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Could Cyber-Terrorists Provoke Nuclear Attacks?
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that according to a study commissioned by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), a joint initiative of the Australian and Japanese Governments, terrorists could use information warfare techniques to make a nuclear attack more likely — triggering a catastrophic chain of events that may be an easier alternative 'than building or acquiring a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb themselves.' While the possibility of a radical group gaining access to actual launch systems is remote, the study suggests that terrorists could focus on feeding in false information further down the chain — or spreading fake information to officials in a carefully orchestrated strike. According to the study 'Hacking Nuclear Command and Control' [PDF], cyber-terrorists could 'provoke a nuclear launch by spoofing early warning and identification systems or by degrading communications networks.' Since command and control systems are placed at a higher degree of exploitation due to the need for rapid decisions under high pressure with limited intelligence, cyber-terrorists 'would not need deception that could stand up over time; they would only need to be believable in the first 15 minutes or so.'"
Really, I'm less worried about the cyber part of one of these attacks and am more so worried about the weakest link in the chain: the human factor. Social, over-the-shoulder or 'soft' hacks would be the few ways left to gain access. Mental manipulation like keeping someone in the dark would be the best way to scare them into action. It's not like someone's magically overcoming the physical barrier that exists between the internet and these secure networks on which sensitive information and control are relegated--you need a human to exploit.
At least this time around the title's gone from
Hacking Nuclear Command and Control
to
Could Cyber-Terrorists Provoke Nuclear Attacks?
Which is a lot more accurate but a lot less newsworthy.
My work here is dung.
Perhaps we could set up a security protocal called Tic-Tac-Toe?
Oh wait . . .
"I'm afraid I can't do that Dave."
OH SNAP!
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Terrorists could hack into your computer and turn it into a W.M.D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=potlDrRI01A
Sent from your iPad.
Without knowing how precisely nuclear arsenals, launch codes and the like are stored, I think it's really hard to say how likely or unlikely it is. I'd like to think that the systems and people involved are heavily secured, but if we look at some of the stuff that's gone walking out of a secured US facilities, sometimes you gotta wonder.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Didn't we already know that people are the weakest link? Well, except for the Windows servers on the nuclear subs.
... are trying to impurify all of our precious bodily fluids !
Bastards !
yeah, that's my way of showing why I disagree with nuclear strikes, without repeating the same message that Kubrick's movie told us long time ago
I assume my point here is pretty obvious (if you have seen the movie, of course.)
Segmentation Fault in "Life, Universe and Everything" at line 42. Don't Panic.
Just no.
The television will not be revolutionized.
the ratio of ten women to each man. Wouldn't that necessitate abandoning the so-called monogamous form of sexual relationship?
I think we'll be okay as long they keep that darned Global Thermonuclear War game from being dialed into.
"The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as long as we live." - M.J. A
By not using nukes, we are using nukes. Ever wondered why there was never another major war between superpowers since WWII? They are a deterrent.
Plus, they are not the only thing subject to social engineering. How about air strikes? Regular missiles? Those can do some serious damage, and could lead to WWIII. Especially if nobody has Mutually Assured Destruction to worry about.
Great Intellect...
While the possibility of a radical group gaining access to actual launch systems is remote, the study suggests that terrorists could focus on feeding in false information further down the chain -- or spreading fake information to officials in a carefully orchestrated strike.
Whatever you do, don't precede the attack with an attempt to impress a girl by, say, dialing up an airline mainframe and reserving a pair of one-way tickets to Paris. That's a dead giveaway.
Essentially the defense against this sort of exploit is "be less trigger-happy".
NO, IT'S DOES NOT COMPUTE.
This novel involved an acutal nuclear device, but the aim was not simple destruction, but to get the USA to think the Russians did it, and therefore to retaliate against them. I think it did a good job of illustrating how people can come up with the wrong conclusions when they have limited info and time. In this scenario, people also tended to think of just one possibility, instead of thinking about what else could be the cause. Especially hard under time pressure.
