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CIA's Info Ops Team Hosts 3-Day Cyber Wargame
ScentCone writes "The CIA has booked some conference rooms and is working through a simulated 'digital Pearl Harbor' to see how government and industry handle a monster net attack from an imaginary future foe composed of anti-American and anti-globalization hackers. Having been accused of lacking imagination about potential terror attacks, they're using the exercise to better shape the government's roles in a variety of attack scenarios. The networking industry, it seems, is expected to always play a big part in detecting and thwarting such threats, as 9/11-scale economic disruption is a likely bad-guy objective."
The network attacks YOU!
But personally, I'm waiting for "Digital Hiroshima"
People compare September 11 with a lot of things, but comparing it with a crack-fest? I doubt that it's even *possible* to kill several thousand people with cracking, you could only cause extreme inconvenience.
Besides, security can be achieved through a couple of simple steps: Don't use Windows, use OS's designed with security in mind. Use SELinux or equivalent on mission critical nodes. And secondly, educate the users and gain a culture of safety.
For all the hoopla about the pervasiveness of the internet in our daily lives, when it comes down to brass tacks, it's all just electronic pulses. When those pulses go dark, the wires are still around routing telephone calls. No one dies in a burning, collapsing building. No one dies in a hijacked airplane. No one dies because they stand too close to a bomb. Those bits just go dark and the internet disappears for a while.
A day without the internet is like a sky without vaportrails.
Even the data that is destroyed by such an attack is not at such a disadvantage. Though the paper-less office has been a longstanding goal, it is totally a dream. Everything has a papertrail and can be backed up.
There is no calamity awaiting us in the event of a terrorist cyberattack. The real calamity is the usurpation of rights due to terrorist attack fearmongering.
Sadly my website http://www.rogertheshrubber.net/ has already fallen victim to the hordes of the digital pearl harbour. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
All these simulation games and such designed to train/improve government IT security is BS. Everyone knows the overwhelming majority of the government budget is spent on politicians. Lawyers next, hospitality, then maybe techies.
Now I am not saying the government has no talent. I am just saying the money that attracts top talents are with the corporations.
It's wonderful that the CIA has such trustworthy people that wouldn't think of disclosing details of such a secure operation..... Oh, wait.
We finally get rid of one useless buzzword and this idiot wants to bring it back.
The funniest thing about this is that from the sounds of it the whole thing is being run by CIA goons. I'm no "info-warrior" but seems kind of pointless to run a war-game with people whose tricks you already know. Wouldn't it be far more realistic if they setup a network and put out the word to John Q. Hacker that is open season.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
I'm not sure whether this is completely appropriate to include in a press release.
Insofar as the intelligence community is coming up with possible scenarios, yes, I think this is a possible scenario. And worth looking into.
Insofar as the government- MY government- is identifying and singling-out anti-globalization folks as "The Enemy" and "anti-American," I'm a bit frustrated. I'm an American who is also somewhat anti-globalization*.
So, thumbs up for doing some preparation that might actually matter. Thumbs down, however, for singling out anti-globalization as "The Enemy" and "anti-American."
You're the government. You have a responsibility to your citizens to not insult moderate views commonly held by U.S. citizens, however accidentally you do so. If you're going to put out press releases, hire some rhetoric Ph.Ds or something.
*There a lot of ins-and-outs to globalization. I'm against greedy globalization, which so far has unfortunately been rampant.
Has any progress been made in the last few years on improving the state of government computer security?
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Hey, if you were on the committee deciding how to spend the new money you got on the defence budget, wouldn't you want to spend it on some fun war-style games? That way, you can pretend there's a disaster and save the world without the whole mess of killing lots of Americans. Much more fun. I bet you that more money is spent on the lunches of the people involved in this than money spent on ACTUAL foriegn aid (not money called foreign aid sent to the pockets of other politicians, real foreign aid). And I'm not joking.
Why not just call the event "Perl Harbor," I think everyone would get the reference.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
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this reminds me of those fire drill videos we had back in 4th grade... there was some announcer from the 50's who would say "Remember kids, in a fire, stop drop and roll!"
i laughed when i thought how funny it would be if someone actually started rolling on the ground when a fire broke out..
now i'm laughing again thinking about this simulation.. cia: please stop wasting taxpayer money. do some real work. thanks.
smattawichu
Perhaps you had an old fire drill announcement tape or something.
