Slashdot Mirror
Is There a Cyberwar, and Is the US Losing It?
kenblakely writes "BusinessWeek is running a story asserting that the 'US
is Losing the Global Cyberwar.' This whole
cyberwar thing has been discussed a few times on Slashdot where the Chinese are asserted to be using
cyberwarfare to attain military superiority. And, of course, there is
the whole Russia-Georgia thing. Even
the US military is getting in on the action, and the fear
of a cyber
Pearl Harbor seems almost palpable. I'm curious
what the Slashdot crowd thinks about the growing fascination with 'cyberwar':
hype to get more money and create new force structure, source of the next
world war, or somewhere in between?"
Can the Chinese traceroute laser guided bombs away from their datacenters? The people with the most bombs usually win...
And re: Chinese investments in the U.S. - should China go to war with us, they will be screwed...all the paper debt they've created with the United States will become a clean slate; thanks for the free money suckers!
"There is no "cyberwar". BusinessWeek is losing it."
... so we have to keep enduring this constant background misinformation static noise.
Unfortunately the word "Cyberwar", when used by non-technical news companies, is often used to (wrongly) imply organized big scale attacks, as if its a military style war/attack. Its far more likely just mostly isolated young (and/or misguided older) hackers on all sides, having a go at hacking/annoying the opposing sides. Not much different from kids throwing stones at the other side, just the 21st century version of it.
But then we live in a time of media organized waves of ever more fear and paranoid, so things get blown up out of all proportion by them, (for their own gain). BusinessWeek is just playing along to the common theme of selling a story of fear and paranoid, to get peoples attention. Sadly this marketing/PR tactic works. Now people are discussing Cyberwar and in the process BusinessWeek is gaining greater attention. Its not about Cyberwar, its about BusinessWeek's need for attention.
I wish companies would stop playing this fear manipulation game, to get attention. But then I guess all the time this method works, they will keep exploiting it, for their own gain
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
Yes, the Chinese military has decided exactly this, and it's been in Chinese doctrine for a decade. It's clear in Chinese military publications, and even a cursory literature review of Chinese journals finds a consistent message: China can defeat superior enemies by utilizing information warfare against information dependent-states, particularly the United States, and it must have a diligent, long-term view to do it successfully.
If China spends 15 years shaping American public opinion -- including that of politicians in power, or who come to power -- that military conflict with China must be avoided at all costs, even in a scenario where China invades Taiwan, has the goal not been accomplished? If China is able to temporarily blind US command and control to give it enough time to become entrenched in a symbolic region, has the goal not been accomplished?
China believes it, and China has embraced the idea of using principles of information warfare -- from long-term PSYOP, to public relations, to coordinated computer attack, to "useful idiots" without any government affiliation doing the Party's bidding for the "good of China" -- to skip the full extent of the costly and painful military-industrial modernization it would take to counter an adversary like the US in a conventional war.