SPARTAN was 55 feet long. The second missile, SPRINT, was a marvel of aeronautics and space technology. Built by Martin Marietta, it was designed to operate at hypersonic speeds in the earth's atmosphere; at its top speed, the missile's skin became hotter than the interior of its rocket motor and glowed incandescently. If one somehow could have trained an acetylene torch on the nose of the missile at this speed, the hot gases of the torch would have cooled the nose. The electronic components of the SPRINT were designed to withstand accelerations of 100 times gravity. The missile was 27 feet long, consisted of two stages, and used solid fuel. Like SPARTAN, SPRINT carried a nuclear warhead.

Together these missiles provided a "layered" defense. SPARTAN was designed to attack the incoming "threat cloud" of warheads, boosters and decoys while it was still above the atmosphere. SPRINT would then attack surviving warheads after they had penetrated the atmosphere where the resistance and friction of the air would separate the warheads from decoys and booster debris.

Also, from http://www.dlcppi.org/TEXTS/FOREIGN/MISSILE.HTM

Nothing in the ABM Treaty prohibits the United States from reactivating the Nekoma ABM base. Nor is the United States prevented from destroying the Nekoma facilities and building a new ABM site in a location near an ICBM deployment area. One could be chosen to provide better coverage of the contiguous 48 states than could be achieved from North Dakota. The United States also has the option to move its single site to a location within 150 kilometers (km) of Washington, DC. If well-chosen, such a deployment might protect a small fraction of the American population against a few nuclear warheads.

So there's the history, at least. BTW, some of you may be wonderinghow I could just pull this knowledge from the ether--The brother-in-law of an ex-girlfriend of mine was stationed at the Cavalier Air Station. Supposedly, he played Quake all day. Makes you feel really safe, doesn't it? :-)

White Sands has a few neat movies, the THAAD ones show missiles blowing up other ones. Very cool. White Sands Movies

Looks like this guy(?) flipz has been pretty busy lately. He(?) got into the Department of Veterans Affairs (hack) site, the US Army Reserve Command (hack) and even the White Sands Missle Range (hack) site. They're all NT boxen. I'm no expert or nuthin, but I betcha there might be some common NT security flaw he(?)'s exploiting. All the sites mention his(?) love f0bic. I wonder how she(?) feels about this.

Attrition.org's mirrors

Looks like this guy(?) flipz has been pretty busy lately. He(?) got into the Department of Veterans Affairs (hack) site, the US Army Reserve Command (hack) and even the White Sands Missle Range (hack) site. They're all NT boxen. I'm no expert or nuthin, but I betcha there might be some common NT security flaw he(?)'s exploiting. All the sites mention his(?) love f0bic. I wonder how she(?) feels about this.

Attrition.org's mirrors

Speaking as a layperson, is it the tools that characterise cyberterrorism or the intent of the individual/group/state that matters? Take a look at Peters' "Our New Old Enemies." Summer 1999 of Parameters. pp. 22-37 for some background.

It is easy to focus on the big baddies like chemical, biological, nuclear weapons as they are tangible tools and computer/communications infrastructure is going to occupy a Frankenstein niche for a while until people realise to balance between potential risks and rewards (after all we still use cars despite the high road carnage). Judging from history though, I would guess that white collar crime by individuals or small groups would be much more likely than state-sponsored subversion as the economic payoffs are much more obvious and direct. To postulate one example, the electricity market is shifting towards greater deregulation and adopting the use of complex derivatives to smooth out the supply/demand curves. Speculation becomes a moral risk if you know or even prearrange certain effects such as sabotaging a critical transmission pylon and clean up on placing a "sure" bet. Expanding this to a mass scale as in an entire industry sector or nation is much harder as it becomes beyond the means and abilities of individuals. The more people that know, the more likely something will slip up leading to discovery and nullation.

Most of the current transnational conflicts at the moment tend to be between states of low-medium technological sophistication. Despite trade friction and rhetoric, it's hard to see 2 first world countries like say Canada and US slagging it out, especially given the high level of C4I capabilities. Given today's modern capital markets, any signs of potential political conflict leads to rather rapid flight of money and vocal outcries from the citizens. However, unscrupulous subgroups may elect to target high capacity limited infrastructure (e.g. robot subs to cut underwater cables) if they think they could get away with it.

The only two other groups I can think of that would have the motive and mindset for mass disruption through cyberterrorism would be closed religious or fanatical groups whose value systems are so out of sync with mainstream that they feel threatened enough to take as much of the world with them as they "go under". The other would be individuals or companies on the fringe of legal juristictions deploying modern equivalents of extortion (threatening to disrupt business or services), theft (altering electronic records of property rights such as land titles or share quity ownership), fraud (diverting goods/money to different addresses), or systematic standover tactics to control and maintain monopoly profits (wreck reputations, steal customers by price dumping, fostering unwanted goods by scare-mongering, hire/scare away talented staff, etc). Old tactics in new guises and using computer leverage to accelerate the process. The biggest problem is that the larger it becomes, the more visible a target the group becomes to law enforcement agencies which, if necessary, can redefine what is lawful to control perceived excesses (e.g. RICO act against mob). IT is only a step up from indust rial espionage to industrial sabotage. For example, supposing someone wanted to compete against Amazon or Ebay, then by hiring insiders to sabotage equipment or arms-length outsiders to disrupt activities, can gain a temporary advantage. You can extend this to more critical and irreplaceable functions like financial clearance houses, genetic/fingerprint banks, blood records, tax history (now that would be an interesting target), credit checks, pension funds, international settlements, GPS maps etc. The other nasty trick is to insert fake data such as insurance scams then collecting on fake policies, falsify employment/death records to gain benefits, rig electronic lottery/gambling events, etc. However, this would require systematic planning and quite detailed inside process knowledge which would cut down on the list of suspects.

Mass terror, on the other hand, as a random and emotional act to demonstrate the lack of control and powerlessness of governments is IMHO harder to scale up to. The AIDS epidemic, while quite hyped by the press has settled into the background on the media horizon which shows that it is difficult to sustain a fear campaign across a wide geographical and temporal scope (even guns is an intermitent issue). The fear of nanotechnology (a la grey gloop) or the equivalent of the blob is probably a little too fanciful for the average joe unlike the persistant public fear of mutual assured destruction where everyone could look at the result of Japan. After all, turning a threat into execution is rather irreversible as it is hard to extort advantage from people that have reverted to stone age and any ongoing nebulous threat could quite likely be nullified given the usual capitalistic incentives. A series of ongoing semi-random cyber-attacks could be one possibility as it would force a country to spend on costly defences in depth across a range of infrastructure such that the economic costs are high enough to hurt. But being deprived of their MTV or other creature comforts is not the same as being physically threatened by fertiliser bombs so I suspect people (outside computer security experts) would eventually become rather blase about it. If the terror is suppose to obtain a political end, the sheer stubbonness of the human mind (e.g. reaction to bombing in Ireland) is enough to cause enough backlash to twart the original aim and thus force resolution through the normal political process.

On the other hand, it is much more feasible for a high-tech country to threaten or dominate a low-tech one (who knows that self-destruct signals are in the microchip they ship?) as the information asymmetry creates a significant disadvantage. From the point of view of the smaller country, cyberterrorism is probably all too real. Unforunately, technology is no substitute for trust.

LL

Speaking as a layperson, is it the tools that characterise cyberterrorism or the intent of the individual/group/state that matters? Take a look at Peters' "Our New Old Enemies." Summer 1999 of Parameters. pp. 22-37 for some background.

