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Sun Tzu 2.0: The Future of Cyberwarfare
An anonymous reader writes: Cyberwar and its ramifications have been debated for some time and the issue has been wrought with controversy. Few would argue that cyber-attacks are not prevalent in cyberspace. However, does it amount to a type of warfare? Let's break this down by drawing parallels from a treatise by 6th century military general, Sun Tzu, who authored one of the most definitive handbooks on warfare, "The Art of War." His writings have been studied throughout the ages by professional militaries and can be used to not only answer the question of whether or not we are in a cyberwar, but how one can fight a cyber-battle.
If Sun Tzu had one of those shiny new laptops !
and know your enemy's secrets and you will win a hundred battles. Or a hundred blackmails. You know what, forget about the 'thyself' bit, just know your enemy's dirty laundry.
You don't need millions of programmers, just a few good ones. There will always be some with courage (ex: Snowden).
"Cyberwar and its ramifications have been debated for some time and the issue has been wrought with controversy"
No serious techie uses 'cyber' in a sentence. If you do want to go online and stay safe from hacking, then buy a computer that can't be compromised by opening an email attachment or clicking on a malicious URL (Uniform Resource Locator).
I wouldn't be surprised if it's closest to a guerrilla war.
It's hard to recognize the attackers before and after the battle, they are part of the crowd.
With Anonymous and these other groups from for example Russia or Arabic countries, they might have no (direct) affiliation with any state. Just the 'cause'.
New things are always on the horizon
This really is a load of crap. Extract a bunch of fairly obvious stratagems from a received text, an English translation of generally dubious worth, and apply it to cyber warfare.... unsurprisingly it fails to stack up particularly well. Sunzi was almost exclusively fixed on the idea that armies were controlled by single entities and that virtually all actions under taken by them had cost, and thus could be factored in a set of trade-offs, or expert application of game theory, before game theory was a thing. It was insightful at the time, to say the least, it can still be useful to state the more obvious strategems of any conflict but to claim relevance today where the agents existiing in dramatically different contexts is weak sauce indeed. Sunzi, in particular, would be horrified that any engagement would essentially exist in perpetuity, if the sunzi bingfa (art of war) was indeed written by one person, then he would be horrified by the layout of modern cyber warfare, and would certainly be quite unable to add anything to the idea that one may have to defend against any number of actors, each of which potentially using different strategies at virtually no cost..
That would in fact be the 6th Century (BC).
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
A certain general would like to speak to you: http://www.brainyquote.com/quo...
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Trust me, it reads better in the original Klingon.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
If your operating system isn't smart enough to require a list of resources to feed a program you want it to run, you lose.
If you built your entire civilization on such a stupid foundation, you lose.
Anyone smarter than that can wipe you off the face of the earth, unless you can survive long enough to correct your deeply embedded mistake.
Disclaimer: Like many other, I abhor and reject all terms including "cyber" except "cyberspace" in its proper meaning (see William Gibson's novel "Neuromancer") which has very little in common with the Internet or any other present-day technology.
That said, yes - "cyberwar" is entirely possible and would be immensely harmful. But no, we have not seen anything even slightly related to full-blown "cyberwar". If it happened, we would notice: trust me. It would blow the doors off computer systems most people have no idea exist: systems that give them power, light, water, network access (of course), banking, medical services, education, food, etc. etc. Our present posture in this respect is basically that of a person camping in the woods who has been told there are grizzly bears around, and whose response has been to tie himself up stark naked and hang himself from a tree at convenient nibbling height.
It must have been about 20 years ago that I began lecturing and writing about the security risks of software systems. I always kept it as short and simple as I could, since I realize that security is not only very counter-intuitive but (to most people) appallingly boring. But I usually wound up with a warning: there were many threats, ranging from the trivial to the extremely serious; there was hardly any defence; and hardly anyone was taking the trouble or investing the resources to put up any defence at all. The only good news, I added, was that so far criminals had made no real efforts to exploit all the juicy vulnerabilities spread out before them. That wouldn't necessarily last, I warned.
The same remarks, mutatis mutandis, apply to "cyberwar". It would cause far more harm than criminal exploitation, because the objective of war is to bring about complete defenselessness and unconditional surrender. Look at Iraq after the second Gulf war, and imagine that happening to all the IT infrastructure you know about (and that you don't know about). And, due to the design of the Internet and the amazingly insouciant carelessness of governments and corporations, our infrastructure is almost completely unprotected. What we have seen so far is analogous to a few spies and skirmishers probing the most obvious weaknesses. They have deliberately refrained from even hinting at what they could really do, because (as Sun Tzu pointed out)
"Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions".
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
I'm not convinced. History is full of instances to the contrary: cases in which a general failed because his army was too big for him to control. Indeed, there is a well-known story about a war in which the leading general of Nation A was warned that Nation B's commander-in-chief had 50,000 soldiers whereas Nation A had only 20,000. Nation A's general smiled and relaxed. "Why are you acting so pleased to hear that you are outnumbered two-and-a-half to one?" asked his alarmed subordinates. "Ah, I know General X," he replied. Given 10,000 men he is very competent. I think he could just about handle 20,000. But given 50,000 he will spend all his time trying to keep track and get organized. While he is doing that, we shall move in quickly and defeat him. It will be easy".
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
if your enemy doesn't like you on their networks, they can always disconnect or turn off their machines.
the only way to win is not to play.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Cyber-attacks, cyberspace are just a fancy way for wealthy US contractors to get more/new no bid funding and enjoy decades of wealth creation with new terms and sales.
It depends how a nations understands its strengths.
The US hopes the other side will always have a cell/sat phone, voice print, home computer, travel, be in CCTV range.
That political leaders can be contacted and make coup offers or let US "advisers" enter ie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations
The Soviet Union, East Germany would study the outside life of the mil/gov staff members of interest and look for lifestyle choices that would make then open to some interaction or create their own Western staff over decades.
Once established a turned person can stay in place for years, even selecting projects.
The UK perfected both technical and human options thanks to its skill sets needed in Ireland and tracking all Irish funding from the US.
Whats the best small nation, low cost system? GCHQ, MI6, SAS. That gives a nation the broad digital propaganda narrative, with that perfect personal covert in country touch when needed.
Re the submissions "Few would argue that cyber-attacks are not prevalent in cyberspace."
What is cyberspace to a nation, cult, faith, idea, flag? Propaganda, shills, sock puppets have to actually know what they are doing pre culture, pre coup.
Most nations and their wider, educated diasporas are very resistant to such "cyber" efforts. Color revolutions with outside funding soon fail.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
He posts a point like "intended target must stay the same" or and then gives more support for the opposing side.
I could easy take every one of his points and argue the exact opposite probably more effectively than him.
Most of the cyber attacks today seem to be undirected from rogue disconnected parties with undefined or
constantly changing goals and no way to achieve any sort of victory unless victory is defined as "causing chaos".
There has been public outcry. People are talking about it. Laws are getting passed. Opinions are changing. Snowden is in exile for now but I don't think he'll stay that way forever.
The US declared war on Germany on 12/11/41. It took two and a half years to land at Normandy. It's still 1943 and you're declaring Hitler victorious.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Good thing you're a mind-reader, then, since I'm not.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Off by more than a thousand years...
We cyberneed to cyberallocate more cyberresources to our cyberwarriors cyberfighting these cybercriminals. Cyberwarfare is cyberserious cyberbusiness. CyberFTFcyberY. --Cyberdude
Ah yes, the "courage" to attack without warning and then run away and hide.
It's only cowardly if the enemy or terrorists do it. If we do it, it's clever tactics.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
No serious techie uses 'cyber' in a sentence.
That is the term being used by politicians and the military, so (as with "hacker") techies will just have to get used to the popular usage.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Why didn't you just copy and paste the whole book? It would have been quicker and no one's going to read that wall of text anyway.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
@tehcyder: "That is the term being used by politicians and the military, so (as with "hacker") techies will just have to get used to the popular usage."
..
Only if you're happy to go into a room full of techies and sound totally stupid