"Cyberwar" As a Carrot For Those Selling the Stick

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

"Cyberwar" As a Carrot For Those Selling the Stick

Posted by timothy on Tuesday February 14, 2012 @05:16AM from the always-been-at-war-with-elbonia dept.

New submitter sackbut writes with a story at Wired about the often-discussed concept of "cyberwarfare," and the worst-case scenarios that are sometimes presented as possible outcomes of concerted malicious hacking. According to Wired, which calls these scenarios "the new yellowcake," "[E]vidence to sustain such dire warnings is conspicuously absent. In many respects, rhetoric about cyber catastrophe resembles threat inflation we saw in the run-up to the Iraq War. And while Congress' passing of comprehensive cybersecurity legislation wouldn't lead to war, it could saddle us with an expensive and overreaching cyber-industrial complex." Writes sackbut: "Perhaps good for programmers, but not so good for rights."

16 of 115 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

21st century--The era of perpetual war by elrous0 · 2012-02-14 05:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

Does the phrase "Wartime President" or "Wartime Government" still have any meaning when you're never again NOT at war?

--
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
1. Re:21st century--The era of perpetual war by forkfail · 2012-02-14 05:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You should know that Eurasia is our friends, and that we've always been at war with Eastasia. Or do you need a reminder?
  
  --
  Check your premises.
2. Re:21st century--The era of perpetual war by dreemernj · 2012-02-14 05:31 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I don't care about what wars we're fighting. I'm just enjoying my 20 grammes of chocolate.
  
  --
  1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
3. Re:21st century--The era of perpetual war by PPH · 2012-02-14 05:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Do civil rights have any value when they are suspended during wartime and we're always at war?
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
4. Re:21st century--The era of perpetual war by plopez · 2012-02-14 05:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Orwell tried to warn us. See also his work on the use of language and using it as an agent of control (Chomsky says basically the same thing).
  
  --
  putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
5. Re:21st century--The era of perpetual war by GameboyRMH · 2012-02-14 05:44 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Your pornography ration has been cut to 20MB per week.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
6. Re:21st century--The era of perpetual war by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-02-14 06:19 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Orwell tried to warn us. See also his work on the use of language and using it as an agent of control (Chomsky says basically the same thing).
  Orwell got a lot of things right, but his arguments about use of language were pretty wrong. You can't actually create Newspeak. If you start calling copyright infringement piracy, people start to think that pirates are cool and piracy means sticking it to The Man. If you decide that calling it piracy is no longer cutting it and start calling it theft, people will soon start making references to Robin Hood instead of Captain Jack Sparrow. (You must admit that the pigopolists bear a closer resemblance to the Sheriff of Nottingham than they do to the British Navy.)
  Chomsky has it more right, but despite being a linguist his points aren't as much about language as information: The issue is that selection bias allows you to tell part of the truth, and then defy anyone to prove that your biased selection is empirically false rather than merely intentionally incomplete, leaving the general public with the impression that the things the media says are irrefutable because no one is allowed any opportunity to refute them. In other words, the problem is not that powerful people choose what you are allowed to say or even how you are allowed to say it, it is that the content of your message determines how large of an audience you are allowed to reach.
7. Re:21st century--The era of perpetual war by idontgno · 2012-02-14 06:49 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Orwell got a lot of things right, but his arguments about use of language were pretty wrong. You can't actually create Newspeak. If you start calling copyright infringement piracy, people start to think that pirates are cool and piracy means sticking it to The Man. If you decide that calling it piracy is no longer cutting it and start calling it theft, people will soon start making references to Robin Hood instead of Captain Jack Sparrow. (You must admit that the pigopolists bear a closer resemblance to the Sheriff of Nottingham than they do to the British Navy.)
  First, most of the "people" you're referring to are proles in Orwell's vision. As long as they get their free bread, beer, and entertainment, they don't care about any of that stuff. As to the outer party members, or proles who are unfortunate enough to be perceptive and discontented, well, that's what the Thought Police are for. Either the malcontents accept Newspeak voluntarily, or after a visit to Room 101.
  I think Orwell had that much right. If you can control the vocabulary, you can control the discussion. If you control the discussion, you can control the conclusion.
  The only thing lacking right now is the means and will to unequivocally control the vocabulary. The pigopolists understand this, and probably concede they can't do that by force now, so they just beg their argument ("copyright infringement is theft because it's stealing from artists") and then power through the rest of the debate feeling confident they already have chosen the ground for the conflict. And by working behind the scenes and shaping laws (which are the only meaningful vocabulary in the whole milieu), they have a chance of succeeding.
  
  --
  Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Now selling anti-cyber attack amulets! by Kenja · 2012-02-14 05:21 · Score: 5, Funny

Guarantied to prevent cyber and leopard attacks.

--

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
1. Re:Now selling anti-cyber attack amulets! by Maximum+Prophet · 2012-02-14 05:35 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The problem is that right after you don't buy into the hype (and expensive products), some less-than-cluefull employee will give out his/her password over the phone, or download and run some malicious attachment.
  
  Please note that the expensive solution being sold won't work any better than your leopard amulet, but you might be able to keep your job if you bought the "Industry Leading Solution", because, hey, how could you have done better than that?
  
  --
  All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
2. Re:Now selling anti-cyber attack amulets! by Anthony+Mouse · 2012-02-14 06:43 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The problem is that right after you don't buy into the hype (and expensive products), some less-than-cluefull employee will give out his/her password over the phone, or download and run some malicious attachment.
  That is not really the problem. The problem is that too many congress critters subscribe to the Legislator's Fallacy: "Something must be done. This is something. Therefore, we must do this." If not for that, the existence of dim witted federal staffers could be resolved by firing them (or not hiring them in the first place) rather than spending a trillion dollars a year fighting an imagined enemy.
  One of the things people have the hardest time accepting is that sometimes Bad Things Happen and the cost of preventing them exceeds the cost of allowing them to happen. In other cases the problem is a legitimate problem but the solution offered is totally irrational because the better solution requires goring the wrong constituency's ox, and with the rational solution taken off the table for political reasons, people are unhappy that the problem is not being solved and demand the outrageous and ineffective solution.
  Of course, in this case it isn't really any of those things: This is just garden variety corruption. If you want to divert a trillion tax dollars into your own pocket then you need to pretend you're providing something of value to the general public. Saving them from imaginary cyber attacks (or whatever) is as good an excuse as any -- and hey, if there are no cyber attacks, it must mean they're doing their job. And if there are cyber attacks, it must mean they need more tax money.
Nope by stanlyb · 2012-02-14 05:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

The truth us that no one but the programmers want to make good and secure programs. It is the management that does not understands the insides to put unreasonable expectations, which leads to not working solutions. And it is the government to always request for a back-door capabilities, which again leads to UNSECURE programs.And good and bright example (not windows) is SCADA systems. The protocol that they defined and implemented is so wrong by design, so so so wrong, that i could now have 100 years just to start to explain how wrong it is. Just believe me. IT IS WRONG BY DESIGN.
Y2K by stevegee58 · 2012-02-14 05:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

Whip everyone into a frenzy about a scary, ethereal threat.
Sell products that play into the new fears.
Profit!
Not good for rights or taxpayers by plopez · 2012-02-14 05:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

A waste of money. We have have no money for education, the elderly, the infirm, veterans, community development, R&D, or infrastructure. But we have plenty of money to sink into DHS, DoD, the secret police, the weapons industry, and the intelligence black hole.

--
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Still waiting - by Darth+Snowshoe · 2012-02-14 05:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

I was expecting all the hordes of commenters from the recent NASA/Mars/fed. budget thread to also show up here, to again say "hurf durf, you guys, we just can't go on spending money we don't have!!!1! Don't you understand?!!?! Budgets!! Deficit!! Taxes!!! Entitlements!!!46% (or whatever)!!"
What? Oh, this is Department of Defense? Oh, well, never mind then.
Re:Don't you mean by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-02-14 05:51 · Score: 3, Funny

Bah. You Cyber-Stick vendors cannot hope to compete with my Industry-Leading Integrated Cyber-Stick Management Solution.

Is your Cyber-Stick Proactive? Does it Synergistically Integrate Intelligence across Multiple Threat Vectors, allowing you Drill Down through a Real-Time Data Matrix and turn Information into Actionable Intelligence? Does it support Robust Delegation, for Interdepartmental Collaboration and Public/Private Security Partnerships?

See you at the trade show, suckers!