It is easy to focus on the big baddies like chemical, biological, nuclear weapons as they are tangible tools and computer/communications infrastructure is going to occupy a Frankenstein niche for a while until people realise to balance between potential risks and rewards (after all we still use cars despite the high road carnage). Judging from history though, I would guess that white collar crime by individuals or small groups would be much more likely than state-sponsored subversion as the economic payoffs are much more obvious and direct. To postulate one example, the electricity market is shifting towards greater deregulation and adopting the use of complex derivatives to smooth out the supply/demand curves. Speculation becomes a moral risk if you know or even prearrange certain effects such as sabotaging a critical transmission pylon and clean up on placing a "sure" bet. Expanding this to a mass scale as in an entire industry sector or nation is much harder as it becomes beyond the means and abilities of individuals. The more people that know, the more likely something will slip up leading to discovery and nullation.

Most of the current transnational conflicts at the moment tend to be between states of low-medium technological sophistication. Despite trade friction and rhetoric, it's hard to see 2 first world countries like say Canada and US slagging it out, especially given the high level of C4I capabilities. Given today's modern capital markets, any signs of potential political conflict leads to rather rapid flight of money and vocal outcries from the citizens. However, unscrupulous subgroups may elect to target high capacity limited infrastructure (e.g. robot subs to cut underwater cables) if they think they could get away with it.

The only two other groups I can think of that would have the motive and mindset for mass disruption through cyberterrorism would be closed religious or fanatical groups whose value systems are so out of sync with mainstream that they feel threatened enough to take as much of the world with them as they "go under". The other would be individuals or companies on the fringe of legal juristictions deploying modern equivalents of extortion (threatening to disrupt business or services), theft (altering electronic records of property rights such as land titles or share quity ownership), fraud (diverting goods/money to different addresses), or systematic standover tactics to control and maintain monopoly profits (wreck reputations, steal customers by price dumping, fostering unwanted goods by scare-mongering, hire/scare away talented staff, etc). Old tactics in new guises and using computer leverage to accelerate the process. The biggest problem is that the larger it becomes, the more visible a target the group becomes to law enforcement agencies which, if necessary, can redefine what is lawful to control perceived excesses (e.g. RICO act against mob). IT is only a step up from indust rial espionage to industrial sabotage. For example, supposing someone wanted to compete against Amazon or Ebay, then by hiring insiders to sabotage equipment or arms-length outsiders to disrupt activities, can gain a temporary advantage. You can extend this to more critical and irreplaceable functions like financial clearance houses, genetic/fingerprint banks, blood records, tax history (now that would be an interesting target), credit checks, pension funds, international settlements, GPS maps etc. The other nasty trick is to insert fake data such as insurance scams then collecting on fake policies, falsify employment/death records to gain benefits, rig electronic lottery/gambling events, etc. However, this would require systematic planning and quite detailed inside process knowledge which would cut down on the list of suspects.

Mass terror, on the other hand, as a random and emotional act to demonstrate the lack of control and powerlessness of governments is IMHO harder to scale up to. The AIDS epidemic, while quite hyped by the press has settled into the background on the media horizon which shows that it is difficult to sustain a fear campaign across a wide geographical and temporal scope (even guns is an intermitent issue). The fear of nanotechnology (a la grey gloop) or the equivalent of the blob is probably a little too fanciful for the average joe unlike the persistant public fear of mutual assured destruction where everyone could look at the result of Japan. After all, turning a threat into execution is rather irreversible as it is hard to extort advantage from people that have reverted to stone age and any ongoing nebulous threat could quite likely be nullified given the usual capitalistic incentives. A series of ongoing semi-random cyber-attacks could be one possibility as it would force a country to spend on costly defences in depth across a range of infrastructure such that the economic costs are high enough to hurt. But being deprived of their MTV or other creature comforts is not the same as being physically threatened by fertiliser bombs so I suspect people (outside computer security experts) would eventually become rather blase about it. If the terror is suppose to obtain a political end, the sheer stubbonness of the human mind (e.g. reaction to bombing in Ireland) is enough to cause enough backlash to twart the original aim and thus force resolution through the normal political process.

