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US Prepares for Eventual Cyberwar
The New York Times is reporting on preparations in the works by the US government to prep for a 'cyberwar'. Precautionary measures are being taken to guard against concerted attacks by politically-minded (or well-paid) hackers looking to cause havoc. Though they outline scenarios where mass damage is the desired outcome (such as remotely opening a dam's gates to flood cities), most expect such conflicts to be more subtle. Parts of the internet, for example, may be unreachable or unreliable for certain countries. Regardless, the article suggests we've already seen our first low-level cyberwar in Estonia: "The cyberattacks in Estonia were apparently sparked by tensions over the country's plan to remove Soviet-era war memorials. Estonian officials initially blamed Russia for the attacks, suggesting that its state-run computer networks blocked online access to banks and government offices. The Kremlin denied the accusations. And Estonian officials ultimately accepted the idea that perhaps this attack was the work of tech-savvy activists, or 'hactivists,' who have been mounting similar attacks against just about everyone for several years."
I mean who the FUCK would be stupid enough to have the controls for a Dam connected to the internet?
don't connect the dam floodgate controller to the internet ?
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Well, everyone needs a credible enemy to keep themselves in a job. I mean, what would all those government agencies do with their time? The whole thing is just playing peoples worst fears, and the scenarios they've got there are straight out of Die Hard......or that film Sandra Bullock was in, and of course the all have no basis in reality.
;-).
Bring back the Cold War, that's what I say, and it looks as though they are. This whole terrorism thing just isn't working out
Why is it that america is always preparing for a war? a war on 'terrer', a cyberwar, a war on drugs, a war on immigrants, a war on pirates, a war on guns. When is the last time america made peace?
I guess big budgets need big reasons
funny pics
How does it feel to reply to your own post?
Makes me feel Slashdot had an edit post button, so I wouldn't have to ammend myself in an entire new post.
That's right, because we all know that bullies only beat up other bullies. </sarcasm>>
I love that people assume that the US is a target because of it's actions. I wonder if these are the same people that assume that Microsoft gets hacked because it is an 'evil' company. Let me say it plainly: The US is a target because the US has a lot of money and influence. Microsoft is a target because they have a large number of users. There may be thousands of other reasons, but that is the real reason there is such a disparity in attacks against the two. I am not saying that MS shouldn't be a moral business or that the US shouldn't improve it's interactions in the world, I'm just saying that doing either one will not make a significant difference in the number of attacks.
Both have a need to do the same thing too, actually. They need to improve security and do it in such a way that it doesn't harm their base.
B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
We started as tribes, we warred between villages. We became countries, we warred over boarders. We took our war into space - complete nothingness, and yet we fought over it. We then created a new world that exists only as information coursing through wire and fibre, and yet we brought war to it. What a sad and tedious inevitability.
Every US "Cybersecurity Czar" has quit in disgust. The Homeland Security agency can't even find someone to run the office, because it's a total joke.
Meanwhile, the US has already been under siege by China in a full-blown cyberwar for several years.
It's cheap to attack the US tech infrastructure, and expensive to defend against it. That's what asymmetric warfare, like terrorism, is all about. So 6 years into Bush's Terror War, and the government is still preparing to get started, while our enemies just surge around us.
--
make install -not war
People don't beat their kids for the better of the child, they beat their kids because they themselves are incapable of acting in a socially acceptable manor & beating the children allows the parent to vent the fustrations involved with being a failure in society as well as an incapable parent.
Don't beat your kids, better yourself & lead by example.
If the children don't follow your example, abandon them.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
....virtual goods.
/ 23/2055244
They can use the virtual taxes to pay for the virtual war (cyberwar) defense.
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that "political correctness" only ever really existed as a convenient strawman caricature, useful for smearing anything remotely smacking of "liberal" or left wing views.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
you know how linux doesn't suffer the windows viruses or the BSD system doesn't suffer linux holes?
Well its all about uniqueness. If ever computer ran a different operating system with different....whatever protocals..
Of course this is not realistic, or is it? Lets say the linux open source system could be compiled with something like an encription code that alters the system enough to make it unique. Any applications to run on that particular system would as well need to be compiled with the same code, etc, and so on... making each system unique enough that the difficulty of infecting or breaking into a system is greatly increased.
Maybe I should patent the idea... oh but wait... Its not novel....though my finger print may be unique, my eye retina unique, everyone has their own. Just look at itunes encripting your personal data to track piracy...
Just fix the darn protocols, dammit. It's been a year since Blue Security was taken down by PharmaMaster and NOBODY has done ANYTHING to prevent any subsequent DNS amplification attacks from happening.
If ISPs at least blocked forged-ip packets from exiting them, then THAT would be a nice start.
Seems to me like we're heading towards some distinctly neuromantic and ghost-in-the-shellish conflict scenarios. Makes sense, considering all the recent technology advancements. Japan is busy at work making their first Mech prototypes, MIT is busy making invisibility cloaks, Van-Eck phreaking devices have been around for ages, and the Russia mafia seems to be busy writing custom viruses. The thing to remember is that a 'cyberwar' would *not* simply be conducted by script-kiddie hackers in their moms basements. Sure, you might have to deal with botnet DDOS attacks, but that's probably the least worrisome scenario. To use the Dam floodgate scenario, consider a sneakernet type attack, where a special-ops actually *applies for a job* at said energy company which runs said Dam floodgates, and moles their way past the firewalls, so they can install a custom one-time virus. Afterwords, they get a nice million dollar bounty from the sponsoring enemy state. That's the espionage scenario. There are others. Toss in some helicopters, invisibility cloaks, van-eck phreaking devices, and emp pulse generators, and you've got yourself an arguably new class of special-ops. You might say, 'yeah, US enemies aren't ever going to get helicopters and those kind of forces onto US soil, so the US only needs to concern itself with remote attacks.' Granted, the US still has a big advantage of being relatively isolated here in North America, but I'm not so convinced. We do have embassies, consulates, and business partnerns all over the world, and most all of them have VPN connections outside the US. Networks make distances less relevant, so we could simply be attacked at one of our embassies or consulates. But I digress. The idea that I'm trying to communicate here, is that a 'cyberwar' isn't necessarily all digital, just as a computer isn't all digital (keyboards and monitors are analog). As such, there will be a sneakernet and analog element to any such 'cyberwars', which will probably involve special-ops using the latest technology to tap into networks, nab passwords, and cover their tracks, *in conjunction* with the crackers doing the cracking. All nicely laid out in neuromancer and ghost-in-the-shell. The specifics differ, but the general concept is spot on in both works. At least in my opinion.
OP is right, and he's optimistic about our defenses. Even the military practices "network security" at only a childish level. Most users have no clue how security works, and our military's network security training is horribly remiss.
And of course, the OP only outlined a few attacks that can be conducted from the safety of an office somewhere remotely. We face an enemy who isn't at all afraid to blow stuff up, even if it means the explosives are personally delivered. Anyone take a look at the physical security on a dam recently? Storage sites for nuclear waste? Ferries, busses, trains?
We are ripe for attack from a small team of well-funded and determined enemies, and we're not doing enough to prepare for it.
The vast majority of Windows malware requires user interaction to install in the first place. The biggest security problem of any given modern system is the human sat at the keyboard.
It's official. Most of you are morons.