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U.S. Congress Authorizes Offensive Use of Cyberwarfare
smitty777 writes "Congress has recently authorized the use of offensive military action in cyberspace. From the December 12th conference on the National Defense Authorization Act, it states, 'Congress affirms that the Department of Defense has the capability, and upon direction by the President may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend our Nation, Allies and interests, subject to: (1) the policy principles and legal regimes that the Department follows for kinetic capabilities, including the law of armed conflict; and (2) the War Powers Resolution.' According to the FAS, 'Debate continues on whether using the War Powers Resolution is effective as a means of assuring congressional participation in decisions that might get the United States involved in a significant military conflict.'"
We've been holding on to this power for too long. Time to actually use it against China.
may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend
You see nothing wrong with this. Then you wonder why the world hates you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Clear and present danger?
What could possibly go wrong?
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
"Debate continues on whether using the War Powers Resolution is effective as a means of assuring congressional participation in decisions that might get the United States involved in a significant military conflict."
I read the War Powers Resolution is also effective as a means of assuring congressional participation in Internet censorship .
Time for the voting public to purge this misguided house of government of all its privilege and narcissism.
To the penchant for destabilising democratically elected governments and installing puppet dictators in order to acquire resources and dominate regions militarily.
Deleted
and (2) the War Powers Resolution
Let's drop the charade. If robotic aerial bombardment doesn't constitute "war", then sending strings of ones and zeros through a series of tubes certainly doesn't count as "war". There is effectively no congressional oversight because cyber-warfare does not fall under the purview of "war" according to the executive branch. There's also no way for congress to cut funding for cyber-warfare since all the computers and networks are already paid for, and there's very little operational costs to waging a cyber war.
Cyberwarfare is fiction.
This will be my first motion for all forms of government and associated militaries to be permanently banned from the internet.
Do I hear a second?
I am John Hurt.
Come on, they've been doing this sort of thing for a while now. This is just to legalize their previous actions.
Would this give the citizens of America the right to form a Cyber militia and the right to bear Cyber arms under the constitution?
Yeah, who needs SOPA when you have the US military to enforce royalty payments!
Yes, it's a new age of intellectual property imperialism! Except instead of the huge royal navies of England and France fighting pirates and collecting royalties on trade routes, we'll have the DoD DDoS attacks taking down all parties that don't pony up!
It's suiting for the US, much of whose wealth and economy is now based on imaginary assets, like patents and copyrights on, well, just about anything having to do with "popular" culture or business processes. What better way to make money for nothing than to have a piece of legal paper that says that people have to pay you money for doing ${thing}s? And then having a bunch of other people fund your military, the largest in the world, to enforce those payments?
Subjugation! Success!
"Interests" is an interesting term. We have well defined (codified in law) ideas of who our allies and what our nation is, but interests can range anywhere from democracy to oil to bombing airplane manufacturing plants in Brazil and China to protect our (civilian) areospace industry.
Diplomatic cables have already revealed that we lean pretty heavily on our allies to buy Boeing and Locheed Martin products, both civilian and defense oriented. If anyone needs a reminder, we just "convinced" Japan to buy 150+ still on the drawing board F-35 stealth fighters, (things yet to fix: major fire hazards, lack of stealth, weak airframe, buggy software, bad aerodynamics) rather than the EuroFighter earlier this week, right after Kim Jong Ill died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II
http://www.washingtonpost.com/japan-to-pick-lockheeds-f-35-as-new-stealth-fighter/2011/12/13/gIQAbuYUrO_story.html
moox. for a new generation.
Why the recurring 100% packet loss in Ontario and British Columbia?
Yours In Minsk,
K. Trout, C.T.O. http://www.internettrafficreport.com/namerica.htm
We already take aggressive actions willy-nilly, with little oversight. What's another platform to perform it on going to matter?
I suppose I'm a bit cynical.
We, the people, should be finding some way to control some of this unwarranted, aggressiveness from our government. Vote the chickenhawks out.
POTUS pretty much bombs whatever the hell he wants the last few decades, and Congress always goes along as sure as they wear those stupid flag lapel pins. If you're debating the state of affairs in any way, I want what you're smoking. POTUS has warmongering power at the behest of the MHC, which needs a good war to clean out inventory and stock the new fall line of bombs every few seasons. Debate? You've gotta be kidding me.
So wasn't there a Star Trek TOS episode where they fought their wars in their computers? Congress should be ashamed of stealing Prior Art.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Bring back Star Wars!
Upon reflection, I realize now that the military is sick and tired of IEDs, and would prefer to spend all day raiding, in front of a monitor.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
somebody in the u.s. hasn't been reading the geneva convention. if the U.S. is hell-bent on linking the words "cyber" and "warfare", then the U.S. had better be ready for the consequences. the consequences of "declaring war" on another country are very very simple: under the Geneva Convention, a declaration of war legitimises and grants the right for any citizen of the country being attacked to immediately take offensive action, no matter where they are, against citizens and against all soil of the aggressors.
in other words, should the United States respond with physical force against another country's citizens just because a computer which was wide open to the world (with 3 letter passwords), that is an "act of war", and the citizens of the country being attacked are automatically granted the right to take immediate offensive violent action against any United States Citizens or against any United States "property" and soil.
in other words, this is an incredibly stupid thing for the United States Government to be doing. especially given that many people in the United States Military have absolutely no idea what constitutes a cyber attack, and they certainly don't understand that 3 letter passwords are an invitation to go "cooeeee! i 0wn youuu!"
madness. absolute madness.
The Constitution does not give Congress authority to delegate their war-making powers to ANYONE else, including the President.
If this can legitimately be considered "warfare", then there is no question whatever that it is unconstitutional. The "War Powers Act" notwithstanding... it is unconstitutional, too. You can't use one unconstitutional law to justify another.
If Congress hasn't declared war, then it's not a Constitutional (legal) war. Period. And that means we haven't had a legal war in over 60 years.
yum install skynet
if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
The nationalization and segmentation of Internet has begun. It was a nice place with no borders and equal for everyone. But of course, old power-greedy bastards has awoken and now want to subjugate everyone under their rule, claim "territories" that they own and build armies to fight with each other. And common folks as always are blinded with "patriotism" propaganda, while really are just used as a resource for some self-proclaimed sociopathic "leaders". Since the dawn of ages. Humanity, will you ever learn?
Don't know what it means, but sounds great.
bjd
... that the "powers that be" make a PowerPC Mac version of whatever diabolical schemes they want to engage in. Otherwise we old Mac users might feel left out.
Why don't you answer the question: Is North America under a cyberattack?
Secondly, why is latency in Ontario O ms? Trust me, it's a trick question.
You may now return to your Android-and-or-I-Phone toy.
Cheers!!!!
Those cutting edge Senators and Representatives have a hunch that China and others may one day consider developing such a cyberwar capacity, and want the USA to be the first to develop it.
Gently reply
Local, direct connection based. Back to the present day equivalent of BBS's. They were around for a reason and haven't really died, just become less noticeable in the great "interweb" hype.
Oops.....We just Hacked Ourselves, destroyed our own prosperity, and captured our own freedom. Now that's a victory for self defeat.
Why don't you answer the question: Is North America under a cyberattack?
I didn't because I moderated. What's your excuse, Mr. Kettle?
Secondly, why is latency in Ontario O ms? Trust me, it's a trick question.
Sure it's a trick question, not least of all because O ain't a number. I'm certainly not going to give a page hit to the tool that posted it...
You may now return to your Android-and-or-I-Phone toy.
Actually I'm still using a perfectly serviceable T68. Did you have a point, or was that your best attempt at a witty retort?
Cheers!!!!
Thanks, this IPA is actually quite drinkable; it's proven to be a pleasant surprise from our office's secret Santa.
They are already disconnecting foreign sites on general domains that are in the way of their market interests. What is it if not an aggressive action?
Is anyone besides me getting chills down their back from the use of the term 'cyberspace' by these officials, let alone what else they are talking about doing?
I really think the older generation doesn't understand that the virtual world isn't just 'virtual', that actions that take place in it really do affect the real world. Actually, I don't think even newer generations understand this either. They simply believe that anything that happens in the virtual world will stay there. When their laptop is broken they can simply by a new one. A simple brute force solution for a very elegant problem.
Cyberwarfare is going to turn into a very messy can of worms. Someone mentioned the Geneva convention a bit up... When do cyber attacks become an act of war? When does it reach a point where you can legitimize morally going to war? When wars used to take place, they were over physical things that happened in real life. If China steals a bunch of secrets from us, how much does that actually mean? When the blueprints for nukes were given to Russia there was a physical piece of evidence to back that up. People were scared crapless of nuclear devices after what they did in WW2, rightfully so. When China steals secrets for the F-35, how are people going to react to that?
Information has very little physical presence until it's actually used and then when it's finally used, it's too late. This really is a very scary sort of this cold war. Not only is there not a physical presence, there is no clear set boundary where you can claim someone has 'crossed the line'. There are no lines!
Honestly the government should play this defensively as possible. I don't mean offensive defensive, I mean separate networks completely out so there is no way for the outside 'internet' to interact with them. I'm sure something like this has already been done, but apparently it's not being done well enough. It could also be social engineering that is leading to such mistakes, where some commander who isn't so technically savy takes his laptop home with super secret clearance and puts edonkey on it. These mistakes should start to clear up as newer tech savvy generations start to take places of power. I hope it happens before the older generations botch things up too badly though, they're doing a pretty good job at their current rate.
I thought history showed a nation / empire given over to hedonism (ie entertainment) was in the last stages of its decline and about to fall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_(film) Well I am!
So how does the US defend or any other Country for that matter against a syn ack or my deep packet inspection back to GCHQ http://www.gchq.gov.uk/Pages/homepage.aspx I don't even work for them, as I am better and they use BT Integrated Accommodation Services Ltd.
That is a company for spying! Nothing you do is private; but can I penetrate as a hacker? Maybe, and If I said I was a CDC member Cult of the Dead Cow and do anything illegal? No. Philosophy states; if I want in as a hacker; you would have never seen me coming and pulling an rm-rf of /var/logs is not where the real log files are stored!
Thanks to my friend fydor http://www.sectools.org/ | might go unseen, but a true hacker... maybe he is spartacus. Remember it only takes 1 to get in! binary finary :P
All cows eat grass!
Americans are war-weary? Legalize the hacking they've already been doing in secret!
how is babby formed?
reminds me of when a high school history teacher discussed the causes of WWI in high-school terms.
One cause of WWI was German imperial ambitions compared to the established bigshot colonial powers.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
The global economy is fucked primarily because of the USA and Lehmann Brothers, subprime mortgages etc. A domino effect fucked up the EU, sure, caused its own smaller but USA-like fiscal irresponsibility problems to go critical. But if the USA hadn't been acting so grossly irresponsibly, or the EU had been smart enough not to invest so much in the USA's not-so-secretly completely-made-up stuff, then only the USA would be fucked right now, not the USA and the EU (americans may be in greater denial about being fucked).
SOPA has been passed already?
Debate continues on whether using the War Powers Resolution is effective as a means of assuring congressional participation in decisions that might get the United States involved in a significant military conflict
Since everybody says we didn't do it, there will never be any significant military conflict as a result from nation state internet activity. The same can't be said about the on-line activities of private citizens who get hell-fired, shot, imprisoned or impoverished based on them. The only way to improve the situation is that everybody get their intercontinental missiles ready at the garden. It's only logical.
Hmm, how do you know and prove it is one nation vs. another or just some independent citizens? Take Stuxnet - was it Israel, the CIA, someone else? Is sabotage an act of war? Seems to me that cyberwarfare is in some ways like gorilla warfare with an unseen enemy. If I set up a remote system in Canada to route my control traffic through before hitting another system in the US and attack China from there, what then? Same with China - there are plenty of places one can get a legitimate and illegitimate account on a server and from there attack Japan, the US, etc.
If it's that critical anyway, why is it connected to the Internet in the first place? Why no air gap?
Well, we can safely assume that no one's in any danger. Apparently, our military is now authorized to do battle in 1980s science fiction ideas. Woohoo! Go for it, boys.