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Military Asserts Right To Respond To Cyberattacks
Hugh Pickens writes "AP reports that National Security Agency director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander says the US should counter computer-based attacks swiftly and strongly and act to thwart or disable a threat even when the attacker's identity is unknown. 'Even with the clear understanding that we could experience damage to our infrastructure, we must be prepared to fight through in the worst case scenario,' wrote Alexander in a 32-page Senate questionnaire he answered in preparation for a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to head Cyber Command. Alexander offered a limited but rare description of offensive US cyber activities, saying the US has 'responded to threats, intrusions and even attacks against us in cyberspace,' and has conducted exercises and war games, adding that it is unclear whether or not those actions have deterred criminals, terrorists or nations."
Let them respond to cyber attacks today and tomorrow they'll be asking if they can defend against physical attacks. I don't think we can afford to go down this road.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Why are essential systems connected to the internet?
Military flexes muscle, says they will respond with force, what's new?
Anonymous Coward
... will we realize that we should maybe consider possibly not putting nearly all of our business there?
I realize we need china to support American materialism/consumerism. A cultural revolution could change that, though. I would much rather buy less, but of higher quality, as produced by my fellow citizens -- keeping the dollars in our own country and filling the bank accounts of people who otherwise wouldn't have had a job and would want my dollars anyway.
Something to think about... When you buy American, you reinvest in your fellow citizens. I'm not a champion of nationalism, but we are far from world unity and the last thing our country needs is to keep sending our dollars elsewhere.
When the one-world utopia happens, I'm all for it.
Well, yeah, but it's more of a question if it'll hold our attention long enou- ooh, Entertainment Tonight is on!
That's how it used to be in America, back when our factories were thriving. Americans had the choice, and they chose cheaper, crappier mass-produced goods from China over higher-quality but more expensive goods produced in our own country.
A programmer is a machine for turning pizza into code.
That's how it used to be in America, back when our factories were thriving. Americans had the choice, and they chose cheaper, crappier mass-produced goods from China over higher-quality but more expensive goods produced in our own country.
I wouldn't mind this. I would, of course, still buy goods manufactured in countries I consider our allies, such as the UK. Sadly, due to an apathetic and ignorant society, a Congress driven by campaign contributions, and short-sighted corporations, we are now somewhat dependent on China and other unfriendly nations.
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
I'm concerned that Reader and Flash will facilitate making my PC part of that attack on the government. And if Joshua taught me anything it was to instead play a nice game of chess. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
Buying cheap was the only way a lot of people could have all the things they were told they needed by the marketing industry.
From TFA:
In cyberspace, he said, it is difficult to deliver an effective response if the attacker's identity is not known.
But commanders have clear rights to self-defense, he said. He added that while "this right has not been specifically established by legal precedent to apply to attacks in cyberspace, it is reasonable to assume that returning fire in cyberspace, as long as it complied with law of war principles ... would be lawful."
Senators noted, in their questions, that police officers don't have to know the identity of a shooter in order to shoot back. In cyberspace, the U.S. may be able to counter a threat, rebuff an electronic probe or disable a malicious network without knowing who is behind the attack.
So you can "take both", as I don't see any general threat to privacy here.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
There is an article related to this on TechDirt: Here. Basically everything from vandalism to espionage is being lumped under "Cyberwar." With vandalism being much the more prevalent. The issue of "Cyberwar" itself is mostly made for good talking points in the media, after all anything that drives readership drives advertisers and funding. Think you can actually get at a GPS satellites operating system over the internet?
Shh.
...but *why* are you USAers, as a people, worth saving?
Oh, you mean *cyber* attack. Duh.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Perhaps the most wise thing Richard Nixon ever said:
May the gods of humour smile upon you. For you have delivered a most ironically funny post.
The government should do "something" to ensure cyber intrusions are "dealt with" but why does the military have to have anything to do with that?
Give the job to a new separate federal body, preferably with a lot more transparency and accountability than the military
We chose? When?
Twenty years ago WalMart was full of American Made goods. It was even part of their advertising. It was the businessmen in search of the almighty profit dollar that moved the manufacturing overseas who left us NO choice.
