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Separating Cyber-Warfare Fact From Fantasy
smellsofbikes writes "This week's New Yorker magazine has an investigative essay by Seymour Hersh about the US and its part in cyber-warfare that makes for interesting reading. Hersh talks about the financial incentives behind many of the people currently pushing for increased US spending on supposed solutions to network vulnerabilities and the fine and largely ignored distinction between espionage and warfare. Two quotes in particular stood out: one interviewee said, 'Current Chinese officials have told me that [they're] not going to attack Wall street, because [they] basically own it,' and Whitfield Diffie, on encryption, 'I'm not convinced that lack of encryption is the primary problem [of vulnerability to network attack]. The problem with the Internet is that it's meant for communication among non-friends.' The article also has some interesting details on the Chinese disassembly and reverse-engineering of a Lockheed P-3 Orion filled with espionage and eavesdropping hardware that was forced to land in China after a midair collision."
The article quotes Richard Clarke on a hypothetical Chinese cyber attack:
Within a quarter of an hour, 157 major metropolitan areas have been thrown into knots by a nationwide power blackout hitting during rush hour. Poison gas clouds are wafting toward Wilmington and Houston. Refineries are burning up oil supplies in several cities. Subways have crashed in New York, Oakland, Washington, and Los Angeles. . . . Aircraft are literally falling out of the sky as a result of midair collisions across the country. . . . Several thousand Americans have already died.
Firstly, China isn't going to attack the U.S. - going to war with one of your largest trading partners and a nuclear armed state would be stupid. But if China were to wage war on the U.S. then the deaths of a few thousand people and the associated chaos would be chickenfeed compared to the effects of nukes raining down on American cities. I wonder whether this kind of alarmism is meant purely to scare people into accepting increased defence spending, or whether the people at the top honestly believe what they are saying?
Wow. I thought the US was supposed to be "cowboy country" and so violent. When Two tornados tore through my town the power was out citywide overnight, and took a week to get back online in many neighborhoods (including mine). Nobody rioted, despite stores being closed for several days (and many stores for a month, as the buildings were badly damaged). I ran out of cat food, one open store that was without electricity was using an old-fashioned credit card reader that relied on carbon paper.
Hell, as chronicled in the linked journal, damaged bars were open the next day, with folks drinking by candle light.
They didn't even riot during Katrina.
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