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."

Comments

Re:Warfare?

[advocate_one]

Not to sound like my tinfoil hat has gotten too tight, but really is this warfare? So our grid goes down. Does this mean we can't live?

You've already had examples of how things break down when the power goes out during the previous major blackouts... imagine it being nationwide and more than 48 hours in duration... you cannot cope with that... people WILL be fighting for food and water...

There were fights in supermarkets in Gloucestershire over bread and water when the floods hit in 2007...

They were minutes away from having to order the evacuation of most of the county if the flood defences had failed to protect the major electricity substation supplying a large part of the county including the city of Gloucester... the main water treatment plant was taken out by the floods and we were having to use water trucked in and distributed via water bowsers for several weeks until the plant was repaired and the water mains had been flushed out and treated