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Bush Orders Guidelines for Cyber-Warfare

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the code-red dept.

Jeremiah writes "The pending Iraqi war promises to deliver quite the display of modern, smart technology well beyond what we saw in '91. President Bush recently ordered the development of rules for cyber engagement by the military. Beyond the numerous special forces on the ground like in Afganistan, the US will use soldiers in office chairs to disrupt Iraqi infrastructure."

16 of 526 comments (clear)

  1. My question... by mmol_6453 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Are these going to apply to United States citizens?

    Are these going to apply to people operating in the US?

    Are the info-soldiers within the US?

    Are these going to be subject to constitutional limitations?

    --
    What's this Submit thingy do?
  2. Posting as AC since I'm in this line of work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you attend US military conferences, you know that they're quite proud of their CND (computer network defence) ability, but refuse to comment on their CNA (computer network attack) capability. That's partly because they had no RoE.

    In fact, some other industrialized nations are pushing for CNA to be considered a weapon of mass destruction, since the effects of most viruses and DDoSes can't be predicted until they're launched (your attack on a power plant takes out a hospital...and another...and another).

    As for Iraq's dependence on the 'net, don't think about SAM batteries with IP addresses. Think about Info Ops. Think Wag the Dog. Think about pro-Iraqi websites suddenly "reporting" US victories. Or US sites suddenly being "attacked", giving the FBI justification to round up those Iraqi-Americans on its watch list.

    Far-fetched? Right about the time that the latest Osama video was being "authenticated", a senior US officer was bragging to me about how advanced their video morphing technology was getting.

  3. Re:Now remember who's writing this... by Melantha_Bacchae · · Score: 2, Interesting

    IPFreely wrote:

    > With Bush and co writing it, it will probably work a lot like this:
    >
    > 1. We (the Bush administration) can do anything we want to anyone else.
    > 2. Noone can not do anything at all to us (the Bush administration).
    > 3. Americans, including American companies, can do anything they want to any foreign country, company or person.
    > 4. No foreign country, company or person can do anything to any american person or company.

    Sadly, we are America, land of the free and home of the brave, no longer.

    Now, we are Rolithica, land of the corrupt and home of the greedy. We are the world's greatest superpower, and none can defeat our nuclear might.

    No, there is one power greater: Great Mothra, the invincible Goddess of Peace! Our greatest weapons are like the bite of a mosquito to her. She is coming to rescue her fairies: Ladies Liberty and Justice.

    "The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
    Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)

  4. Re:My, You ARE parochial, aren't you. by JahToasted · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I think you missed the point... When the Microwave links were DESTROYED by bombing, the team representing Iraq was expected to use cell phones instead (which would be intercepted). But after the microwave links were destroyed, they used low tech methods, like motorcycle couriers. The Team representing the US forces lost the wargame, for this and other reasons.

    Kinda reminds me of the simpsons episodes where the air force had to intercept the wright brother's plane, but couldn't because it was moving too slow. The US has spent the last half a century preparing for a war against a technologically advanced superpower, they are totally unprepared for fighting against WWI level tech.

  5. Re:I hope for the sake of your boys ... by KingJoshi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So if people disagree with you, they're kowtowing to propaganda, but if they agree with you, then they're smart, thinking individuals? Have you considered that you could've fallen to propaganda while the other side are smart thinking individuals?

    In reality, it's not a binary situation. Iraq has deceived the U.N. for over a decade. They do have chemical and biological weapons. The degree of cooperation with Al Queda and progress of nuclear weapons is debatable. One extreme wants to go to war as quickly as possible and remove Saddam and install American leadership. Another extreme wants to avoid war at all costs and will let Saddam get away with anything.

    Most are inbetween. They know there is compelling evidence, but not sure if it's enough to start war now or if all the options have been tried. However, most know that unless Saddam truely cooperates, containment from nuclear weapons will not work. North Korea is close or already has them and the Clinton Administration had a framework to prevent that. Saddam is more ruthless and not as desperate for aid as the North Koreans. How much effort and how many deceptions are the Germans, French and others willing to put up with before they also say, okay, Saddam, you've had enough chances?