This kind of attack can happen really fast, too fast for a human to respond to. Perhaps a machine would respond. While we're at it, why limit ourselves to fighting them in cyberspace? Let's take out their physical infrastructure. We don't want to put human soldiers in the way so let's use robots and drones. We'll need to control it all with good sight lines. Let's control them from the sky with a network.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
A lot of those clothes labelled "Made in USA" were being produced in Saipan by exploited workers who didn't even get federal minimum wage. Even when "Made in USA" was seen more often, that doesn't mean it was good for the American people.
The U.S. Military has extremely expensive equipment. How hard would it be to isolate their infrastructure on something not available on the World Wide Web? They Have SATELLITE NETWORKS! Put the public stuff on the world wide web, and keep the MILITARY INTRANET cord free from the web!
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
"I would much rather buy less, but of higher quality, as produced by my fellow citizens "
You DO realize the above is an unAmerican mindset, don't you ?
Now get back in line and buy everything, whether you need it or not !!!
And we choose to keep giving WalMart our money, rather than the smaller shops selling more expensive American-made goods. And then those smaller shops go out of business.
A programmer is a machine for turning pizza into code.
I would much rather buy less, but of higher quality, as produced by my fellow citizens -- keeping the dollars in our own country and filling the bank accounts of people who otherwise wouldn't have had a job and would want my dollars anyway.
Don't worry, you'll be buying less from China, because China feels exactly the same way.
In the long term, China doesn't particularly want to continue being so export heavy.
Their goal is to convert much of that export business into domestic consumption.
But don't think that means Americans will start buying more from the USA.
Production has been and is still moving to South America, mainly Mexico.
Be careful what you wish for.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I realize we need china to support American materialism/consumerism.
No, we don't.
The desire of much of the population for ever-cheaper crap to buy at Walmart on their credit cards, and the greed of national corporate distributors keeps that particular piece of bullshit alive. There is no rational reason why we couldn't produce everything we need within our own borders.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Minimum wage and worker safety laws alone would make many goods exponentially higher were they produced in the US. You'd also have to stop workers from unionizing, because that would also make prices somewhat higher, so quality of life for workers wouldn't be terribly high either.
It's difficult to attack well-designed and maintained computer systems and it's impossible to secure poorly designed systems connected to the Internet.
When the insecure junk we call our county's critical information infrastructure gets seriously attacked, the attack comes from botnets operating in every country including our own. To "fight back" we must destroy every insecure computer on the internet!
What will be left standing? Oh, most OpenBSD systems. Quite a number of well administered Unix and GNU/Linux systems. But will we still have electricity to run them? How much of the infrastructure of the Internet itself will still be left after the war has taken out insecure routers, switches and the DNS system?
My critical resources run on OpenBSD servers behind ghost firewalls. My less critical resources are run under GNU/Linux with liberal use of virtualization and sandboxing. There are a few ways I can still be attacked but then, I'm only securing one geek's home office!
There's nothing to be gained from fighting a cyber war. There's no sane alternative but to secure our infrastructure properly right away.
If the US responds to your pathetic probes with a letter to your isp?
What if they waste your wintel box, liquidate your Linux or molest your Mac?
Was it like a digital drone or did they send a digital version of main battle tank after you?
Imagine the credibility jump when you log and survive a US counter attack.
The joy of telling digital freedom fighters around the world of how to absorb, stop and roll back US cyber Blitzkrieg.
The rush as the first time you push past the Wintel 'honeypots' of the support services and into the more real proprietary or open source side.
Where does the US go after that?
How many skilled 'hackers' can US "diplomatic" teams around the world actively and permanently disconnect?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
actually protectionism in general is a horrible idea. the idea is that if the Chinese can produce shirts cheaper than us they should do that while we perform the tasks we are best at. important point is that 'cheap' refers to what we can't produce while making shirts. Since Americans can produce much more in terms of designing machines that can make shirts for us with little human help ie the Chinese then we should work on that and one person working in china does not mean that is a lost job here that person whose job was outsourced now has a reason to look for other work that is not as easily outsourced. why on earth I would want to buy from a less productive source I have no idea and in fact rewards inefficiency. however the chinese are not operating on an even playing field since they play games with their currency and continue to buy our debt. what we need first is a trade BALANCE with china so that we are sending as much of value to them as they are to us remember a billion dollars worth of crap is still worth a billion dollars. we also need to make trade treaties that encourage the same working environment that we require here in the states so that any advantage is not in cutting corners in workers rights otherwise we might as well make the ghettos here so that the poor of our country can make the items and cut out the shipping costs.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
Trace the IPs as the source of the attacks, get a warrant for the systems doing the attacks and if they are part of a Botnet zombie virus trace the IP logs back until you find the source it originated from that are controlling the Botnets.