"Remember kids, if you are on fire, stop, drop, and roll."
No need to do that if you aren't burning.
"...as 9/11-scale economic disruption is a likely bad-guy objective."
Well, say someone broke into stock market computers, or bank computers, or servers of some other major financial institution...I'd say the potential for disruption is even greater than what happened on 9/11.
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
Tam Clancy has made a lot of good estimates what happens in the near future. I guess "enemies of USA" read more Clancy than the defenders.
anti-American and anti-globalization hackers
You fools. You fail to realize the potential of thousands of script kiddies who just got out of school for the summer and are really bored. Prepare to be WinNuked into submission!
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Why don't they just confront Slashdot users... and make it open game for Slashdotters..
'Hey slashdot.. here's our network.. do your worst'
Or is that.. too much of a security risk to allow people open knowledge to try and exploit systems that normally, their presence would be unknown?
Maybe they should follow the 'don't write down passwords' routine M$ has suggested...
------------
Sase
"It's the opposite of that."
What if someone was selling off your country's debt to its largest rival (ideologically, politically, economically, and militarily) to such an extent that they were able to blackmail your government with the threat of bankruptcy and thereby force your government to bow to their demands?
Defending yourself against the United States makes you a "bad guy?"
The less one knows about computers and networks, the more one can believe any "digital Pearl Harbour" scenarios.
E.g., I still fondly remember when I was 18, and mind you I was programming assembly for some years already, I thought I could write _the_ virus that would bring the whole economy to its knees. (Which is why I didn't actually release it.) Looking back in retrospect, omg, that idea was soo retarded.
Now throw in politicians, who have about as much clue of computers as your cat has _and_ make a living by blowing things out of proportion to an audience who knows even less. Right. You can see where that is going.
In practice, our computers aren't that vulnerable, ironically, because we know they're a fragile contraption. They don't exist in a vaccuum, as some box in a corner that noone knows about. Any company has a small army of admins who can deal with threats, has backups, etc.
Even things like Blaster didn't really do that much harm. The network congestion died pretty quickly, as everyone scrambled to block ports and disinfect machines. At the corporation I work for, it cost a total of a couple of days of the IT staff's work, to deal with some tens of infected computers out of many thousands. And that was the only virus I know of that made it inside in the last half a decade. (Unlike what Linux zealots like to claim about Windows securitiy, IRL it doesn't really cost _that_ much to keep it running.)
Or I remember one bank bitching about their DB/2 corruption, but even that didn't shut them down. Even doing the irresponsible thing and keeping running with a corrupt database and repairing it on the fly, in the end worked. It cost them some millions per day, yes, but the bank continued to work.
Just about the only thing one can't really defend against is a DDOS attack. No matter how well patched and firewalled a network is, when you have 10 GB/s stuffing your inbound pipe, you're stuffed.
But here's the fun part about those: they work against one site at a time. Directing some tens of thousands of zombies to spew 10 GB/s at one site, yeah, stuffs it. Directing the same 10 GB/s at 10,000 sites, won't even start to matter. There is no way that can be a threat to the whole economy or anything.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I'm against passing away our soveriginity to international megacorporations and undisclosed power brokers. That makes me an anti-globalist. I am a patriot, and I would fight for the country if it came to open war (no the blood-for-oil, power and Israel war in Iraq does not count). I am in other words an anti-globalist patriot. I suppose that makes me a terrorist in the administrations eyes.
I beleive Debt of Honor was about about Japanese radicals crashing an airplane into the senate. Sum of All Fears was about islamic radicals nuking a stadium. (If I recall correctly)
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
1984 has come people. They have weapons of mass destruction and we must defend ourselves. They don't have weapons of mass destruction but we needed to remove a tyrant. We have, as a basic saftey gaurd against an overbearing government, the right to be secure in our papers and possesions unless a judge signs a warrents. It is war against terrorism, the FBI needs the powers to conduct searches without judicial overview. WTF???