    I don't like Bush and disagree with most of his policies. I don't know if war is called for right now and enough options have been covered. But each passing day, Saddam continues to defy the world and the world just takes it. The U.N. is supposed to prevent that too.

    --
    In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
  6. International Cyberwarfare by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What are the cyber-warfare plans of OTHER countries? Is America in the lead on getting organized on this?

    I just happened to spend time last week at a talk given by an Army Intelligence officer (keep in mind that the Army does about the least amount of high-tech crap of any of the armed forces).

    Basically, there's only one country with major cyberwarfare plans, and it's China. China maintains a standing segment of its army trained specifically in cyberwarfare, and actively conducts research in it. We have far fewer resources in this than China does.

    --
    May we never see th
  7. Smart? by Orlando · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The pending Iraqi war promises to deliver quite the display of modern, smart technology well beyond what we saw in '91.

    Smart enough to know the difference between enemy soldiers and a wedding party?

    --
    -= This is a self-referential sig =-
  8. Re:An addition to the Geneva connection... by glesga_kiss · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I doubt <snip> that Iraq will have enough connected systems to really do any good.

    That's because we have been DOSing them for the last ten years already. A DOS from a ping flood or an air strike has pretty much the same effect, although it's a bit easier to reboot a crashed server than try to dig it out of the crater.

  9. Good for opensource by Tyreth · · Score: 4, Interesting
    For other countries who fear a US attack, this could be a great reason for them to pursue open source software. There is more chance of them identifying flaws so long as they keep their machines up to date.

    They can fix problems quickly. They will not rely on the software of the country attacking them.

  10. TLD by craw · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm going after the admin of the Iraq (.iq) TLD!. No, wait.

  11. Re:Now remember who's writing this... by eglamkowski · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's interesting to note that many of those 20+ countries supporting us are from eastern europe. Probably trying to score brownie points with the USA :-)

    But then, who really cares about French opposition? I mean, they didn't bother to go to the UN or the international community themselves before intervening in the Ivory Coast, they just unilateraly sent troops there to protect their interests. Nobody is criticizing the French over this, or pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of it vis-a-vis their opposition to US action in Iraq. "Do as I say, not as I do." Whatever.

    I'm quite divided on the Iraq war myself - on the one hand it does seem fairly obvious Bush is pushing it as a matter of family honor.

    But on the other hand, Hussein *HAS* been in violation of every single UN resolution against him for the past 12 years, and what good is the UN if it won't enforce its own resolutions? Bush is merely trying to make the UN actually relevent and is entirely within bounds to pursue the matter.

    Hmm....

    Anyways, I agree that since we are going to war at this point, we should do what we can to take out the enemy C3 infrastructure, and if we can do any amount of it by "hacking", so much the better.

    --
    Government IS the problem.
  12. Re:Curious by fain0v · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Is Kevin Mitnick getting one of those chairs ?"

    Only if you mean the chair that is set in front of a tribual for prosecuting cyber war criminals.

    "There are questions about collateral damage," Clarke said. As an example, he cited the possibility that a computer attack on an electric power grid, intended to pull the plug on military facilities, might end up turning off electricity to hospitals on the same network.

    Who knows, the government might need a scapegoat.

  13. Re:Something Awful Wasnt Far Off!! by Rojo^ · · Score: 3, Interesting
    It bothers me that you think the U.S. is going to war for oil. Ernie at Ernie's House of Whoopass sums it up best.
    I speak now to the clueless imbeciles who say, "Iraw doesn't have any weapons of mass destruction -- that's why the US can't produce any proof that they do!" Listen closely now, because I'm only going to say this one time. Ya ready?

    You stupid fuck.

    Yeah produce proof for the world to see, that's what we need to do. That'd kind of shortsighted thinking has gotten our asses into hot water before, and if we make the same mistake here, we'll just be setting ourselves up for more devastating terrorist attacks in the future. Hey, wanna know the last time the US was forced into revealing secret evidence just to win the world opinion? After the bombing of the American and Israeli embassies in Manila back in 1994, we had to reveal taped phone conversations to support the indictment of the bombers. So classified recordings of conversations between Osama and his dipshit followers saying things like, "Hell yeah we did it", along with the knowledge that the US had these advanced eavesdropping capabilities, were laid bare for the scrutinizing eyes of the world, both friend and foe alike.