On the other hand, it is much more feasible for a high-tech country to threaten or dominate a low-tech one (who knows that self-destruct signals are in the microchip they ship?) as the information asymmetry creates a significant disadvantage. From the point of view of the smaller country, cyberterrorism is probably all too real. Unforunately, technology is no substitute for trust.

LL

Speaking as a layperson, is it the tools that characterise cyberterrorism or the intent of the individual/group/state that matters? Take a look at Peters' "Our New Old Enemies." Summer 1999 of Parameters. pp. 22-37 for some background.

It is easy to focus on the big baddies like chemical, biological, nuclear weapons as they are tangible tools and computer/communications infrastructure is going to occupy a Frankenstein niche for a while until people realise to balance between potential risks and rewards (after all we still use cars despite the high road carnage). Judging from history though, I would guess that white collar crime by individuals or small groups would be much more likely than state-sponsored subversion as the economic payoffs are much more obvious and direct. To postulate one example, the electricity market is shifting towards greater deregulation and adopting the use of complex derivatives to smooth out the supply/demand curves. Speculation becomes a moral risk if you know or even prearrange certain effects such as sabotaging a critical transmission pylon and clean up on placing a "sure" bet. Expanding this to a mass scale as in an entire industry sector or nation is much harder as it becomes beyond the means and abilities of individuals. The more people that know, the more likely something will slip up leading to discovery and nullation.

Most of the current transnational conflicts at the moment tend to be between states of low-medium technological sophistication. Despite trade friction and rhetoric, it's hard to see 2 first world countries like say Canada and US slagging it out, especially given the high level of C4I capabilities. Given today's modern capital markets, any signs of potential political conflict leads to rather rapid flight of money and vocal outcries from the citizens. However, unscrupulous subgroups may elect to target high capacity limited infrastructure (e.g. robot subs to cut underwater cables) if they think they could get away with it.

The only two other groups I can think of that would have the motive and mindset for mass disruption through cyberterrorism would be closed religious or fanatical groups whose value systems are so out of sync with mainstream that they feel threatened enough to take as much of the world with them as they "go under". The other would be individuals or companies on the fringe of legal juristictions deploying modern equivalents of extortion (threatening to disrupt business or services), theft (altering electronic records of property rights such as land titles or share quity ownership), fraud (diverting goods/money to different addresses), or systematic standover tactics to control and maintain monopoly profits (wreck reputations, steal customers by price dumping, fostering unwanted goods by scare-mongering, hire/scare away talented staff, etc). Old tactics in new guises and using computer leverage to accelerate the process. The biggest problem is that the larger it becomes, the more visible a target the group becomes to law enforcement agencies which, if necessary, can redefine what is lawful to control perceived excesses (e.g. RICO act against mob). IT is only a step up from indust rial espionage to industrial sabotage. For example, supposing someone wanted to compete against Amazon or Ebay, then by hiring insiders to sabotage equipment or arms-length outsiders to disrupt activities, can gain a temporary advantage. You can extend this to more critical and irreplaceable functions like financial clearance houses, genetic/fingerprint banks, blood records, tax history (now that would be an interesting target), credit checks, pension funds, international settlements, GPS maps etc. The other nasty trick is to insert fake data such as insurance scams then collecting on fake policies, falsify employment/death records to gain benefits, rig electronic lottery/gambling events, etc. However, this would require systematic planning and quite detailed inside process knowledge which would cut down on the list of suspects.

Mass terror, on the other hand, as a random and emotional act to demonstrate the lack of control and powerlessness of governments is IMHO harder to scale up to. The AIDS epidemic, while quite hyped by the press has settled into the background on the media horizon which shows that it is difficult to sustain a fear campaign across a wide geographical and temporal scope (even guns is an intermitent issue). The fear of nanotechnology (a la grey gloop) or the equivalent of the blob is probably a little too fanciful for the average joe unlike the persistant public fear of mutual assured destruction where everyone could look at the result of Japan. After all, turning a threat into execution is rather irreversible as it is hard to extort advantage from people that have reverted to stone age and any ongoing nebulous threat could quite likely be nullified given the usual capitalistic incentives. A series of ongoing semi-random cyber-attacks could be one possibility as it would force a country to spend on costly defences in depth across a range of infrastructure such that the economic costs are high enough to hurt. But being deprived of their MTV or other creature comforts is not the same as being physically threatened by fertiliser bombs so I suspect people (outside computer security experts) would eventually become rather blase about it. If the terror is suppose to obtain a political end, the sheer stubbonness of the human mind (e.g. reaction to bombing in Ireland) is enough to cause enough backlash to twart the original aim and thus force resolution through the normal political process.

On the other hand, it is much more feasible for a high-tech country to threaten or dominate a low-tech one (who knows that self-destruct signals are in the microchip they ship?) as the information asymmetry creates a significant disadvantage. From the point of view of the smaller country, cyberterrorism is probably all too real. Unforunately, technology is no substitute for trust.

LL

Just wanted to note that the Peters article is excellent- well worth the time to read it.

I'd hate to rain on anyone's parade but wouldn't this military wet dream be superfluous? Let's suppose I'm one of these countries with tac-nukes. Why would I bother announcing the launch site and invite retaliation by using balistic missiles? Better still, just to ship it into a anonymous cargo hauler and detonate it within some strategic harbor or even Panama canal. That way the source (assuming you can disguise the origin of the manufactured weapon) can be anonymous. Given the gung-ho way the US been acting around the world in the last few decades, I'm sure there's no shortage of splinter or fanatic groups to spread the net of suspicion. If people are interested in the military mindset, take a look at their parameters magazine, in particular the article by Peters on "Our New Old Enemies". Very interesting.

People don't go to war for no good reason. If you create a threat, then people will respond in kind. Defining enemies through an arms race might be good for the military-industrial complex (correct me if I'm wrong ... I believe US and Britain are still the largest exporters of arms) but does little to create long-term goodwill. Exporting organised violence seems to be a self-fufilling prophency as it propagates a climate of fear. Afterall, if you think someone is an enemy. then what are the chances that every action you perceive is hostile? Psychopaths are not the only people with a warped mind-view, a entire culture can be infected in rather subtle but destructive ways (Andy Grove "Only the Paranoid Surive", Bill Gates "Technogy is great, but 90% market share is better"). Very successful but at what cost?

This century has seen 2 world wars, numerous regional conflicts and ongoing bushfires. I would hope the next century has a better record.

LL

I'd hate to rain on anyone's parade but wouldn't this military wet dream be superfluous? Let's suppose I'm one of these countries with tac-nukes. Why would I bother announcing the launch site and invite retaliation by using balistic missiles? Better still, just to ship it into a anonymous cargo hauler and detonate it within some strategic harbor or even Panama canal. That way the source (assuming you can disguise the origin of the manufactured weapon) can be anonymous. Given the gung-ho way the US been acting around the world in the last few decades, I'm sure there's no shortage of splinter or fanatic groups to spread the net of suspicion. If people are interested in the military mindset, take a look at their parameters magazine, in particular the article by Peters on "Our New Old Enemies". Very interesting.

People don't go to war for no good reason. If you create a threat, then people will respond in kind. Defining enemies through an arms race might be good for the military-industrial complex (correct me if I'm wrong ... I believe US and Britain are still the largest exporters of arms) but does little to create long-term goodwill. Exporting organised violence seems to be a self-fufilling prophency as it propagates a climate of fear. Afterall, if you think someone is an enemy. then what are the chances that every action you perceive is hostile? Psychopaths are not the only people with a warped mind-view, a entire culture can be infected in rather subtle but destructive ways (Andy Grove "Only the Paranoid Surive", Bill Gates "Technogy is great, but 90% market share is better"). Very successful but at what cost?

This century has seen 2 world wars, numerous regional conflicts and ongoing bushfires. I would hope the next century has a better record.

LL