People, is the USA about to have a coup? It is one of the most common events in history. How many people in other countries expected the coup when it happened? I believe Bush will never leave office, or he will hand pick his sucessor.
There are so many danger signs with that family. Bush's father was the chief of the CIA in the 1970s, he ran the CIA and did all the hiring of senior staff. Then he was VP for 8 years in the 1980's. He becomes president through the early 90's, then his son becomes president 8 years later. There is a saying that power currupts, and this family has been in the highest level of power for over 40 years, and that is not counting their grandfather who was in congress.
This is more than haliburton or giving government contracts to friends. This is more than the spoils system. This is about jobs leaving the USA, about people having a lower standard of life, about more people becomming poor, about the rich getting richer, about government removing 200 year old rights gaurenteed to us by the founding fathers. What has happened the last 20 years should be a warning. A whole class of people is getting enslaved, to working for only enough money to pay for rent and very little low quality food.
Just wait people. Those fingerprint machines in public libraries are not there because libraries are going bankrupt with non-members checking their emails.
Most coups do not happen with the people overthrowing the government. Most coups happen when a powerful person gains too much influence and power, and takes over the military. But this coup will be about economics. The people with the money will have the lobbyists which will control the congress, and the rest of us will be relegated to nothings. Government will jail the loudest voices as terrorists. The rest will believe they are free, free to work for $9 an hour. Just wait.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I got karma to blow here
/. has banned its own headline reader? HAHAHA!!!
Does anyone else notice that
political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
Yeah, but the nuclear bomb was detonated in Baltimore so it was more like a spontaneous city-wide cleanup effort than anything.
Isn't this the NSA's job, or Homeland Security? I can't really see how this is gathering intelligence. Is this supposed to be Ops? TFA mentions
"Information Operations Center, which evaluates threats to U.S. computer systems from foreign governments"
, which is understandable, but the conventional notion of "terrorists" aren't "foreign governments". Does this mean we're expecting to go to cybercarpetbombing against France, the "anti-Americans"?
WRONG. Debt of honor was about the Japanese, not Islamic militants.
Do you even read books?
Nah, we don't kill people. We play video games.
Sometimes I think the Army and government recruits like a gang or drug dealer. They offer people with little hope in life a job. They offer training. Stop me if you have heard this one: "The Navy will train you how to work on nuclear submaries... do you know how much people who work on nuclear stuff make outside the navy? $100,000 cash. Cold cash. Come on, let me hook you up, we'll even give you $5,000 if you sign up. It is a cakewalk, in 4 years you'll be out, and while you are in, we'll show you exotic places, exotic pussy. What do you want to do? Work in a McDonalds the next 4 years trying to save money for college? Hell, you can't even read".
Then the real story starts after boot camp. "You want me to do what? Tie a rope around my waist and drop down off the side of the battleship and clean the salt off the boat??" then in 4 years "My time is finally up. WHAT??? I got extended. By who?". And then the worst trick of all, 5 years later. "But I have nuclear experience, why can't I work for Ford? What, you exported all your jobs? Where??"
They have to get people in one way or another. Army and government recruitment is like spam for making your penis bigger. They will rip off anyone they can. It is ashame we let them in highschools to sell their programs to kids under 18, to prep them for when they turn 18. Kids should need to have their parents sign an approval form for their kids in highschool to watch the recruitments.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
How about a nice game of Chess?
(I apologize in advance... *somebody* had to make the reference)
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The "country" to which you are referring can be considered to be like a "process" and the "government" like a "thread".
Only one thread can run at any given time and that thread defines the behavior of the process to all external viewers. At some point, context will switch and a new thread will run which will then define the process behavior by its actions.
From the outside, it looks like it is the process going in one direction or another, but in actuality it is the behavior of the threads that they are seeing.
So when some external viewer says, "Man, I hate that process," they are really saying that they hate what the current thread in that process is doing. Naturally, if all the threads in the process are doing bad things, then the process itself is seen to be bad, but in most processes there are a majority of good threads who simply don't get enough CPU time compared to the bad, errant threads.
So any thread so designed can actually go back and fix to some extent the damage created by another thread. However, if the good thread doesn't fix the problem before an outside viewer sees it, or worse, is attacked by it, then the process as a whole is seen as bad.