    You see Osama was using encrypted satellite phones which were supposedly 100% secure and impervous to electronic eavesdropping -- probably the only reason he felt comfortable enough to openly admit this connections to the planning and execution of the bombings. And until the tapes were released he didn't know that US surveillance could tap into his secure phones, so he thought he was safe and discussed his business without reservation. So guess what? Ever since then we haven't been able to eavesdrop on any of his phone conversations, because there haven't been any. Knowing his phones were compromised, he abandoned them in favor of "word to ear" communications and in doing so took away one of our best abilities to defend against future terror attacks.

    If the secure phone tapping advantage wasn't given up, would we have had enough of a warning to prevent Sept 11th? Well, it's kind of a stretch, but I suppose it's certainly conceivable. We didn't have any warning about the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania back in 1998. Or the USS Cole bombings that killed 17 sailors just three years ago. Both of which were the handiwork of Osama and his Al Queda brethren.

    So now we are forced to publicly show evidence on Iraq, and potentially lose another advantage in the war of information, all to appease the peaceniks who say there's no reason to invade Iraq. Kids, I'm here to tell ya the proof is there. We ain't getting all dressed up for this because some balloonheads think G.W. has a score to settle for his pappy, we're getting dressed up because there's a reason. I just hope we don't have to sell our souls to the devil again, just so the fucking French and the rest of the Europeans don't have to sneer when they say "Bah, American cowboys."
    For the record, we aren't going to war. We haven't been in a war since WW2. This is a police action, enforcing maybe not international law, but justice nonetheless. Saddam has lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, been consistently evasive and obstinate in his compliance with U.N. inspectors, and even gone so far as to threaten to use his non-existant weapons on the U.S.

    I've rambled enough about this. Someone else take over. Time for a smoke break.
    --
    <:
  14. Re:An addition to the Geneva connection... by milo_Gwalthny · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Of course, if they are using Windows, we could easily cripple their entire country by having Microsoft do a full-scale software license audit. That would keep most of their government personnel tied up for months, at least. Much more effective than weapons inspectors. Plus, what are the chances they are actually complying?

    --
    Milo
  15. Secret Ops by kirn_malinus · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'd heard that they were concerned about the possibility of "fail safe" switches going off when attacking installations that have weapons of mass destruction. The concern was that if these installations were severed from communication with Baghdad the weapons would automatically be launched.

    This article says "an administration official ... declined to confirm or deny whether such planning was underway," possibly because planning is done and the attack has already begun? Think about it - if they want to overcome these fail safes, what's the best way to do it? Break into the systems that initiate/run them and disable them before the physical attacks even begin. So that would make such electronic attacks part of the preperation and planning for physical attacks.

    If they plan on attacking physically in under six months (and I think Bush does, or at least would like to), then they would probably be breaking into the systems right now...

    --
    All circuits busy.
  16. Re:I Like How the Article Begins... by UncleGizmo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's only page 1 of econ 101 stuff. I'm sure in your statistics classes, you learned about how to look at numbers in different ways. On a pure dollar basis, the rich pay the majority of taxes. But as a percentage of money they earn, it's much more even across income levels [IIRC, the NYT had an article on this recently, although I'm too lazy to look it up].

    But even if you want to complain that you pay too much to live in the greatest country in the world, the 'rich' only make up 1% [or 5%, depending on your definition] of the population. So, let's go back to econ 101: We live in a service economy. To stimulate it, you don't give breaks to a small percentage of people [the ones who already have a level of disposable income, btw], you give it to a large percentage - those who don't have as much disposable income - so they can go to the movies, and go out to eat once in awhile, etc. Our economy thrives on large numbers of small consumer transactions, not the other way around.

    You're making the wrong argument anyway. Tax cuts do not stimulate our economy...JOB SECURITY does. When people know their job is going to be there tomorrow, they are less concerned about putting something on the ol' credit card. That's why during the bubble [when everyone had tons of money, and infinite upside, remember?], the amount of personal debt was also higher than ever. Even those of us who weren't making the big bucks 'knew' we could pay off our debt tomorrow, because jobs were plentiful - a source of income was virtually guaranteed.

    --
    Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.