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"Cyber War" Is Just the Latest Grab for Defense Money
New submitter Curseyoukhan writes "The phrase 'cyber war' is being used to scare us into coughing up money and liberties, just like 'anarchist' once was, and 'terror' still is. To quote H.L. Mencken, 'The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.'"
GIVE IT UP UNCLE SAM!!!
Most people are wising up to the antics of the media. People are starting to ask professional coders, system operators, and IT specialist about WHAT REALLY IS HAPPENING.
Your war isn't with the imagination of enemy forces. It's with the people who really control the internet. THE USERS! Who are in turn the people WHO PAY you to raise up the horseshit campaigns.
KILL THE POLITICIANS and LAWYERS!!! and let the world govern itself!
Cause I've not heard the phrase "cyber war" being bandied about like the wars on terror/drugs/etc have been.
has anyone considered this latest Hobgoblin threat to the United States' civil security? We need to begin deploying elven rangers at our borders. It's the only way to be sure. I propose an Elven Archer High Command, taking pieces from DoHS, DOD, NSA, FBI, and other agencies which are clearly not as focused on the Hobgoblin threat as they need to be. We cannot allow American lives to be thrown away by caving into the Hobgoblin agenda.
While I do agree that it is in the military's best interests to keep things rolling financially, make no mistake in the fact that cyber criminals and foreign nations are actively penetrating and stealing sensitive information from the United States as well as other countries.
This isn't news...
You are preaching to the choir, sir.
Lets start refering to The War Against Terror by it's initials. . .
Maybe you're not worried about the safety of the Information Superhighway, but I sure am. When I go surfing in cyberspace, I want to know that I'm protected. The World Wide Web can be a dangerous place, but if you take some precautions it'll be safe sailing all the way.
...tell the government where to spend our taxes. Me regarding the taxes I pay, your regarding the taxes you pay. Extrapolate that out to realize what all else gets fixed. If you don't trust the people, then you probably support rigged elections. Does a politician who does not follow through with their campaign promises that people voted for them for, represent the people? No Taxation without representation. I'd rather realize results as being representative rather than some a person claiming to represent me.
The value of defense is more often to protect yourself from those you suspect of retaliation of the wrongs you've done against them. go figure what the cyper war crap is really about.
+200 Obvious for the submitter.
Those that offer the solutions are the Hobgoblin.
Americans are a very curious species. There are two things you should know about them:
1) Most Americans have never experienced real war of any sort. This includes those in the military, even those who have served in various conflicts, and even those who have killed during said conflicts. (Much of this killing has been done at great distances using missiles or munitions released by planes or drones, and was thus quite impersonal.)
2) Most Americans have a so-called "boner for war". This is especially true of those who self-identify as "Republicans", but many who identify as "Democrats" are equally afflicted.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of these people, and they have thus acquired much power within the American political system. To them, anything and everything they don't like needs to be crushed in a "war".
It doesn't matter whether their target is alcohol or drugs or Islam or homosexuality or affordable health care or free speech on the Internet. To them, "war" is the only solution possible, and they'll refer to "war" incessantly when discussing such topics.
There is an unfortunate additional quirk in this case: Since, naturally, the 'cyberwarriors' don't want to be stuck purely in the tedious and thankless job of playing defense, there is a demand for 'offensive capabilities'. This creates a perverse incentive: If a flaw is disclosed and patched or mitigated, it is no longer of offensive utility, so now the market for zero-days and exploit payloads isn't just black hats, scammers, and criminals; but 'respectable' defense industry types.
This is not a merely theoretical problem.
VUPEN is the crass, attention-whoring, bad-boy of the industry; but practically the entire who's-who of staid, tight-lipped, defense contractors has a division peddling bugs somewhere in the business.
Even if we were 100% warm and fuzzy about the use these exploits are being put to by these firms customers(Only the good guys, pinkie swear!), this situation is insane from the perspective of actual 'security'. Whose economies, financial systems, and infrastructure depend most heavily on complex IT systems? Ummm, mostly wealthy developed countries. Whose citizens are most vulnerable to electronic compromise of financial information and such? Countries with high rates of internet penetration and lots of computers. Who has the capability to deploy electronic attacks against unpatched vulnerabilities? Virtually everyone.
In addition to the usual grab for rights and money, this 'cybersecurity' industry begets insecurity, because of the demand for 'offensive capabilities', despite the fact that we are the ones with the most to lose in an insecure environment. At least classic corporate welfare military R&D is merely expensive, and once you hand over the money, Raytheon or whoever goes off to build some impractical toy that is largely useless; but at least largely harmless....
We've always been at war with Eastasia.
Silence is a state of mime.
We cannot allow a cyber-war gap.
Whether you like it or not, practically anything government-related today is tied back to corporations.
The truth is there *is* a cyber war issue, just as there is a terror issue and yes, even a drug issue that needs to be addressed (meth).
What get's confused is the border between appropriate action and sponsored action. What's appropriate today is spend billions on contractors hoping the problem will go away, and less smart allocation.
Bloat's always been a part of government, but today we're seeing an extremely stark privatization of public money, and externalization of corporate cost in public debt...
I recently gave a talk on Cyberwar, with the main conclusion that there is nothing new here or nothing more scary than the targeted attacks we have increasingly seen in the last few years. Defense against "Cyberwar" is the same as against any other targeted IT attack. Even Stuxnet is not impressive at all and the authors made several unnecessary mistakes that jeopardized its mission. (And in addition, it is in no way certain that the damage to the Iranian centrifuges was even caused by Stuxnet. The Iranis had started using their own parts in the centrifuges and "the devil USA did it" may just be politically more opportune than "we do not have the skills to make our own centrifuges" or "we are incompetent to operate centrifuges reliably".)
But guess what? Some people in the audience were offended! Seems to me some people are so in love with their own misconceptions, that they rather be afraid than admit that they were wrong (and that they are not experts on the subject in the first place...). As long as this stupidity continues, the immoral manipulators using these memes will continue to be successful.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... certainly overblown.
"Cyber warfare" is and will be an effective tool in any conflict. Why blow up a telcom if you can simply take it down remotely? The intelligence aspects of such activity are staggering.
However the fact that it is a money grab is obvious. Go to Annapolis Junction, Maryland. Look at the offices there. Hole. Lee. Shit. The place is absolutely overflowing with money.... most is all oriented to cyber efforts. Boeing. Northrup Grumman. Raytheon. BAE Systems. All of these dinosaurs are jumping in with both feet.
Fact is that cyber efforts can be done far cheaper and more effective than these fossils with their over paid TS/SCI 10am-4pm legions of mediocre programmers could ever accomplish.
People might patch things more and stop helping out Nigerian princes.
The reality is that the next global war is going to be about food, but not between countries. The war will be fought by the likes of Nestlé, Kraft, Kellogg, etc.
And the super villain, beating the evil of all of these companies combined, is Monsanto.
Getting ready to harvest the replacement for the Dollar,
after their spending is approved.
While many "threats" to the USA and the west in general has been manufactured, blown out of proportion or handled horribly, the fact remains that there ARE threats. And that is important to note. The solution is not to ignore ALL threats, but to ignore the constructed ones, and handle the real ones properly. I know it is much easier to live in a black-or-white world, where either all threats are imagined, or all threats are real. But such a world-view will not do anyone any favours. The USA IS under threat. The USA is NOT invulnerable. And while the solution is not to become paranoid, the solution is neither to believe that everything will end in sunshine and rainbows just as long as you put your heads into the sand. Just because certain people keep crying wolf without any wolfs coming, doesn't mean that there isn't any wolfs. It just means that you should be careful about who you listen to, and actually spend time on understanding the issues and make your own informed opinion.
But I am probably asking too much. Spending time on getting an informed opinion is probably too much to ask of the median American. But with the quality of your media[1], who can blame you? Maybe you need to get some better systems up and running. I know it probably isn't popular, but getting media primarily state-funded (which is independent of any corporate interests) like the BBC might just be a good idea. Or maybe something which is more suited to the USA, I don't know. Just as long as you get a system up and running that doesn't promote ignorance of the world.
[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-time-magazine-covers-explain-why-americans-know-nothing-about-the-world-2011-11
Like during this huge and often ridiculous witch hunt in the USA during cold-war. Fear your neighbor, frear!
(Not that the other party was without well imaged propaganda against evil US imperialism)
Almost all of "defense" spending has nothing to do with defense.
Anarchy has been the go-to boogyman for governments since the dawn of organized coercion. In all likelyhood it was the very first "enemy" of the state. And it makes perfect sense: anarchy does NOT mean "no rules" (as government teaches you); anarchy means no rulers. That is the LAST thing government wants you thinking about (the fact that rules can exist without organized coercion, i.e. rulers).
The whole WWII think was made up? Damn! I knew Granddad told some whoppers, but I swallowed that one hook, line, and sinker.
Pearl Harbor, Bataan (my great-uncle must have faked his death), Nazi's, and Holocaust were all imaginary. Go figure.
Next you're going to tell me the Great Depression was fake too.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
politicians feel that they must do something for all the money they get ,is this a last ditch effort before we make them all redundant , we should !
This is the latest grab for defence money. Cyberwarfare is getting old enough that some people will start to believe in it for the sole reason that they heard it so many times.
Most of us probably know at least one person employed in computer defence by the government and there obviously is a very real need. But that is as far as our knowledge gets us. We have no way at all to know the size, costs or numbers of employees dedicated to stopping cyber attacks against our nation. So we go to vote without information. No way to make a good decision to vote for more or less cyber security expenses is at hand. The same is true across the spectrum of military affairs. For example how useful are tanks expected to be in conflicts in the near future? We don't know. What is the supply of tanks like right now? We don't know. Do our best tanks have clearly superior abilities from potential enemy weapons. We don't have a clue. What is out tank research budget? Sorry that's classified. Now children run and vote for whether the military gets more money or not as you are so up to date on our military abilities and equipment. Freedom and democracy do not exist when state secrets are allowed to exist.
The big difference that makes this silly is how cheap it is to fix these problems. We've got technical solutions for all security issues, but nobody uses them. Fire the programmers who get caught writing buffer overflow vulnerabilities. This is like firing building contractors who use substandard nails. After the roof blows off it's too late. Don't let your inspectors get away with being bribed. Don't tolerate substandard work. All these problems have been solved, we just have to fire the idiots who don't use them. Liability, anyone? When a building falls down, who is responsible? God? Or the architect and building contractors? Just stop letting your engineers get away with, what we should now consider to be, criminal negligence. Seriously, storing passwords in the clear? You're fired!
If it gives all the WoW kiddies a job, I'm all for it.
Are things as dire as the gov't and media regularly portray them? Probably not. Such hype gives the pendulum a push towards one direction. Are there real dangers out there from terrorists and politically motivated crackers? Yes. To discount them entirely as "imaginary" is simply asinine and reeks of the conspiracy theory mindset. That is the push from other side of the swing which sets up the oscillation. And when a pendulum swings, it spends more of it's time at the extreme ends than it does in the middle, where balance, moderation, temperance, and common sense dwell. I just wish they'd leave the damn thing alone.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
First of all this doesn't belong in a summary since it's purely opinion.
But second, it's a silly opinion. People don't wake up in the morning and think, "I'm going to menace the population with hobgoblins!" What people do think is things like, "we need to write a good ad for this anti-virus software (so I can get a good bonus)," or, "my ass is on the line if we get hacked. There's no sure defense so I'd at least better look like I'm doing everything I can."
What Mencken is claiming is, at best, an emergent property. In this case it doesn't even apply, since computer security threats are perfectly real.
> "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
Imaginary? Seriously? I guess there are two extreme wings for every opinion. You could probably argue reasonably well that the threats are "overblown" or "exaggerated". You'd have a hard time arguing that it's not important to secure our computer infrastructure. And you'd have an even worse time arguing that computer threats won't increase during the next major war. But, to call them "imaginary" instead of "exaggerated" seems like you're intentionally trying to say something provocative (and wrong).
First, a backdrop, beginning with the fact that China is on track to exceed US military spending by 2025:
Chinese Insider Offers Rare Glimpse of U.S.-China Frictions
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/world/asia/chinese-insider-offers-rare-glimpse-of-us-china-frictions.html
"The senior leadership of the Chinese government increasingly views the competition between the United States and China as a zero-sum game, with China the likely long-range winner if the American economy and domestic political system continue to stumble, according to an influential Chinese policy analyst. China views the United States as a declining power, but at the same time believes that Washington is trying to fight back to undermine, and even disrupt, the economic and military growth that point to China’s becoming the world’s most powerful country."
Asia's balance of power: China’s military rise
http://www.economist.com/node/21552212
"NO MATTER how often China has emphasised the idea of a peaceful rise, the pace and nature of its military modernisation inevitably cause alarm. As America and the big European powers reduce their defence spending, China looks likely to maintain the past decade’s increases of about 12% a year. Even though its defence budget is less than a quarter the size of America’s today, China’s generals are ambitious. The country is on course to become the world’s largest military spender in just 20 years or so."
China’s military rise: The dragon’s new teeth
http://www.economist.com/node/21552193
And now on to what's happening every day in US academic and business environments:
How China Steals Our Secrets
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/opinion/how-china-steals-our-secrets.html
China's Cyber Thievery Is National Policy—And Must Be Challenged
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203718504577178832338032176-lMyQjAxMTAyMDAwOTEwNDkyWj.html
FBI Traces Trail of Spy Ring to China
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203961204577266892884130620-lMyQjAxMTAyMDAwNzEwNDcyWj.html
NSA: China is Destroying U.S. Economy Via Security Hacks
http://www.dailytech.com/NSA+China+is+Destroying+US+Economy+Via+Security+Hacks/article24328.htm
Former cybersecurity czar: Every major U.S. company has been hacked by China
http://www.itworld.com/security/262616/former-cybersecurity-czar-every-major-us-company-has-been-hacked-china
China Attacked Internet Security Company RSA, Cyber Commander Tells SASC
http://defense.aol.com/2012/03/27/china-attacked-internet-security-company-rsa-cyber-commander-te/
Chinese Counterfeit Parts Keep Flowing
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=defense&id=news%2Fasd%2F2012%2F03%2F27%2F04.xml&headline=Chinese+Counterfeit+Parts+Keep+Flowing
China Corporate
1) million of attempts are made every month on US Government, and industrial systems.
2)And we have had system compromised by foreign attempts frequently.
3) It';s the military's role to protect against those threats
None of that is speculation, none of the is fear mongering. Those are are facts.
So, not it isn't the same as anarchist, of the red scare.
And the war on drugs is a completely separate issue, stop bringing it up.
Now, we can discuss where the line is, and discuss people using those facts to do things we don't want them to do, but don't pretend like they are made up threats.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Can you imagine a world where it's possible for there to actually be ideals that are opposed to principles of freedom and democracy, and where the US isn't to blame for everything bad that happens? I know this would be a stretch from your comfortable worldview which probably holds that the only reason the US and/or West has any "enemies" is because we make them ourselves. I'm sure if the US didn't exist after WWII, Western European nations would all be in a happy place and the world would be a peaceful utopia.
Wake up. The US isn't perfect and the world is a complex place, but I hope you never have to live under the tyranny and oppression which you indirectly and implicitly defend with ignorant comments implying that the US just "makes up" adversaries for no good reason than to make war and line pockets. Take a look at history. Or reality. Either would do.
1 it is likely that any certification legislation will be bought and paid for by Microsoft (or simlar companies) and will also legislate that that MS Visual Studio 2014* Enterprise will be required to be used and forbid the use of FLOSS tools.
2 this will make it impossible to use FLOSS tools on any business computer (can't have "uncertified" software running on a Business System)
3 it will not solve the problem since the Managers will force the Designated Engineer to "sign off" on whatever is needed when The Holy Launch Date comes
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Funny how prescient he was about the Military-Industrial complex. Sad how he would be considered a wild-eyed liberal by the current version of his Republican party.
I read a few of the author's other posts. In one recent post, he complains that the report "doesn't provide information on the data its authors used to come to this conclusion." But in the blog post that is the subject of this thread, he, himself, provides no data at all. He just says, I think (his point isn't very clear), that talk of cyber-war is fear-mongering just to get more money. Then he undercuts his argument, such as it is, by saying "All of this is not to say that we don’t have significant security problems with our critical IT infrastructure. We do." Is there a serious risk or not? How could he know? He hasn't provided any evidence one way or the other. Even an opinion piece needs to have some supporting data, or else it has just as much validity (and even less of a compelling reason to read it) than the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic.
Everything, from serious works of Plato to satire like "Yes, Prime Minister" mention how fear mongering is used to prop up power.
Bernard Shaw wrote "Of government, ‘that foolish gaggle shop’, he says: you will do what pays us. You will make war when it suits us, and keep peace when it doesn’t. You will find out that trade requires certain measures when we have decided on those measures. When I want anything to keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is a national need. When other people want something to keep my dividends down, you will call out the police and military. And in return you shall have the support and applause of my newspapers, and the delight of imagining that you are a great statesman"
Only we can't figure out a good excuse to shoot, bomb or jail poor people.
Have you seen the crap people vote for as cool? Do you really want the latest hot YouTube video, cheezburger meme or Twitter trend be the example for our nation's policy? Over and over, "man on the street" interviews show a huge number of people have no real idea what's going on, yet they'll be able to vote to directly to influence policy concerning it.
If we really want to kill ourselves, we can make voting mandatory, so the huge number of people who are uninformed or just plain old don't give a damn push random buttons. Or maybe you're in a bad mood so you vote "Bomb them!" on a war issue. Maybe a gay guy pissed you off yesterday, so you vote "No marriage for them." Why not? You're accountable to nobody for your vote.
And think of the campaign and issue advertising. Now it's once every election cycle. Under a direct democracy we'll be bombarded every day with ads from the political parties, their supporters, and other special interest groups to try to sway the average person's vote on every issue.
You are correct, representatives are supposed to represent their constituents.
However, to counter the fickle population, we had another house with officials selected by the states. This was supposed to be the body that, not depending on popular support, could take a more level-headed view of things. It was a great balance that the 17th Amendment killed by allowing direct election of senators.
I was looking for a how to.
Because of the crazy shit that's been going on between the government and its civilians. Less privacy, an insanely big archive facility, laws to kill anyone the prez wants, and so forth. I'm just waiting until the day when being able to read thoughts at a distance becomes possible so then we can live a life just like in 1984. Rebels get shot and we laugh at them and watch it like a sport. No laws, just do as you're told. This may never happen, in fact I would be amazed if this world would sircome to this possibility without demolishing the governments of the world first, but hey, you never know. Don't mind me, I had 3 expresso's and my mind is going off into imaginationland.
Americans haven't been able to win a real war since they beat the English. They are hoping to better with a virtual opponent, but they will loose that too!
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
It's really about getting new funding for the US Military establishment and their friends in private-sector contracting businesses. It lets companies who don't make heavy iron or high-tech weaponry sell consulting and overpriced computer system designs, and lets military departments who don't have overpriced cool airplanes (or can't get their next generation of cool airplanes) get more money to hire people and buy shiny equipment from politically well-connected vendors.
That doesn't mean there aren't civil liberties issues also (and FBI and anybody who wants to become the Copyright Police expanding their surveillance technology.) But those are mostly the civilian police agencies, and the quasi-military "War on Terror" types, while "Cyber War" is the traditional military trying to scam money that's been going to civilians.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Hacking for the purposes of disrupting a fellow nations systems and services or the 'retrieval' of it's IPR's and business information is both an economic and physical attack. I would leave the response to that to both a responsible military and cooperating civil crime organisation in the full hope they would be smart enough to track down the perpetrators, out them and stamp on them from a very great height. VMWare source in China? Someone should be very embarassed and many people should be in court, not the least those people who are not pursuing the crumb trail. I draw a distinction between that and 'outing' facts governments really don't want us to know about concerning their power, fiscal and liberty grabs on their own populations. Thank goodness we have people brave & savvy enough to do this. Otherwise we'd be in the horror of sliding out of demorcracy into the EU by a series of governments supporting the same policy of greater integration such as signing away our sovereignty without asking the electorate... Oh! we are! Fancy that. Help us, hacker & journos, please.