Once you start adding CPUs such that multiple threads within the same process can run simultaneously, you start running into things such as resource starvation and other bad things that are probably beyond the scope of this analogy. Needless to say, processes are not threads, but it is easy to confuse the two.
Socially: An electronics crash would result in mass social disorder. Loss of school records would mean weeks of paperwork sifting, confirming, checking and double checking to make sure people didn't make counterfeit diplomas. Throw in messed up court cases, work schedule mix ups and just general confusion and you've got a cripped country. Sure, on the local level things will continue to run acceptably, but above the state level? You've basicly gone into a time warp ~50 years backwards.
Economically: You could make a career by being a consultant here. Messed up business deals, incorrect shipping orders, loss of time, loss of material, loss of product, loss of production, corporate sabotage, lost research, and again general 'wth is going on here?!' You could probably cause the stock market to crash a couple thousand points if you manage to hit enough of the big name corporations.
Militarilly: A no-brainer. If terrorists knew that on X day and Y time, B soldiers in C country would lose all communications with their HQ (remember we use computer encrypted radio satellites now just in case the enemy overhears our troops talking over the radio saying that they've run out of toilet paper) the damage would be impossible to believe. No air or artillery support because you can't call in coordinates without your unsecure radio, lest the enemy triangulates onto the direction/location of the support fire and move to avoid/counter-attack it. No reinforcements because HQ is blind and don't want to send troops into an ambush. No extraction because you don't know if the area is secure or if the radio/camp/person calling in is compromised or not. Classic military nightmare scenario. No eyes, no ears, can't take risks, no guarantees, no intel.
Thats not even going into diplomatic dangers (was a nuke suddenly launched and/or by who?), health care (how many people die each year because the 911 call center was too busy to respond to their call fast enough?) or simple electrical issues (sure there are generators, but lets be realistic, how many people/buildings having generators and how long do they last on average?) The list goes on.
How the hell did this get modded up? First, it's completely off topic. Secondly, it's a soapbox rant that takes advantage of /. groupthink thereby giving the guy karma. Finally, half this shit he is spouting is complete crap. MOD DOWN.
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the military life. I get so annoyed with some of these active duty crybabies and their complaints about low pay.
.... Wholesale cost plus 5%. You have subsided entertainment options, you pay nothing for health, dental, mental health, or vision care. Your transportation costs are lower because the base has its own intra-base mass transit, and if you own a car, maintenance is a available at a discount rate,
0 556/20#20 )
Let me tell you something, the military is a swank deal and everyone should stop crying wolf over a bogus issue. Let me break it down.
Okay, so starting off, military pay is kind of on the low side. However, its not low considering the great benefits, which render the salary pure gravy. Especially considering, you're getting free paid training. How many companies offer free paid training, with total benefits, to completely unskilled people? Not many. You get free housing, all you have to do is pay for optionals like cable TV and telephone calls. But even that is subsided by the BAH II, which chips in some dough, tax-free, to you, to pay for things, like toilet paper and paper towels. Hell, your initial work clothes are given to you free, everyone else in the real world has to pay out of pocket.
Replacement work clothes, aka BDUs, are paid for too. They give you a nice fat check to use to buy new clothing as you see fit.
These things, and many many others, are sold at a heavily discounted rate
Plus you get 30 days of paid vacation and 12 federal holidays off a year. That's 42 day or 12% of the year off. That's 3xs the average of two weeks a year in the civilian world. The military even provides free travel on Space Available Flights, for, at worse a nominal fee, and there are often on base accommodations for members at discount. In addition to paid vacation time, you also receive unlimited paid sick leave. Plus there is no risk of being fired for using these benefits as very few soldiers are fired during their period of guaranteed employment. How many companies offer their wage slaves guaranteed employment? Again not many. This is because the military does not outsource its jobs overseas, rarely does it cut down on its numbers, and never does it fire anyway for anything less than gross incompetence or criminality. In many cases, criminal conduct is swept under the rung with a slap on the wrist thanks to Article 15s.