Terrorists just wait for the day the LA Lakers visit the White House to celebrate NBA Title with new teammate Ron Artest tagging along. Terrorists set off false alarm at White House. Artest freaks out, attacks Air Force officer carrying football, strips to his underwear, then runs around West Wing in his drawers. While entire Secret Service detail distracted chasing Artest, terrorists sneak into White House and takes football off arm of unconscious Air Force officer.
I am more concerned over biological attacks. There's a possibility now, what with the fast advances in this tech, that some group/state even a deranged individual could unleash something quite bad. And if they can construct such a virus or bacteria in advance, perhaps they could also construct any vaccine or treatment needed so they wouldn't worry about getting infected themselves. Or even worse, some nutjob who just hated everyone just might not care, a suicide attack.
An attack could pass as "natural" for maybe a long time, giving the attacker immunity from detection and a modicum of plausible deniability even if suspected. We can tell where a missile is launched from, and I am guessing but I would think normal telemetry that would be garnered would give an indication of what make/model missile, giving a clue as to origin, even with a suddeen underwater sea launch. But how to tell where a biological really came from if all of a sudden it just "appears" someplace and starts to spread, or who was responsible for any retaliation strikes, or even if it is a "natural mutation" or man made?
Anyone working with recombination techniques care to respond? Is this a possible scenario, or still mostly just scary science fiction?
the part of Sum of All Fears where we almost *do it to ourselves*: a major plot point hinges on one Good Guy mis-hearing "fifteen kt" as "one fifty kt" from another Good Guy -- the first being a potential terrorist nuke, while the second "would have to be" the Russians.
There's followup as to how hard it is to push the *clean* data down the pipe afterwards as well.
If that's not a sufficiently cautionary tale as to just how loose and messy things would actually be in a first-strike-response situation for you... then you're not imaginative enough, and probably much happier.
It's amazing how hard it is to think when you think someone's about to nuke your country.
It's somewhat analogous to the traditional election supervisor's prayer: "Please, dear Ghod, let it be a landslide".
Only, um, in reverse.
I don't need a nuclear weapon to fight against cyber-terrorism. All I need is my pocket knife.
Knife cuts fiber-optic cable. I win.
Seriously, the simple answer is to disable their ability to connect to our computers. That doesn't take bombs, though bombs work just fine.
Only a warmongering technophobe would resort to nuclear weapons.
They're using their grammar skills there.
The reasons why there aren't any wars after WWII isn't necessarily nukes, but the general enlightenment that comes with technology. Other than the Soviet Union, during the Cold War no one really wanted to fight on a global scale, and the only reason that Soviet Russia did was that the people were brainwashed. Before WWI and WWII young men -wanted- war, they wanted the "glory" of victory, they wanted if they died to be remembered as a patriot with every girl they ever knew wishing that they were still alive and crying at the funeral. Than WWI hit and so did the media, and suddenly war didn't seem to be all that great to the masses except for in the propaganda and brainwashed cultures of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The rest of them fought for pure necessity and to save their own skin. After that, very few people really -wanted- another war, sure, they did have a few small wars, but they couldn't convince the people that war was really necessary anymore. No longer in most cultures did you have the father or grandfather speak proudly about his accomplishments in war, making it sound no more dangerous than hunting with some friends. But after the world wars you had most of them quiet, traumatized, mix that in with the fact that most people no longer saw a need for war (hippie movement) and improvements in journalism made it possible for everyone to see the horrors of war lead to many cultures who refused to go to war. The reason why we haven't had WWIII isn't totally because we have nukes but because there would be very few willing fighters.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I stopped reading when I got to "The Guardian". Its silly season in the UK media at this time of year.
The fact that they are even talking about dirty bombs makes me question the integrity of the report.
"Cyberspace is real, and so is the risk that comes with it,"
Did someone stopped to think this is the kind of alarming news that can elevate simple computer hackers to dangerous international terrorists.
Sounds like the result of Mathew Broderick movie festival and too many Red Bulls.
---------------
Bomb Mars now!
they would only need to be believable in the first 15 minutes or so
Because the government moves that fast. Really.
The interesting thing is that The Great War, The War to End All Wars was World War I, which preceded World War II and introduced the horrors of chemical weapons and machine guns, and WWI pulled America out of one of its most isolationist periods.
Depending on which countries you pick there was less than 20 years between "The Last War" and, well, the next war.
Fool me once...shame on me. Fool me twice...you can't get fooled again. -- George W Bush
Maybe this is what he was talking about. If you trick a trigger happy world leader bent on imposing his world view on everyone into pushing the red button to rid the world of some foreign threat...well...you can't get fooled again because you will all be radioactive waste.
Now...I certainly can't imagine a group of people that would be easily tricked into launching a preemptive nuclear strike...well except for Republicans. I guess it is a good thing that ol George's request for nukes that could be used in "tactical" situations didn't go anywhere.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
You can fool some of the people some of the time, or all of the people all of the time. Unfortunately it seems that could be all that's needed...
sudo mount --milk --sugar
We've always been at war with ...
FUCKING Kindle piece of SHIT!
Only a warmongering technophobe would resort to nuclear weapons.
It's true. I would, and I'm all alone in the world.
We are DOOMED !! DOOMED I tells ya !!
I have my bags packed and my hill runing shoes on !!
I'm GO !!
Yes, but even more interesting was the general reluctance of any country not suffering direct attack by the Japanese or by Nazi Germany to join the war. Until Nazi Germany decided they weren't going to stop at just a few countries most of the world just sat back and hoped they didn't come for them.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
a nice game of chess?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Your reasoning is more than a tad absurd. Willingness to fight hasn't magically dropped because of 'technology'. People still happily glorify war. Nations regularly fight brutal wars of annihilation. The only difference is that the people with the biggest guns are afraid to use them. We live in a big old Mexican standoff where you have a dozen or so powers with the capacity to wipe each other out. Israel, a nation the size of a small US state, has the fire power to wipe out the US (if they could deliver missiles that far, which they can't). The US and Russia could easily wipe out every major civilian population center in the world if they really wanted to. China could easily make the US uninhabbitable.
It isn't that the citizens have suddenly become less willing to fight and die, it is that the brutal reality is that in a nuclear war everyone fights, everyone dies. There is no sending the kids off to fight while remaining safe at home. The president of the US, a guy who normally can't be touched, dies in a nuclear war or, at the very least, spends the rest of his life in a bunker while everyone who knows ends up dead.
The real bullet to this argument is the US willingness to go stomp on Iraq, but how it is considered unimaginable for the US to do the same to North Korea. Both were belligerent nations that the world is a better of place without. Yet, the US decided to go stomp on Iraq but not North Korea... why? The reason is simple. The US knew that if Iraq had any WMDs, they didn't have enough to really threaten anyone. North Korea on the other hand has enough biological and chemical weapons to leave South Korea a wasteland. Hence, with merry impunity, the US trashed Iraq which was suspected of trying to develop WMDs, while they sent lawyers and diplomats after North Korea.
There is no magical enlightenment, just fear of millions of deaths. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate in fear, and thus war avoidance. The US and the USSR never went toe to toe because hippies made war look ugly. The US and the USSR never went toe to toe because both sides were too terrified of nuclear Armageddon.
This paper shows a significant misunderstanding of the command and control structure and procedures at STRATCOM (formerly SAC), National Command Authority (NCA) and other key elements of the process. I am waiting for the author to explain how the attacker will obtain the encryption codes to MILSTAR, SLFCS or any of the other communication channels into a Minuteman Launch Control Facility or the equivalent communication channels going to bomber squadrons, submarines and other force components with nuclear capability. Then there are enable codes, launch codes and various other keys that would be needed. The article also fails to address safeguards in place. One needs to only examine the "incidents" that have occurred in real life, such as a exercise tape accidentally being loaded at SAC, prompting incoming ICBM warnings, to see that these procedures worked even 20 or 30 years ago, and they hve only been improved since then.
Having worked on the unauthorized launch studies for Peacekeeper (the decommissioned ICBM system often referred as MX), I can tell you the author did not have the data needed to be able to conduct this study, much less draw any valid conclusions
Isn't the Guardian about 24 years late with this scenario? David Lightman can tell you all about it.
The author of the paper has no real knowledge. The Minuteman system, for example, has redundant cables running through pressurized pipes buried underground, as well as other detection and rerouting capabilities.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/12/most-awesomel-2/
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/tag/mabmp/
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
maybe if they hack into WOPR.
And it all begins with AT&T blocking 4chan
It's all great until they start fluoridating the water...
Actually...
According to 2004 report to Congress (linked by Wiki) the new Jericho III missile can reach most of North America.
They also have subs. German made, no less.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
Wasn't this a huge part of Sum of All Fears and Red Storm Rising?
Why *ISN'T* Tom Clancy one of Obama-lhama's defense Czars?
and the only reason that Soviet Russia did was that the people were brainwashed
Why do you believe that Soviet Russia "wanted to fight" any more than e.g. the United States did?
The reason we haven't fought a war like WWII again, is because the casualties in WWII was almost exclusively civilian, for both sides, which was a fairly unique occurance in history. It left both sides, victor and vanquished, with a horrible taste in their mouths. The risk we have now is that fewer and fewer people are left alive who remember the total-war state of WWII. I think the risk of another WW is going up every year simply because of that fact and nothing else.
Conflict has been and always will be a part of human nature - resources (oil, water, food, pussy or other).
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, and we are fast losing those people who were there and remember it most vividly.
Yup, Iran is already slated for strikes from Israel and the US. If anyone has the inside access to our military command structure it would be Israeli intelligence units that have infiltrated
and spied for 40 years. That, mixed with the remaining propaganda machine (US media) and Iran will be glassed over before you can say glasnost on toast.
BS. I'm sorry, but as a veteran I have to say BS.
Young men wanted war? Are you nuts? Read accounts of the civil war. Read about the effect Napoleon had on france during his little escapade. Read about the mexican-american war. And don't just read the winners' stories.
War is, and always has been, hell. I don't know if you simply played too much Civ 4 or what, but no one but leaders ever want war (at least, they don't want it bad enough to actually die for it in great numbers). Those guys who talk about war casually, as if it were no big thing? I go to veterans support groups with them and hold them as they cry over their broken lives. Maybe you haven't heard the reality because vets know you won't get it, you'll take it out of context because you weren't there. War ruins the lives of everyone it touches. You won't hear my stories because they define me, yet they mean shit to you.
Many families still tell the stories of their ancestors' terrible experiences in our civil war. It is a BIG DEAL to kill another person. There isn't a generation alive that hasn't dealt personally with war. War happens out of necessity- or perceived necessity- not because people WANT to go to war.
And I also disagree with your last sentence. There are more people here in the U.S. than at any other time willing to fight for their country. But there is a huge difference between being willing to fight and wanting to fight. I help defend the country, yes; I have done so willingly in the past. But I never *wanted* to go where I did, do what I did, see what I saw... But I would do it again. I believe in the bigger picture; I believe that my hardship is worth the gains to the people back home. I don't want to die for my country. That's stupid. But I want to go help so that other people *also* don't have to die.
I don't know if any of this made any sense to you. I hope it did. But your entire post was ass-backwards in every respect. I had to say something.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
-1 Absurd
Logic != Rational thought. The idea that the world was utterly irrational before Aristotle is indefensible.
Further, the statement that Alexander had a rational tutor is not terribly indicative of whether he was adherent to those principles.
If you want to invoke Aristotle, come up with a logical argument.
There was no major war because Soviet Extremists and American Extremists where forced to deal with reality - a Nuke war between both groups would result in the deaths of the rulers of BOTH empires, so they had legitimate reasons to seek peace.
The problem faced now is USELESS nukes sitting around, waiting for some random group to find a way to get access. While we can debate all day how best to keep a missile silo locked down, I think its best not even to be vulnerable - nations that have no nukes don't get their nukes stolen, no matter how many bugs they fail to fix.
This kind of a story, this kind of a headline, is
a lot like a comic book title and a by line such as
'What if some evil thing did some unrelated bad thing'
Just pointless and useless scaremongering and
speculation by folks with a product to sell, an agenda to push,
people to scare to make there marketing quotas.
Fear sells. The news in this kind of a piece is that people are
so shallow and hungry as to promote this kind of fear-mongering to
promote their selfish product schemes.
What is baby ducks mutated into nuclear-tip pigons?
What if tainted bubble-gum turns puddles into quagmires?
What if fear-mongerers used scarey story by-lines to promote their braindead products?
What if marketting of products always excluded scare-mongering?
I could gen up a spider that would post such 'scarey stories' on a fake website and . . .
wouldn't that be a waste of time.
So what is the socialogical reason for marketing people thinking that
the rest of us are so shallow and afraid that this kind of a byline is
acceptable?
With this research being a collaboration between the Australians and the Japanese, is there any wonder that it sounds like they borrowed a plot from Ghost in the Shell?
There was a story some time ago saying that the US military suspected Ahmed Chalabi of being an Iranian double agent who deliberately fed the USA government bad intel on Iraq to start a war that would destabilize the region and benefit Iran and the Shiites. I saw that story in the print news (I don't watch TV, so I can't speak to that) for about 2 days, and then it vanished.
Anyway, the war in Iraq certainly helped anti-US elements (Al Quaeda etc) with finances and recruitment. It removed Saddam Hussein, which was one of Bin Laden's goals. It killed thousands of US military members, caused us to spend hundreds of billions we couldn't afford, and lowered our international standing. Heck, it even drove us to embrace torture and undermine our own principles. I'd say that, if that fleeting story on Chalabi was true, he was far more successful than he would've been by building a single bomb.
only if they could block all the porn on the Interwebs simultaneously!
The real threat that is in between the lines here is the internet. This is another FUD release in a series over the last year or two that is leading up to OUR internet being regulated. Remember that the only way that our freedoms are removed is via the fear play. Every story I read about hackers causing power grid failures and our financial systems at risk or this one about nukes are all based on extremely weak data or really none at all. They only speak to the uninformed and are an obvious fear spike. Any intelligent person knows that the Real wars are fought in the central banks now with the IMF and other banker cabal networks. Why bomb out a nation when you can kill it financially and then rebuild it with debt that will be leveraged off of the destroyed nations natural resources. It is happening all over the world right now.
The three strike laws are going to be the start. It will be followed up with the threats to national security. Then maybe we can toss in an internet 9/11 and poof, OUR internet will have a great fire wall installed. It is pretty much already in place now with all that the CIA and NSA gets away with. All the power needs now is a justification that is digestible "by the people" to finish the job. Our internet is one of the last threats to a totalitarian fascist government now that the traditional media has been tamed.
Indeed. We have plenty of modern weapons with the destructive capacity of a small nuclear device without the radioactive fallout that warmongering technophiles can use instead, such as Fuel Air bombs, which have the added advantage of being incendiary and causing fires which will burn long after the initial explosion. As for mass casualties, our warmongers will just have to be a little bit more patient civilians take time to die of their wounds, starvation and disease.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
When you take out all the emotional triggers from the piece, what it boils down to is that there appear (although this is mere conjecture) to be flaws in the security and procedures involved in verifying launch orders. Flaws that anyone or any organisation or government with sufficient knowledge, inclination and technical ability could exploit. The result could be one or more unauthorised launches. Whether the systems are sufficiently slack to allow this launch to proceed to target (or the rocket/payload is sufficiently reliable to actually go BANG, or not) is not addressed by the newspaper. However, the nice juicy headline has done it's job, so why dilute it with more credible possibilities?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
This persists today, there is a certain romanticism with being first up onto the beach and punching a Nazi in the face. I wont say this is a US only phenomena but a lot of US romanticism tends to forget that the vast majority of the wermacht that we western Allies engaged were average Germans, not died in the wool Nazi's. The romanticism with war changes after you put a human face on the enemy.
After WWII, the world looked at itself, looked at the meticulous record keeping, not just for the Nazi death camps but by the governments tracking their soldiers deaths, it took years to count the dead, 50 Million est deaths as a direct result from a 5 year conflict. Even longer for many nations to recover their economies and infrastructure, some only recovered in the last 25 years. Unfortunately the generation that had to count the dead is slowly dying and we haven't had a significant war since 1973 so a lot of nationalism is returning to western nations who haven't had to really had to deal with hardships. We began to think of ourselves as invincible, just as the Germans did in 1939. We have lost all regard for the rights of other nations and arrogant in foreign policy*, the conflict in Iraq is evident of this. So few Americans realise that the Iraqi people would happily accept the worst Iraqi dictator over the most benevolent US democracy simply because the dictator is Iraqi.
The real reason that we haven't had a third world war is that we remember the second one, how it started and what it cost so nations have tried not to go down the path of extreme nationalism. If a state believes it can conquer the world it will do it, with or without nukes. Fortunately the Western Allies are having its arse handed by untrained and poorly equipped Iraqi resistance fighters, so the thinking that we can conquer the world is dissipating.
There have been plenty of wars involving nuclear powers v non nuclear powers. US v Vietnam, Soviets v Afghanistan, the side with nukes does not always win. As Sun Tzu pointed out, the 5th key to victory is the peoples willingness to follow its leaders. Quote the Art Of War
If you don't have this then it doesn't matter what weapons you posses. No one will follow you.
* I know the US is driving the bad foreign policy bus, but all western powers are on board so there is plenty of blame going around.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
"Israel, a nation the size of a small US state"
While (probably) technically correct, I think this comparison gives the wrong impression of Israels geographical size. I believe most people think of something rather big when the word US state is used, even if you qualify it with the word small.
Wow. I really cannot understand why this is a troll. Simple maybe but not a troll. Must be attracting trigger happy nerds with this headline.
.
So what is the difference?
You really needed a no carrier somewhere.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Without significant, specialized knowledge, nuclear weapons cannot be exploded by local people.
Bombs in planes, cruise missles and ICBMs require remote arming, prior to locals being given control to launch or drop them. Ask any "red shirt" on an aircraft carrier. Tactical nuclear weapons used by the army shot from ground guns, well, that's probably a little different in control. You gotta love the ingenuity to create a bomb that kills all life, but leave the buildings alone and 24 hours later it is safe to walk on ground zero. That isn't the type of bomb that fundamental Islamic terrorist are likekly to build.
Now they've just given those terrorists the idea...
for(b=(a=0)+1;;b+=(a+=b))print(a+"\n"+b+"\n");
Carefully and internationally planned nuclear war experiment might be detrimental to our natural environment and health, but beneficial to everyone's understanding of nuclear war, and avoid potential future fatal mistakes.
The purpose is to conflate hacker with terrorist.
so hackers == terrorists in the minds of the people and politicians.
Could you justify draconian laws against teenage nuisances? It's much easier to create the laws you need against indefensible groups; paedophiles, terrorists etc. So you just need to make more people into terrorists and paedophiles.
Your standard propaganda.
Deleted
All of them? No. But it wouldn't surprise me if a significant number saw it as an opportunity - for glory, loot or just to kick ass.
But that's your loophole - perception. "Brave $US! The $THEM hate us and if we don't get them first they'll kill us all! Remember $PAST_EVENT". You make them want to. It's left as an exercise for the reader to fill in the variables. Bonus points if it works with $US and $THEM reversed.
I think Patton would agree. http://www.military-quotes.com/Patton.htm
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Rock blunts knife. I win!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I agree with you *almost* entirely, Darkness404, but in the UK press alone you can see that the military career option is still glorified and being a soldier still positioned as a Good Thing To Do -- and they're fighting in Afghanistan. The idea of being a soldier not as unpopular or short of street cred as we might like it to be. On the contrary, it has unfortunately retained a significant degree of 'residual manliness' from the days of nationalism. The nationalism is still there, but weaker (thankfully) and subtler. I suspect the situation is similar if not broadly identical in much of the USA's media.
"Other than the Soviet Union, during the Cold War no one really wanted to fight on a global scale, and the only reason that Soviet Russia did was that the people were brainwashed."
Are you an idiot? Who told you that the USSR 'wanted to fight on a global scale'? Reagan?
I don't think it's as easy as hacking through a single fiber line with a knife.
Imagine, if you will, 50 years in the future where there's 100 fiber-level ways into and out of a country. Each one of those may be controlled by a different and possibly uncooperative company, who will lose millions and millions for each day that their foreign connection is cut. Imagine here in America, Sprint or Comcast telling the government to come back with a warrant.
No, the easiest thing isn't to cut off 100% access to everything. The easiest thing is just to lock down all of the border routers of your facility, where nothing gets out, and nothing gets in. That's only about 90% safe from outside attacks, though, as someone might have found a way to get through even that. The solution for that is to just shut down your own connection.
Security concerns should be handled on a site-specific basis. Don't like people getting into your government system? Lock it down, turn it off, etc, but don't fuck up the rest of the country's communication infrastructure because you suck at locking things down.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
I'll check it out (at the library), I love doomsday books for some reason. I can't recall now but maybe I read it like years ago. I'll see when I get to the library, read the first page then I'll remember if I read it or not.
Ya, it's a worry. I was reading about this DIY biology at home and got to thinking, this might be a cause for concern. I have mixed feelings about the whole gene swapping around business anyway, nutjobs doing it or not, seems to be some potential for some major "whoops!" action there, bad intentioned or good intentioned.. There's been some spectacular "whoopsies! We thought that radioactive asbestos based insecticide was safe! Our bad...." with every other advanced tech....that means it is going to happen eventually with biotech and recombination. Going to be more weaponized stuff, and then just unintended consequences with "accidents", both.
It makes me antsy. There are too many crazies out there that hate their own species so much (or all the "useless eater" populations that are "beneath" their exalted elite status) they might just think this is some sort of solution, and also what I mentioned previously about state or group attacks.
One possibility I have seen mentioned is "race specific" plagues. No idea if that is possible at this point, but suppose some megalomaniac "fearless prime king president general minister leader in chief" like kim ill dung decides to off all non asiatics as a good first step? Along those lines.
I wasn't talking about cutting our fiber. Cut the undersea cables from africa or north korea. Then jam their satellites just for the hell of it.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Oooh, let me play: Serbs, Croats (Croats, Serbs), Battle of Kosovo?
MUAHAHAHAHAHA! hehehehehe good one, man!
Went to the library today and had my Gf order it, she has the card so I don't even bother, usually I just buy my books used. It doesn't exist in our local but someplace in the system it does, will be here shortly. I'm looking forward to it.
Oh hey, saw you wrote Dr. Seuss taught you to read..for me it was correlating what the president at the time, Eisenhower, said on television (we had the first one in the neighborhood) and then seeing it written in the newspaper. Bingo, it clicked. My first word I recognized was "Ike". It's like I skipped a whole step there, went right to "seeing" words and skipped the whole individual letters deal. Headlines at first, then the whole articles. Became a news junky then and could read good enough from then on. I can't hardly remember *not* reading I was so young then, just entering kindergarten. One of the things I am eternally grateful for. It must suck just bad being illiterate.
Of course, it never helped me with my slanglish...hahahahahah! I have *fun* with words and writing, I don't care if it is exactly proper or not.