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NSA Says It Foiled Plot To Destroy US Economy Through Malware
mrspoonsi writes "Business Insider Reports: The National Security Agency described for the first time a cataclysmic cyber threat it claims to have stopped On Sunday's '60 Minutes.' Called a BIOS attack, the exploit would have ruined, or 'bricked,' computers across the country, causing untold damage to the national and even global economy. Even more shocking, CBS goes as far as to point a finger directly at China for the plot — 'While the NSA would not name the country behind it, cyber security experts briefed on the operation told us it was China.' The NSA says it closed this vulnerability by working with computer manufacturers. Debora Plunkett, director of cyber defense for the NSA: One of our analysts actually saw that the nation state had the intention to develop and to deliver — to actually use this capability — to destroy computers."
and this lame vague shit is the best they can do.
100% of the NSA budget needs to be given to NASA.
China holds a huge amount of our debt.
Our debt is around 17 trillion dollars. Of that 17 trillion, China owns around 1.2 trillion. A large number for sure, but not something I'd say is a rather small percentage of the total debt. The debt owned by the public equates to 12 trillion which is something I'd call huge.
National debt of the United States
China holds a huge amount of our debt. They want us to buy their stuff and to borrow money from them. Why cripple our economy? Or, even worse, why do something like this that will point a finger back to them and stir up the pot against them? (and possibly lad to embargos, and so on)
Ya, it makes no sense. Like if I pulled up to the Starbucks drive-thru to order a venti double-skinny mocha latteachio with no foam and instead they went all Goldfinger on my car. You don't try to kill your best customer.
Likewise if this was some freelance/rogue/criminal/terrorist operation inside China, I'd think they (the Chinese) would be motivated to foil it themselves for the same reasons.
The NSA should have cooked up a more plausible bogus plot to foil, but instead they don't even respect us enough to make up a believable lie.
I am not a crackpot.
I thought it was odd too untli I read the article and realised they were not talking about a real threat, they were talking about an analysts scenario. To quote:
"One of our analysts actually saw that the nation state had the intention to develop and to deliver — to actually use this capability — to destroy computers."
So basically this is a fear-mongering story since if the country in question had had the intention and capability to deploy such an attack, it would have been SUCCESSFUL. Only a small proportion on PCs would have been "fixed" if they had "worked with computer manufacturers".
They really do think everyone is stupid don't they?
Recently? The intelligence agencies were doing all manner of inappropriate things throughout the 50s, 60s and in the 70s until the Church Committee was created to investigate. Their gross abuses of power during those decades was the entire point of why the FISA legislation was passed. And it was not to create the rubber-stamp court that we have now.
It's amazing how 9/11 has made so many people forget the rampant abuse of power in the NSA's and CIA's history.
I suspect the those pesky real journalists probably don't enough about the tech side of things to ask the questions they really need to be asking in order to debunk this.
The 60 Minutes piece has already been trashed by multiple outlets:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/60-minutes-hearts-the-nsa.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/16/nsa-surveillance-60-minutes-cbs-facts
http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/12/60-minutes-nsa-good-snowden-bad/356174/
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/why-did-em-60-minutes-em-let-the-head-of-the-nsa-fool-its-audience/282377/
http://www.thenation.com/blog/177598/sad-decline-60-minutes-continues-weeks-nsa-whitewash