As you mature,get older, and serve longer guess what? The deal gets even sweeter. You only have to serve twenty years and guess what? You get a free retirement for life, a giant, never ending 401k you didn't have to pay into. Its free money and you can start receiving, depending on the age of enlistment at 37. The VA begins to provide you with low cost healthcare upon retirement as well. You get the MGIB, which will pay for any college expense you may have left over. This should not be too much of a problem given the military already pays 100% of all college tuition of all people on active duty. If you went to college before enlistment, the military has programs, for student loan repayment. Soldiers who retired or leave after one enlistment get access to numerous other benefits like low cost VA housing lows, job training, and preferential hiring for government jobs, no matter how unqualified or incompetent they are, allowing them to beat out superior applicants.
In addition, over those twenty years of service, you get multiple, guaranteed pay raises. You get more money for marrying and for each dependent you have, meaning the military pays you to fuck and have kids.
So to brake it down: The military deal includes
Free College
Free Housing
Free Health/Mental/Dental/Vision care (often for life)
Free Retirement
Free Paid Training
Paid Vacation
Unlimited Paid Sick Leave
Guaranteed Raises
Job Programs
Subsided Shopping/ Transportation/ Entertainment
Security Clearance
(taken from http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2005/5/23/15739/
The particular brand of globalization done by American people is to treat "the rest of the world" as yet another "Hawaii".
;)
Globalization can be good, pity some (non-internet enabled) Americans have a twisted idea of what it (the rest of the planet) is about. I think a re-education will solve all the problems, and not the hosting of a LAN.
This story is a case in point by grouping 'anti-American' and 'anti-globalization' into one concept. Showing just how easy it is to alienate the rest of the world (which should be an integral part of a globalization effort.
You sure this isn't just an elaborate version of a tabletop RPG game based on 24?
"Crash the network of your local 911 and see how many people die because the operator isn't able to find the address of a heart patient who can't speak well enough during the attack to give thier address."
Is that you're terror attack strategy? Try to break into the 911 network just as someone who doesn't speak very good English, is having a heart attack?
There used to be a time when you could comment on such articles without it being turned into a political diatribe. This article is damn interesting and there could be some awesome commentary by some /.'ers. However you political numbnuts decided to turn this into soapbox rant afternoon.
/. groupthink. Leave your political rants for the /. political threads.
/. atmosphere.
BTW, I am left-leaning as well, but for fucks sake keep your politics to yourself. It's completely off-topic yet gets modded up becuase of
Cmon guys don't drag this place down a notch. It's annoying to sort through at +4/5 expecting cool comments but all you get is some guys off topic political rant that fits the
has it ever entered your thick skulls that if you stop pissing people off they might not want to hurt you?
In the book I think it was Denver. Been awhile since I read it though.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
I'm not conviced that causing economic damage to the US should be considered a 'bad guy' activity given the damage that the US is inflicting on the rest of the world.
"I remember in 2000 or so, the internet went down and it wasn't that big of a deal."
I think we will blame lots of other things first before settling on an evil cyber terrorist hack.
They suffer from imagination deficiency. Apart from disrupting things like pipelines, which (as I discovered when working for a company that made pipeline parts, among other things) have some interesting design deficiencies, there is the potential to do things like change the schedule of estuarine sewage pumps so that they pump out on the rising, not the falling tide. Or change the dosing pump settings on water treatment plants. Most of the world is incredibly dependent on clean water and sewage treatment, with river pollution so high as to make untreated water undrinkable. Serious disruption to the water system would kill or make sick a lot of old people and young children - and, just like US and Russian landmines that are designed to injure children rather than kill them, this would have disruptive effects out of proportion to the numbers and economic activity of those affected.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Yes. They hired a guy from the consulting company that wrote the software that the stock exchange used and he put an Easter egg in the upgrade which hatched when a certain pattern of stock values occurred in a certain sequence.
Disconnect the network cable from the computer.
For home user - just cancel AOL and you be fine.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/new s/2003/08/sec-030816-30e58190.htm
There was some food spoilage, but for the most part everything was okay. No rioting, limited looting. Hardly a warzone.
I've heard the Soviet pipeline software story before, and, frankly, I'm dubious. As told, there's no way the CIA could have known exactly how the software was going to be configured, and without that knowledge there's no way they could tell exactly what was going to happen when it went haywire. What if the explosion was in a densely populated area? Could you imagine the political consequences? The Soviets would have been able to say "sure, we steal technology, but the Yankee capitalist pigs slaughter thousands of innocent people.", and they would have been right. Reagan would have been impeached - even assuming the Soviets didn't decide to start rolling their tanks westward in response. I just can't see how the CIA would have taken the risk.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Uhh, the only one who accused the government of lacking imagination about potential attacks was the Bush administration, and those claims have been very throughly proven wrong...
The "lack of imagination" is a defense... an alternative to saying "we actually knew the dangers and are grossly incompotent in protecting against them".
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The ones who'll help you raise a barn, if you want to start a family ? The ones who'll let you scrump apples in the fall ?
The ones who trek the donkeys up and down the Grand Canyon, or who keep the tents clean at the bottom if you want to walk ?
How will this exercise help them ?
You're against u, so I'm with v, w, and x.
RSS attacks itself!
It would be cool if it didn't suck.
So when the economy collapses, they'll blame it on hacker-terrorists.
But the politics pervades every article now.
Don't like Apple and want to say something? You'll get personally attacked and modbombed for your dissent.
Don't think open source software is the cure all for things? Same.
Slashdot is a place where people cry "information wants to be free!" but you are called a troll for merely having a different opinion and you get punished for it.
While there are ways that a purely electronic attack would result in a loss of life (e.g. hitting a hospital), the greater danger would be a combination attack. Imagine, if you will, a combined physical (say biological) and electronic attack. The flow of information is extremely important during a biological attack (getting people out of the area in a manner that wouldn't result in a spread of the contagion, getting emergency services into the area, stopping panic etc.).
...the worst stuff doesn't happen at Gitmo. Allegedly the CIA has a small fleet of executive jets including the legendary N379P that regulary overfly Europe on their way to Egypt or some other place where people are still allowed to conduct what the KGB used to call 'Efficient interrogations' Amnesty international (quoting ex CIA employees) call it torture but who listens to them?.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
...
Will the American government please STFU about this already? Sure it wasn't very nice, but that's not a justification to tie it into every situation as a reason for doing things... By using "sept 11" as an excuse for every little thing, you're reducing the effectiveness where it matters :/
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
What would you rather see a seqeul or a prequel?
(No 'neither' replies please)
And all you have to to for that is kill a few people or get killed?
Where do I sign up?
In a conventional war you want to take out CCC infrastructure. No communications, no instructions, no control and the military s at a loss as to how to act
Terrorism exploits communications infrastructure. It relies on a relatively low cost 'attack' generating 'terror' which would be hampered by crippling this infrastructure. The attack could be as simple as starting a rumor in the middle of flu season.
Attacks on the credibility of news sources may already be in progress, Goodbye Dan, and cost little. Imagine a rail tank car full of "witch hazel" overturning in Yonkers. Just as news of the cleanup is moving from lead to fill, a little but of poisonous gas is released. Not much, just enough to make a few people really sick. This information is then fed into the internet blog space rumor mill making things look like a government coverup. From the governments point of view, a number of similar events over the course of a few months is a serious attack on it's credibility. Don't go all, "bush lied" on me now. That's totally different. Foreign policy, by it's very nature, can't be transparent. See Machievelli's 'The Prince'.
Attacks on the economy will never be through direct attacks on communications. It'd too difficult for a small group to have significant impact. Petroleum pipelines, electric grid, water supply, levees after a majot rainfall event, are all much easier targets because of their node dependencies and relatvely low cost of 'taking out' a node.
Bill: "Operation eggplant is green." (I have just started outlook)
Joe : "Affirmative Alpha7"
Bob : "The goat is in the barn." (I have just started Internet Explorer)
Joe : "Affirmative Alpha8. Alpha 7, go see Mother Hubbard." (Bill, check your email)
Bill: "Negative Alpha1. Negotiation lost I -- *gaak*" (Joe, my machine just locked up)
Joe : "Alpha8 has terminated." (Bill, begin reinstalling)
Bob : "707" (Ha-ha!)
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
the new bomb they have developed, that kills all the people in a city
It's called the enhanced radiation weapon, or Neutron Bomb, and it's older than probably half the readership of this website, having been developed during the Carter administration back in the 1970's.
As far as the coup thing goes, have you never heard of the 2nd Amendment and the NRA?
Best Slashdot Co
I don't understand why people are so hung up on the combination of anti-globalization and anti-American. Is it that hard to imagine that there could be such people? I thought /.ers were a bit more technically minded, and could overcome kneejerk reactions and understand that
(anti-Globalization + anti-American) => Enemy of USA
Does not imply that
anti-Globalization => anti-American
And WTF does "treat the rest of the world as another Hawaii" mean, anyway? Most of the anti-Globalization stuff I've seen is basically a combination of protectionism and socialism. Globalization is basically people just doing stuff across borders they previously didn't cross so much.
JOIN US FOR PONG!
Though the counterarguments are pretty strong; it isn't 1984 and 2nd Amendment and the NRA, like someone is going to sit on their porch with a rifle and stop "them varmints". On the other hand, the Bush family has been war profiteers since Prescott. They make the Mafia look like morons.
Parent is a little off-topic, but really, the end of Democracy and the rise of indentured servitude is important enough to repeat.
And I figured out he was talking about a Neutron bomb. I don't think it's an issue, because the mission seems to be to have a large starving population that will do anything for the corporate dole.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
9-11 shut down the NYSE and most of the New Yorks financial markets for weeks, and confidence dropped sharply. It even affected trading elsewhere (i.e. Lloyd's of London closed for the afternoon) This is *far* more serious than a mere 3000 deaths to the people in charge, although they wont admit it as so.
You mean the Liberal Anti-US mind? Sorry speak for yourself and not the "HIVE"
Worries with "Anti-American hackers" I can understand and sounds justified. But "Anti-globalization" seems to be too much on the side of a political agenda for a government agency, since it's just a political trend like any other (e.g., "right-wing").
So, who's agenda is this? The CIA's or the original poster?
I'm just asking because it's not clear.
I would add, however, were I an American and this were a terminology employed by the CIA, that I would go to Thomas Jefferson's tomb and I would weep and wallow...Since when does an Intelligence agency get to have its political agenda? Oh, wait, I forget, this is the USA...
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
the internet was originally designed to provide a communications network that could survive a nuclear attack.....now the CIA thinks that a group of terrorists can take it out?
Really. A giant, mega-sized hacker convention. Advertise it for several months, open it up to any participants who want to come, provide all kinds of network infrastructure hardware, servers, software, etc, which mimmicks a real-world system of networks and let the participants bring whatever hw/sw tools they want to plug in have a heyday with it. Have enough qualified experts and analysts on staff to observe and record all goings-on and publish the findings openly. I guarantee you it will be an enlightening experience in exposing a lot of weaknesses in the vendors' systems, weaknesses in systems administration, and it will expose tactics used by the hackers as well as how to defend against all sorts of bad stuff. Of course they'd have to guarantee that it's not a set-up to bust anyone, and they should allow... nay, *require* that every participant who shows up to use some randomly assigned fake code name to protect their real identity. It would be a grand experiment.
The process of breaking you down to nothing and building you up again (aka boot camp) is something that a lot of us individualistic types get squeamish about. I'm certainly not a good candidate for military service simply because of my antipathy towards established authority. (I did take the ASVAB at one point... highest score the recruiter had ever seen)
The hourly pay tends to really spiral down to below minimum wage as well in the non-com/enlisted ranks as well. Enlisted Navy on subs work ridiculous hours. (other ships in the fleet might also have this issue . . . but I had a good friend who was on a sub so I have more insight there)
That said, the benefits can be amazing, particularly since the average Joe that the military will benefit the most is the kid with zero direction or discipline and no real future in society at 18 years of age. These kids can get in, do their stint, pick up valuable lessons of discipline and self esteem, and walk out in 4 years with enough cash to pay for a degree if they want it.
Or they go the route of my father and become a "lifer", retiring after their 20 and collecting half pay the rest of their life. My father's case is particuarly interesting, as he was able to position himself early on in computing in the 70s and allow the goverment to pay for everything up to his MCSE. Since he's not particularly bound to "making a living" in his current job as he receives approx 30k a year salary from the USAF, he was able to take jobs early on in his second career as an administrator for peanuts, giving him quite the resume for his now permanent position with the FAA.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
as is the US Army.
Best Slashdot Co
Shouldn't any critical data be stored on a stand alone box anyways??? Or atleast backed up on one??? The easiest way to secure a computer is to allow no network/ internet access at all
...In other news, President Bush is instructed to NOT write his e-mail password on Cheney's ass anymore.
What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You don't have the guts to be what you wanna be? You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So... what that make you? Good? You're not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come on. The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you. Come on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get outta his way!
just saw that movie for the first time ever last week. on a downloaded torrent no less
"Having been accused of lacking imagination about potential terror attacks, they're using the exercise to better shape the government's roles in a variety of attack scenarios."
No - they're actually DEVELOPING these attack scenarios to see which ones they can use themselves on the US to justify more extensive "government roles."
This is what the CIA DOES, folks. That is their reason for existing.
We still aren't sure where Robert Morris got the nice, clean code (mixed in with his amateurish code) to develop the Morris worm. Hint: his father worked for the NSA as a computer security expert. Some people think the Worm was a tactic called "pulsing the system" in intelligence circles.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
NASA used to be the part of the US Government with the cyber "Kick Me" sign on its butt - lots of machines, administered mostly by scientists who cared more about getting their work done than security. The prevalence of desktop Macs was probably the only thing that kept the place from being totally 0wned.
No more, at least at Goddard where I work. Machines are much better administered, and we live behind a very tight firewall. Network security routinely wardrives the grounds, and people with guns (!) will show up if you have an unauthorized wireless access point.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Oh, please. Quote for me the models of US landmines that are designed to injure children. I suspect you've been drinking the anti-landmine kool-aid. Almost every mine in the US inventory (and EVERY mine used outside the Korean peninsula) is self-destructing or self-neutralizing, which minimizes injury to non-combatants.
More detail here.
Sean
who finds it disturbing that "anti-globalization hackers" are the new boogey man here? Since when were they engaged in terrorism? Street fighting, maybe, but terrorist cells?
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
The reason why you don't hear much about this, is because the government is keeping it very low key because there is a REAL threat.
I do know it is possible to "simulate" such threats through complex "traffic generators" that can effectively emulate large scale DDOS attacks.
Most military academies already have extensive "Electronic warfare" classes with very impressive computer labs working on creating a large number of Scenerios.
IP tracking software is getting more sophisticated, and IRC "pattern usage analysis" is identifying "spam bots" and "zombie controllers". The Honeynet is also getting into the act by analysing comprimised hosts.
-j
They didn't say "infoterrorists", they didn't say "communists", they didn't say "mafia" or "organized crime"...
They said "Anti-American" and "Anti-Globalization". Note how the two are assumed to be in the same general "evil" sphere. This is probably low-key propaganda designed to make people associate "Anti-Globalization" with "Anti-American", at least subconsciously, the way "communist" was back in the fifties. Otherwise, why would they even tell anyone about it?
I think this says quite a bit about the priorities of the U.S. government right about now... Don't you?
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
Whoa there, sport. Flying jumbo jet into a building is the natural evolution of flying a single-man fighter into a battleship.
Tom Clancy (sexist, racist, homophobic pig and mediocre author) had nothing to do with it.
Help I'm a rock.
Way to make more friends around the world, US Gov't! Watch for low-flying planes, assholes.
They're going to get together and play a video game for three days that simulates an attack. In other words, they're going to get innovative by using an idea from a 1980's movie. No wonder they're at the mercy of every W00t 133t script kiddie who comes along...
What did I say that was anti-US? I said I was fed up with "Sept11" being used as an excuse for things that are totally unrelated (really, how is a website defacement in any way comparable to several thousand people dying?). It's simple logic that if you want to give a reason for something, your reason should have some relation to the thing you want to do -- or is common sense against The American Way? Again, what logic is there in comparing a digital wargame to sept 11, other than to get attention and to jump on the "they mentioned sept 11, you'd have to be a terrorist to not support them!" bandwagon?
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment