Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

DHS Publishes Report on Operation Cyberstorm

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the blind-leading-the-blind dept.

uniquebydegrees writes "InfoWorld reports that the Department of Homeland Security has released the findings of Operation Cyber Storm, a large-scale simulation of combined cyber-physical attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure. From the article: 'According to DHS, "observers noted that players had difficulty ascertaining what organizations and whom within those organizations to contact when there was no previously established relationship or pre-determined plans for response coordination and risk assessments/mitigation. There was a general recognition of the difficulties organizations faced when attempting to establish trust with unfamiliar organizations during time of crisis."'"

64 comments

  1. Translated from bureaucrat to English by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
    Bureaucrat:

    > "observers noted that players had difficulty ascertaining what organizations and whom within those organizations to contact when there was no previously established relationship or pre-determined plans for response coordination and risk assessments/mitigation. There was a general recognition of the difficulties organizations faced when attempting to establish trust with unfamiliar organizations during time of crisis."

    English:

    "Situation Normal, All Fucked Up."

    1. Re:Translated from bureaucrat to English by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A better translation would be

      "When bad shit happened, we really didn't know who to call and what about. Furthermore, liasons are for nubs."

      Or, as DHS says: "Clarifying roles and responsibilities across government, and clearly articulating expectations between public and private sectors will enable the advancement of processes and communications architecture to support the development and maintenance of situational awareness across sectors."

      In other words:

      "We don't know what the fuck is going on"

    2. Re:Translated from bureaucrat to English by grcumb · · Score: 1
      "Situation Normal, All Fucked Up."

      DHS: they're not Really Ready for anything, are they?

      --
      Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
    3. Re:Translated from bureaucrat to English by azrider · · Score: 1

      I have been involved in disaster management for 15 years. As a ham radio operator (and appointed emergency coordinator) we perform emergency drills. My crew goes out of it's way to throw monkey wrenches into the drill. While FEMA (under DHS) and some of the local agencies are not up to the task, there are people who are there. Todd Bordeaux N7TWF

      --
      And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
      John 8:32(King James Version)
    4. Re:Translated from bureaucrat to English by trentblase · · Score: 1
      As a ham radio operator...My crew goes out of it's way to throw monkey wrenches into the drill

      So you install BPL in the area?

  2. Ah! I thought it meant... by jd · · Score: 1
    "We're all hopelessly paranoid, making trust impossible, and rigidly stratified, making flexible response or communication impossible, oh and so totally self-centered that the mere notion of cooperation causes outbreaks of hives".


    Come to think of it, that's what your translation says, too.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    1. Re:Ah! I thought it meant... by legoburner · · Score: 2, Funny

      you forgot 'Needs more funding for conclusive results'. Go bureaucracy!

      --
      Warhammer forums
    2. Re:Ah! I thought it meant... by jamstar7 · · Score: 0, Redundant
      you forgot 'Needs more funding for conclusive results'. Go bureaucracy!

      Nonononononono. You got it a bit off here.

      What you really meant was, 'Needs 30 times more funding, taken from useless social programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Workman's Compensation for better results, and to be put under the Department of Defense for maximum effect'.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
  3. Sounds Interesting by susano_otter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At least according to the blurb, it sounds like the organizations involved will probably be working on ways to communicate with each other better in times of crisis, probably by developing trust relationships ahead of time.

    Assuming that's the case, it's exactly the kind of improvements we should expect to see from government agencies: identifying weaknesses, and working to eliminate them.

    So, kudos to DHS, and may they successfully apply the lessons learned from this exercise.

    --

    Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    1. Re:Sounds Interesting by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 3, Funny

      I don't want an effective Secret Police.

      It wasn't what the U.S. signed on for in 1776 or 1789.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    2. Re:Sounds Interesting by susano_otter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, I think there's a lot of merit to the philosophy of "ineffective government". And it's definitely the case that the system of government we signed up for was designed to be as ineffective as possible without being completely useless.

      However, in so far as we have government at all, I would prefer that it was able to act effectively in times of crisis.

      I mean, think how much better off we'd be if FEMA, the State of Louisiana, and the City of New Orleans had thought to work out trust relationships and clear contingency plans and handoff of responsibilities, prior to the arrival of a giant fucking hurricane, yeah?

      Besides, America has probably the most un-secret "secret police" of any nation in the world (unprovable conspiracy theories aside).

      Also, the article isn't about the "secret police", but about the woefully feeble capabilities of government infrastructure agencies in general, to survive and recover from "cyber" attacks. You might want to save your "secret police" objections for an article about actual "secret police".

      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    3. Re:Sounds Interesting by jamstar7 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Actually, I think there's a lot of merit to the philosophy of "ineffective government". And it's definitely the case that the system of government we signed up for was designed to be as ineffective as possible without being completely useless.

      I wholeheartedly agree. The Founders knew what they were talking about when they insisted on keeping the Federal government relatively weak and ineffective. They had a severe distrust of centralised power, and with good reason. They'd just won a revolution from a strong centralised government that ran roughshod over their rights. They believed the best solution to any problem was a local solution. FWIW, I tend to agree with them. The best information is on the spot, not X thousand miles away.

      However, in so far as we have government at all, I would prefer that it was able to act effectively in times of crisis.

      I mean, think how much better off we'd be if FEMA, the State of Louisiana, and the City of New Orleans had thought to work out trust relationships and clear contingency plans and handoff of responsibilities, prior to the arrival of a giant fucking hurricane, yeah?

      What's wrong with the local authorities, the people closest to the 'action' calling the shots? IMNSFBHO, when FEMA showed up, it should have been to check out the site, figure out the damage, and cut the check.

      Also, the article isn't about the "secret police", but about the woefully feeble capabilities of government infrastructure agencies in general, to survive and recover from "cyber" attacks. You might want to save your "secret police" objections for an article about actual "secret police".

      So the answer to a weak central facility is more centralisation? To me, this is a firm argument for decentralisation. Spread the pieces around and some of them will survive a hit. It makes the so-called 'Bad Guys' work harder for the same effect. And I'm all for making the 'Bad Guys' work for a living. Why centralise things and make it easier on them by giving them one big juicy target to hit?

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    4. Re:Sounds Interesting by geekoid · · Score: 1

      "What's wrong with the local authorities, the people closest to the 'action' calling the shots? "

      there are probably untrained to assertain a priority to recovery.
      You need experts. You also need the local politicians to scream, yell, point, and gather attention of the media and point out every single problem you run into to focus responisbility on FEMA.

      In New Orleans there wan't anyone on the ground capable to call the shots.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:Sounds Interesting by gettingbraver · · Score: 1

      That's something an agency PR person would say!

    6. Re:Sounds Interesting by jamstar7 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      "What's wrong with the local authorities, the people closest to the 'action' calling the shots? "

      there are probably untrained to assertain a priority to recovery.

      This training only exists at a Federal level?

      You need experts. You also need the local politicians to scream, yell, point, and gather attention of the media and point out every single problem you run into to focus responisbility on FEMA.

      These experts only exist on a Federal level? And aren't a lot of our problems due to the tendency of everybody passing the buck up to the next level? If the local politicians are only there to scream, yell, point, and gather attention of the media and point out every single problem you run into to focus responisbility on FEMA, what are they in place for? Where does their responsibility end. Hell, where does their responsibility START??? Local problems need local solutions. What is so inherently difficult in understanding this? Whatever happened to the old fashioned American attitude of self-reliance?

      In New Orleans there wan't anyone on the ground capable to call the shots.

      In New Orleans, there wasn't anybody on the ground allowed to take responsibility and/or call the shots until FEMA showed up. Biggest problem is, what happens if your Federal visiting fireman who ride in from the sunset don't know their ass from a hole in the ground?

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    7. Re:Sounds Interesting by radtea · · Score: 1

      It wasn't what the U.S. signed on for in 1776 or 1789.

      Yeah, but look at what you've got: a government that is basing its whole policy on "security" and asking "are we more secure?" "Do you feel more secure?" "Would the other party be able to make you feel as secure as we do?"

      It's like they've forgotten what that statue in New York Harbour is named.

      And like they've forgotten what some radical left-wing terrorist-sympathizer said: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be bought at the price of warrentless wiretaps, violations of the IVth, Vth and VIth Ammendments and foreign wars-of-choice? Forbid it almighty God! I care not what course others may choose, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me the minor elevated risk of death that comes from terrorism, which is far smaller than the risk of death from falling down or being struck by lightning."

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    8. Re:Sounds Interesting by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1

      Don't worry. If there's one thing our government is really good at, it's taking the best, most carefully thought out plans and turning them into a complete disaster when it comes to implementation.

      If there's a second thing our government is really good at, it's debating the best, most carefully thought out plans until the next election, then completely forgetting about the whole thing.

    9. Re:Sounds Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "In New Orleans there wa[s]n't anyone on the ground capable to call the shots."

      That is pure horseshit....

      DISCLAIMER: I am a former FEMA employee who thank God wasn't with FEMA when Katrina hit (hence posting anonymously).

      I have worked many disaster operations in my time and I can tell you that from a preparedness point of view there is plenty of blame to spread around. Local, State, and Federal plans weren't followed is the biggest one. You can do all the planning in the world but it does little good if those plans sit on the shelf collecting dust. The time of the disaster isn't the time to start reading them. I have read some of the after action reports out of New Orleans and I predicted this would happen 2 years before it did (that was part of the reason I left FEMA). DHS isn't the place where FEMA belongs. From an emergency management point of view all a terrorist attack is is a localized man-made disaster that is a crime scene afterwards. DHS has been sucking funding and personell from FEMA at an alarming rate. Add to that a dysfunctional chain of command all the way up to the President and it was bound to lead to ineffective response.

      Now onto the State side. The State failed to ensure proper evacuation procedures were in place and the in-fighting between the Mayor and the Governor were horrendous. Neither trusted the other or the plans they had and they both didn't trust the feds. It is the State's responsibility to ensure the communities in that state have the resources, training, and capability to handle first response. If they don't, the State is supposed to step in with its resources. If those are overwhelmed then that is when the feds add its resources. The State did nothing while waiting for the feds to respond.

      Now for the city. The Mayor was more concerned about losing revenue than he was about evacuating the people in his city. No mayor likes to tell everyone to leave especially if they are in financial trouble like New Orleans was before the hurricane hit. His indecision and lack of familiarity with the newly implemented ICS lead to inexcusable delays. He basically sat back and let it happen hoping that the state or feds would bail him out. Add to that the city's neglect of the levee system that is its defense and the end result is a flooded city.

      And lastly, the citizens of New Orleans. It is the responsibility of the citizenry to be prepared for natural disasters especially if you are vulnerable to specific types of hazards. This storm was predicted a week out and as it drew near people thought they could ride it out. Just the year before FEMA held a drill called "Hurricane Pam" that showed the city would suffer extensive damage should a hurricane hit. And you had people STILL thinking they could survive a storm of this magnitude. The city is below sea level for God's sake and people thought the aging levees would protect them. To depend on others to bail you out when you put yourself in harms way is the height of stupidity.

      So as you see, there was plenty wrong with the Katrina New Orleans response that starts with the people of New Orleans and goes all the way to the President's office. The integration of FEMA into DHS was and continues to be the worse thing for disasters in the US. Planning was and continues to be ignored at the federal, state, and local level. People still depend on the federal government to bail them out of situations they put themselves in. In short, nothing has changed and the next one will be just as bad.

    10. Re:Sounds Interesting by susano_otter · · Score: 1

      Decentralization only works if there is good communication between the various parts that make up the whole.

      According to this article, the chief lesson of the exercise was that the different parts did not communicate effectively in times of crisis, and that this put the whole at risk.

      The recommendation, then, is to improve communication between the separate parts, not to centralize their functions.

      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    11. Re:Sounds Interesting by susano_otter · · Score: 1
      That's something an agency PR person would say!
      Then, on the principle that anyone who denies being a Templar must surely be a Templar, I will say nothing more of the matter, but leave it up to you to judge the issue on its merits rather than your prejudices.
      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    12. Re:Sounds Interesting by susano_otter · · Score: 1

      Being of an optomistic and cheerful turn of mind, and at the same time having a realistic opinion of man's flawed nature, I happen to think these characteristics of our government as features rather than bugs.

      --

      Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.

    13. Re:Sounds Interesting by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      You rock.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
  4. Rick Romero presents News At 11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it's hard to call people when the phone lines are down

    also, it's hard to email people when the Internet is DDOSed

  5. It's simple people, there are just two options by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    1. Reboot the internet

    or

    2. Restore the internet from yesterday's backup

  6. Oh no! They don't know you! by TemplesA · · Score: 0
    "observers noted that players had difficulty ascertaining what organizations and whom within those organizations to contact when there was no previously established relationship or pre-determined plans for response coordination and risk assessments/mitigation"


    Bush:
    BUT I DONT WANT FREE VIAGRA, HOW DO YOU KEEP GETTING TO ME!?

  7. Parsing error. Does not compute. by Kesch · · Score: 2, Interesting
    FTFA:
    As DHS points out, just by carrying off such a large scale private-public and multinational exercise creates allows the government to test policies, procedures and communications should an actual attack occur.


    This, combined with the submitter's bad line:
    a large-scale simulation of combined cyber-physical attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure


    Honestly, what's with all hyphenated oxymorons? Normally I'm not a Grammar Nazi, but it feels like the left-right side of my grammar center just got a swift kick in the nuts.

    Finally, I found it funny that at the bottom of TFA they had links such as "Digg this!"
    However, they also had a "Slashdot this!"

    To which I reply. "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."
    --
    If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
    1. Re:Parsing error. Does not compute. by Simon+Garlick · · Score: 1

      Honestly, what's with all hyphenated oxymorons? Normally I'm not a Grammar Nazi, but it feels like the left-right side of my grammar center just got a swift kick in the nuts.

      They're called compound adjectives and if you actually were a Grammar Nazi, you'd know that.

      --

      -----
      PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
    2. Re:Parsing error. Does not compute. by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      The terms "private-public" and "cyber-physical" are not compound adjectives... or at least not proper ones. A proper compound adjective is one in which one adjective gives additional meaning or clarification to the other one; the hyphen is added to show the reader that the words do not independently modify the noun. In this case, one adjective directly contradicts the other one, thus, they can neither independently modify the noun nor modify each other. This construction makes no sense. If I wrote something that nonsensical, I'd probably find myself a nice ledge to jump off of. This is English in much the same way that leet speak is 3ng|_!$|-|.

      The correct punctuation is a slash, indicating that the attack containts both cyber and physical components. It is a series of near-simultaneous cyber/physical attacks on a heterogeneous private/public infrastructure.

      See there... near-simutaneous. That is a proper compound adjective....

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  8. Shouldn't government agencies be a bit paranoid? by s20451 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We're all hopelessly paranoid, making trust impossible, and rigidly stratified, making flexible response or communication impossible, oh and so totally self-centered that the mere notion of cooperation causes outbreaks of hives

    Hello, FBI? Mid-level functionary from FEMA here. Nasty computer virus we're having, eh? Yeah, I haven't had power for a week either ... no, I can't get money out of the bank machine either. But the good news is that the price of bread is down to ten cigarettes here in Wichita ...

    Anyway, I know you've never heard of me, and have no way of verifying my identity. And I know we're in the middle of an unprecedented national crisis. But it would really help us out if you could forward all your operational plans and the locations of all your agents as soon as possible. You know, I really value your trust, flexibility, and co-operation on this one. 'Kay, thanks, bye.

    --
    Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
  9. I presume I wasn't the only one who misread... by the_tsi · · Score: 3, Funny

    "DHS Publishes Report on Operation Cybertron"

    The terrorists are after our energon cubes.

    1. Re:I presume I wasn't the only one who misread... by chris_eineke · · Score: 1

      These treacherous decepticons!

      --
      "All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
  10. How am I supposed to be surprised? by cultrhetor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The FBI can't even get a modern computer to the majority of it's employees. FEMA "misallocated" (read: got suckered out of mucho money) more money than Bill Gates can come up with. DOT engineers have to fill out fifteen forms to receive a box of pencils. The IRS has to rely on outside collection agencies to retrieve back taxes. Veterans' benefits have been slashed - by a government - which claims to support our troops - creating more disabled veterans because of a war we had no business fighting (Iraq). The federal deficit is in the trillions, yet we cut taxes. How the hell am I supposed to be surprised that they can't maintain computer system security?

    --
    "Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
  11. So You're Saying It Was A ClusterFuck? by littlewink · · Score: 2, Funny

    Sometimes it helps to simplify.

  12. Please, enough is enough. by jfz · · Score: 1

    It may be too late at this point but can we please ban the word "[cC]yber" from use in the U.S. government? This can go for any other stupid, vague, technology fantasy land word as well. This kind of nomenclature just helps make us look like ignorant idiots the world over. Not that we needed it in that department.

    1. Re:Please, enough is enough. by dan828 · · Score: 1

      OK fine. Next year we'll call it "Operation eStorm" instead.

    2. Re:Please, enough is enough. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No way many, iStorm, YEAH I want one!!!

  13. DHS Press Release by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Link to the actual DHS press release: http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=5431/

    1. Re:DHS Press Release by webmistressrachel · · Score: 1

      Broken - sorry dissappoint but my post below was being typed whilst you posted this likn, and I'm still frustrated by the article's lack of sources.

      --
      This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
    2. Re:DHS Press Release by frdmfghtr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Try here...

      http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_releas e/press_release_0993.xml

      I was just there and downloaded the 20-page report from

      http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interweb/assetlibrary /prep_cyberstormreport_sep06.pdf

      --
      Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
  14. References? by webmistressrachel · · Score: 1
    Rather surprising to me that TFA does not cite or link to the source of the quotes at all.

    Could somebody please post this, if it exists?

    --
    This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
  15. Personally, I find it hard to take any government by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1

    program seriously when it has the word "Cyber" in it. Sure, I realize that the original Terminator was a Cyberdyne Systems Series 800 Model 101, and that sounded really cool at the time. It doesn't anymore. They need to find another prefix for their project names.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  16. When in danger or in doubt... by jpellino · · Score: 1

    ... run in circles, scream and shout.

    So everything's normal then?

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
  17. Check out the rise of the Police State after 9/11 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here: http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/911.html

  18. Energon Cubes by TubeSteak · · Score: 1
    The terrorists are after our energon cubes.


    Being cube shaped, they must be transported in trucks which makes them vulnerable, instead of being moved around through a series of (secure) tubes.
    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  19. You nailed it! by gettingbraver · · Score: 1
    And this one's a classic:

    > "Clarifying roles and responsibilities across government, and clearly articulating expectations between public and private sectors will enable the advancement of processes and communications architecture to support the development and maintenance of situational awareness across sectors.

    Here's the translation: We don't know who is going to do what, or how they are going to do it. So, we need a study (which will be done after the election and the campaign contributions are calculated) to find out.

    (I can still speak bureaucratese, from when I was a social worker.)

  20. Re:Personally, I find it hard to take any governme by lostboy2 · · Score: 1

    Heh. Personally, my favorite is Yoyodyne. More tech-related things should use the yoyo- prefix. Darn -- Yoyosoft is already taken.

  21. Very funny and BS by mrkitty · · Score: 1

    All one needs is 10-30k machines ddosing the root name servers for 2-5 days. Positive conclusions my ASS.

    --
    Believe me, if I started murdering people, there would be none of you left.
  22. One sentence to rule them all by peektwice · · Score: 1

    Government spends money inefficiently.

    Let's analyze the sentence. First, Government...not the people, not corporations, not monkeys, just government. Second, spends money. Not saves money, not earns money, spends it. That's what they do. Third, inefficiently. Poorly, wastefully, full of fraud waste and abuse. Is anyone surprised that the government spent billions setting up DHS, updating NSAT&T's computers, creating huge bureaucracies, hundreds of new policies, etc., and none of it works?

    --
    Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
    1. Re:One sentence to rule them all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and you know what? It's a good thing. /me spits on NSAT&T

  23. Re:Personally, I find it hard to take any governme by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1

    Hm ... Project YoyoStorm. I like it.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  24. Root servers are not the softest DNS target by karl.auerbach · · Score: 1

    Actually the DNS root servers are a fairly resiliant target.

    The reason is that their data is so small - only about 250 names, the whole thing compresses down to less than 20K bytes - that it is well cached (and privately replicated.)

    I've traced root server queries and most sites that don't reboot their resolvers will generate usually no more than a few hundred queries to the roots per month. If root servers stopped responding, most people would live out of their ISP's resolver caches for a long time, many people might not even notice unless root servers were inoperable for days.

    On the other hand, the large top level domains (TLDs), such as .com and .org, are too large to cache and the access is sparse. So if a TLD stops responding almost everyone will perceive the outage almost instantly.

    And .net is the home to many of the servers themselves - so there is a cross-TLD dependency.

    So a DDoS attack on TLD servers is more likely to cause trouble than a DDoS to root servers.

    This is not anything new - several folks (such as Bruce Schneier) have written about this for years.

    And I've been trying for years to get ICANN to actually get concerned. But they only pay attention to attacks on trademarks, prices, and whether accurate "whois" data.

  25. Senator Ted Stevens is not a truck. by megaditto · · Score: 1

    But at least our pipes are secure. Oil pipes.

    --
    Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
    1. Re:Senator Ted Stevens is not a truck. by abandonment · · Score: 1

      but the internet's made out of pipes though, no? shouldn't it be the same thing to secure it?

      you mean that govt's been lying to us?

      --
      Gekido's Lair
  26. Depends on the paranoia by jd · · Score: 1
    STU III is your friend in these situations. No authorized key, no communication. Which means that if your inter-department phones are STU III-grade, then you technically don't need to know who is on the other end, you only need to know that the keys are solely provided to authorized people. Everything else can be inferred through your normal web of trust.

    ...They do have a web of trust, right...?

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    1. Re:Depends on the paranoia by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      From that page, the manufacturing contract is guaranteed through 1999. Guess the DHS is screwed.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  27. Are you serious??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Feds went way out of their way to make the situation worse. On purpose, planned, ordered as such. They clearly lied about when they knew what, by a large amount. They sent in goons and CUT communications lines for the locals, yes, CUT THEM, and the locals had a mexican armed standoff with those goons to get their comms back. Go ahead, look it up, it happened. They held back hospital equipment, held back ice, water, food, thousands of locals from further inland with boats coming down to evac people, yes, told them to GO HOME, forced them to turn around at gunpoint and with threat of arrest, while people were drownding, and brought in those disgusting blackwater mercenaries (fuck you blackwater you scum sucking murdering assholes) and just ran roughshod over everyone.

      It was a real world live-fire training test to see how far they could push people around at the local level and take advantage of emergency situations, a test, it had NOTHING to do with "helping people". The federals are the enemy of the people now, they exist (their upper leadership who give all the orders) to take down the nation and replace it with a big fat second world master/slave second world styled creation called the north american union.

    All this stuff is verified, it's all there hiding in plain sight, all one has to do is to lay it all out in front of you and just *look* at the evidence. It doesn't take much to parse what is going on combined with all the other weird stuff the feds do.

  28. Blatant Karma Whoring by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

    Here's a link to the Operationg Cyberstorm Report on the DHS web site.

    --
    My blog
    1. Re:Blatant Karma Whoring by sane? · · Score: 1
      The sample scenario gave me a chuckle.

      Hackers are supposed to hammer a HIPAA data to hold medical authorities to ransom - which of course in the scenario they 'beat off'. Yay for the good guys.

      In reality of course they'd slip in, copy the details of anyone with a particularly embarassing illness, then blackmail THEM to stop release of the data. In reality the government probably wouldn't have a clue.

      If this is indicative of the general standard of 'Cyber Storm' they need more help in understanding the threat before they work on their communication skills.

  29. easy by DragonTHC · · Score: 1

    anyone can lookup a netblock with arin.net

    then simply call the phone number of the network owner.

    that is easy.

    the government is so caught up in buying expensive shit to solve non-existant problems, they have forgotten basic net troubleshooting.

    --
    They're using their grammar skills there.
  30. Does this suprise anyone? by DocOmega · · Score: 2

    It is the nature of both military and government in general (esp. military) to operate under a chain of command. When this link is broken, no one is used to thinking for him/herself. When we teach "yes sir, no sir", we do a disservice to the critical thinking and independent decision making that would have helped out here.

    --
    Meh
    1. Re:Does this suprise anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You don't actually know how the military works do you? Do you really think that they just want robots? In the middle of a firefight or emergency do you think that they have to call home to Momma to figure out what to do? If anything you are expected to be able to take independent action that will complement the actions of others to win. Strict zombie control gets you the Iraqi army not the US one.

  31. Didn't they get a UK consultant to help? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Though his cover story was that he was looking for UFO's.

  32. Reminds me of the Morris worm post-mortem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "There was a general recognition of the difficulties organizations faced when attempting to establish trust with unfamiliar organizations during time of crisis."

    This is the same conclusion the Berkeley and MIT folks came to in the post-mortem of the Morris worm back nearly twenty years ago. The MIT hackers and the Berkeley hackers had trouble establishing trust when trying to communicate to debug and close the vulnerabilities on the Sun3 and VAX machines that were propagating the worm. And if my memory serves me correctly, that's how CERT got established, i.e. as an ongoing body that could be trusted to communicate security related info.

    No disrespect meant to the DHS. I find it reassuring that they did an honest enough analysis and therefore came to the same sensible conclusion.

    Yes, I'm old. :-)

    anonymous (canadian) coward