You basically want to set up a Honeypot in a DMZ of the systems being targeted and take every other critical system offline and have the Honeypot act as it with dummy data on it. Then when the terrorists or crooks use the dummy data to register some where have the bank report it and get the IP address and email of the person using the dummy data and get a warrant for their arrest.
If you counter-attack it might be someone's infected system used as part of a BotNet and then if it is a system in a foreign nation our military does a DoS or attack to they might declare war on us.
So it is better we track down these attacks and learn the true source and not the Botnet of infected zombie PCs who don't even know they are infected but are remote controlled by terrorists.
This is basically an Internet 911 attack that keeps happening over and over again until we learn how to stop them.
If you are on Facebook or MySpace do not post personal information about yourself and never post that you are going to work or vacation as robbers will then know when you aren't home so they can break in and steal your Flatscreen TV set, checkbook, credit cards, computer, iPod, iPhone, whatever.
They also pay for advertising that has pop-ups with fake error messages like "Unhandled Expection Error 0x00000000" or "Your computer is infected with 327 viruses click here to remove them" that install a remote access and keylogger trojan horse virus that can tell when you post anywhere even in email that you are going on vacation or to work, and yes they will get your home address if you type it in somewhere.
I've had family members and friends be targeted this way. I don't know if it is just individuals doing this, or an unorganized gansta group, or a more tech savvy MAFIA, or even if it is a terrorist network trying to do this to steal the wealth from the USA on person at a time.
Also if you get an email claiming to be from the FBI to deliver money or cars or even anything to you, do not reply and delete it or move it to your junk folder. The FBI does not deliver money and most of these con artists and scammers try to tell you that you won some foreign lottery or a BMW and the FBI will deliver it to you by giving out your personal information, bank account number, credit cards, SSN, etc. Don't fall for it as it is a modified Nigerian 419 scam. I am 100% certain that the FBI does not deliver lottery money and prizes, who here agrees with me?
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Why would I need to 'be careful' what I wish for. What, pray tell, do you fear of the reduction of imported cheap crap from china? Did you not acknowledge the value of keeping the dollars in country?
I have been careful. Materialism and chinese imports in general make me sick and embarrassed of my peers.
You say 'be careful' as if you fear such a change. Are you satisfied with this way of being? If so, I don't have anything else to talk to you about as I've already stated I'm embarrassed by people like that.
It costs more to pay americans to do the job, thus the price must go up. Thus the materials are bought in lower quantity.. consumed less.
Think about the wages, overhead, etc, of producing in country. I'm happy with it and would gladly buy 1/3 the crap for the same cost so long as it was made by my fellow citizens and I could personally drive to the company to say "hey, this is broken" if they wont' honor the warranty.
Clearly what is needed is a coordinated network of computers and physical warfare technologies that can detect these threats and determine the proper course of action. I suggest we name this network Skynet.
It would take protectionist policy to enforce this theoretical balance. What say you now?
Aside from that, and I know we disagree here, I would *gladly* pay more for the same product if it were made by my fellow citizens. As I said before, without them earning it that way, they will take it through social programs (for which I am very happy to support). By keeping the dollars within, we inherently produce more jobs for those without college educations (widespread) and those who got educations but chose paths that are not effective, like music and certain focuses of literature. They still need those mid-low level jobs. We're outsourcing so bad that these people, and those of lower education/skill are simply unable to find work --- thus the social programs kick in and we still pay.
The benefit to keeping the dollar, and thus the work, in the US is not only that we get something for the dollars going out -- but they get something to. Work is valuable to people. Work gives you pride, purpose, and above all, human experience. People degrade without work or purpose. On an alternate point, I've always felt there would be much more benefit in a social welfare JOB than a social welfare CHECK. I served in the military, and even though I had been far beyond the capacity of scrubbing toilets ---when it was needed I sometimes scrubbed toilets. And I learned from it, learned to smile, and above all I had work to do.
Work stimulus was a great idea. Much greater than handouts to the people or to banks.
Minimum wage and worker safety laws alone would make many goods exponentially higher were they produced in the US. You'd also have to stop workers from unionizing, because that would also make prices somewhat higher, so quality of life for workers wouldn't be terribly high either.
I'm all for it. I yearn for what you speak of. Those dollars go to my fellow citizens! Those people will have jobs and purpose and will not require tax dollars in social programs now.
We could all use a few less things. Our focus on materials has distracted us from that which has much higher value: human interaction. Try it.
And the smug professional class who dismissed the textile industry as just crap work anyway.
And the smug professional class who dismissed assembly work as just crap work anyway.
And the smug professional class who dismissed light manufacturing as just crap work anyway.
And the smug professional class who dismissed heavy manufacturing as just dirty, polluting work anyway.
And the smug professional class who dismissed customer service and support as just dehumanizing work anyway.
And the smug professional class who dismissed low end programming as just boring, inconsequential work anyway.
And the smug professional class who dismissed stock analysis, paralegal and accounting as intellectual grunt work anyway.
And the smug professional class who dismissed overseas research and development as second rate.
And the smug professional class that went around singing about "education" and "innovation" and "dynamic economy" without ever figuring out what any of that actually meant or required.
Silly! You forgot the smug working class who no longer had the threat of industrial accidents, in exchange for lifting nothing heavier than a box!
Wait! Whats a sig?
You might yearn for it, but you're just one person and statistically negligible. No major American company is going to base their business plan on you and decide to keep everything local.
Even highly protectionist countries have had strong social spending. Having a manufacturing base at home doesn't magically eradicate poverty. Socialism as a phenomenon arose in the 19th century after Europe became highly industrialized and millions were employed at textile mills and factories. Countries building their own stuff have had problems with poverty comparable or even worse to what the US is currently undergoing.
Don't forget about Africa!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7086777.stm
now there's a place ripe for masses of underpaid, cruelly-exploited workers
Wait! Whats a sig?
Please, your visions of ever more Americans sitting on their butts and drawing a government check to do nothing have nothing to do with the reality. Social benefits in the US are negligible compared to most other developed nations and don't amount to a real income for the vast majority of recipients. Lose your job in the US, and you're more likely to desperately scramble to find work than rest on your laurels. Many of my relatives live in a depressed area of Appalachia and face a dearth of employment, but they feel they have to find something fast, because unemployment isn't enough to live on.
Even when you've got mothers who survive on welfare, getting them into work is going to require more social welfare programs than less, namely adequate daycare for the children. Countries that offer good daycare have no problem attracting women into the workforce over welfare.
When the one-world utopia happens, I'm all for it.
Know what is the best hope for the "one-world utopia" is? It's economic interdependence.
If I like the widgets you make, and buy them frequently, I'm less likely to hold a grudge against you if you do something stupid, and you probably don't want to bite the had that feeds you, so to speak.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
The OP may be referring to the fact that, one China is no longer dependent on the US as an importer of its goods, it may call the US's tab and collapse the US economy in an instant. Surely you haven't missed the fact that China bought up much of America's debt.
Cue attacks which appear to be coming from the home PCs of the top military commanders, business computers of captains of industry, the White House...
Exponentially? I doubt that. The use of that term smacks of corporate propaganda.
Corporate abuse of employees by corporations is a time honored custom here with much tradition behind it ;-\
Make workplaces safer? Perhaps that burden should fall on the manufacturers rather than the consumers. But you are right, in one sense - the rich will always pass the extra costs on to the poor, including and especially the poor bastards who work for them.
So where in the long run does that lead to?
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I wasn't saying I wouldn't pay higher prices for goods, personally. I was saying that the populace's demand for cheaper goods - which is driven by competition amongst companies outsourcing our production AND their advertising - is producing the problem.
There isn't a person in this country who can say that they buy entirely US produced goods nowadays. When I was growing up, that wasn't the case, although it was getting much harder to.
From a personal standpoint it has led to me buying very, very few newly produced goods, and recycling old goods much more. At this point in time nearly everything I own is second-hand purchased, save some electronic components.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
It's not unusual for a good made in the West to cost, say, $10 when its Chinese-made equivalent costs less than $1. The most recent example I noticed were handmade tobacco pipes, which can be had wholesale from China nowadays for less than $5, while US or European-made pipes sell for $40 or more.
Does the general reaction by the US government (and world governments) remind everyone of the bizarre tactics and theories thrown around about communist psychics threatening US interests?
"We don't understand the danger exactly, or if there even is one, but we must be sure to have a counter to it!"
You talk as though China can just say "we want our money, give it to us now" which they can't. We could just not pay them, get a bad name worldwide, and collapse the world economy.
Matter of fact, most of the debts TO the US were solved this way... They simply didn't pay. We're still friends with Germany.
The term "corporate propaganda" includes advertising and the associated markups ;)
I don't know for sure, but I suspect you are too young to remember when the majority of basic goods went from being locally manufactured to imported (1970s to now, pretty much, it "evolved"). You might want to go and look at the balance of trade numbers from those decades, they are rather enlightening.
I have to go do some "local servicework" early tomorrow, so have to crash. I'll try and get back to this conversation tomorrow night.
Cheers
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
You've totally gone off the point, and you've also completely ignored what all is encompassed in social welfare programs. Personally, I would like to expand ours. But that is all aside the point that spending in our own country provides more jobs and wealth *here*.
Social protections are wonderful, and rightly so. The majority was being abused and exploited, but the majority *is* the country, and so they are making the system fairer.
That is all beside the point, which is that it would be beneficial for us as a whole to invest more in ourselves than to shuttle dollars off to China buying cheap goods and increasing corporate profits. Yeah, no major American corporation would want to do that because to afford to pay americans they would have to drop some profit margins and sell less.... But I'm not talking about business, I'm talking about whats good for us. If you look at everything from a profit-max perspective, you're looking at it in the same way we ended up in this mess. We as a people should enforce ways that are better for all of us rather than the few.
Whoops, someone of unknown identity just launched a nuclear missile in our direction. "...We must be prepared to fight through in the worst case scenario...". Welcome to the club buddy.
What about us, who is outside the USA? There should be a serious systematic coordinated international police effort to fight cyberattacks.
The USA is one of the main countries of origin of spam http://thegrebs.com/spam/ . What about this? The US army cannot take action inside the country.
It is good that bureaucrats at last began to notice the net. But they should lift from chairs and do some real work on global cyber-security and order. People around the world try to run businesses in the Internet, and hiding in a fortress is not an answer. Let alone producing massive Internet disruptions in return.
Instead of real systematic work flashes of senseless military fury. That is how I see it.
Hey, hey, why skip over India, where the best 'Japanese' motorcycles are made?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
We'll invade Irak!
So all you have to do to take down a huuge part of any info structure is to launch an attack from it and wait for the site to be "nuked" in retaliation, Cool!
Disclaimer (cool said in sarcasm)
Unless you connect all people to a hivemind (or use force to subordinate them all to a single mind) they will prefer short term benefits over long term advantages, that's just how human nature works. Given the choice between a significantly reduced standard of living (we're talking about wages for the production of these goods going up tenfold so people cannot afford as many) or being tied to other nations that may THEORETICALLY some day invade the US most prefer the higher standard of living.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Tenfold my ass. If you're going to say that I want to see figures.
The only true response is to violate the Great Firewall of china with the truth. Flood them with American Labor History. Send over a bunch of Teamsters to organize labor unions and let the adventure begin. Maybe a couple of Jimmy Hoffas, Jackie Pressors and 100 business agents will bring sanity to this labor issue...ya think?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
You would choose the more expensive option, but sadly not enough of your fellow citizens would join you to make it profitable enough for the manufacturers. Hence the current situation. Look at airlines for a similar problem.
Don't blame the government for all you problems.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Don't blame the government for all you problems.
Um, what?
due to an apathetic and ignorant society, a Congress driven by campaign contributions, and short-sighted corporations
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung