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US Begins Dropping 'Cyberbombs' On ISIS (nytimes.com)
In what appears to be a significant shift in its tactic to battle against the terrorist organization, the U.S. has begun launching cyberattacks against ISIS (non-paywall link). The New York Times reports that the Department of Defense's Cyber Command unit is mounting cyberattacks against the terrorist organization. The Cyber Command unit aims to stop the organization from spreading its message. The Times reports: The goal of the new campaign is to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State to spread its message, attract new adherents, circulate orders from commanders and carry out day-to-day functions, like paying its fighters. A benefit of the administration's exceedingly rare public discussion of the campaign, officials said, is to rattle the Islamic State's commanders, who have begun to realize that sophisticated hacking efforts are manipulating their data. Potential recruits may also be deterred if they come to worry about the security of their communications with the militant group. "We are dropping cyberbombs," Robert O. Work, deputy secretary of defense said. "We have never done that before."
Stop with the links to pay walls. If you can't find another article then the article is useless.
Via the New York Post:
Finding God in a Dog
Maybe they could try offering a better message, and then following through on it. People who go to ISIS go there because they have not benefited from living in the first world, but the get tons of benefits from the 3rd world, a future, or death, probably both.
Finally the US sort-of acknowledges that IS's strong suit is the marketing of their hate, except they wrap it up in so many "cyber" bullshit that they're apparently trying to bamboozle themselves so as not to have to admit that the whole "spreading the message" thing IS can and will still do via VHS, friend-of-a-friend networks, imam influence, and so on. IOW, this is someone in whichever cybercommand[tm] advancing their career, but it's not likely to bring any substantial change whatsoever. IS is, unlike the US, fairly resilient and, again unlike the US, not beholden to its technology use.
Bomb is an inapropriate word for this kind of attack.
Yeah, I know, we have come to think of bombing as something the US does and it tends to reflect a larger attack, but it still seems wrong.
If you don't like cyberattack, as not sufficiently grand, than call it a Cyberinvasion.
Or how about "cyberplague". That sounds more like what we are doing - initiating a cyberplague on the Isis.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Even terrorists have the freedom to expression without government interference.
That these guys are using "Cyberbombs" is merely escalating the war in the use of weaponized malware.
Given the OPM breach I'd suspect they should fix their defense before mounting an offense -- particularly
one in violation of the Constitution of the United States.
Ehud Gavron
Tucson AZ
"The Cyber Command unit aims to stop the organization from spreading its message. "
Don't silence it. Broadcast it, then refute it. We're not all children.
I bet ISIS are quaking in their boots.
That's sarcasm.
I think we can all safely assume an ISIS troll posted this racist, willfully ignorant message.
Just wait until they start attacking US websites. It doesn't even have to be sophisticated, DDOS attacks can be quite a bother already. But I wouldn't rule out actual hacking, I mean, it's not like the US government and certainly US companies haven't been hacked before, is it? They have more than enough money to rent some botnets or buy hacking kits. And many of them actually have a university background.
I'm not sure it was a good idea to make so much publicity about these cyberattacks, it might have been a better idea to do them in silence.
They better be dropped from airplanes with a stupid fucking name like that. I expect no less than an EMP or WiFi Adapter on a Cruise Missle with Raspberry Pi running Metasploit.
Something tells me this is the DoD fagging up "0day exploit" with "cyber" congress-washing.
Even terrorists have the freedom to expression without government interference.
That these guys are using "Cyberbombs" is merely escalating the war in the use of weaponized malware.
Given the OPM breach I'd suspect they should fix their defense before mounting an offense -- particularly
one in violation of the Constitution of the United States.
Ehud Gavron
Tucson AZ
No war in history has been fought without a propaganda war waging alongside it. And First Amendment doctrine is surprisingly malleable.
Their wifi SSIDs are "ISIS Secure" and "ISIS Guest".
Start dropping fast food on them. Destroy their health, destroy their ability to fight. Lots of American Idle too - the combination will be impossible to resist - it's worked on y'all, it can work on them too.
Requiem for the American Dream
More from the interview with Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert O. Work:
"We've developed a wide array of cybermunitions that fill various roles in our Comprehensive Cybercombat Arsenal (CCA). We can drop cyberbombs that selectively destroy the enemy's Information Superhighways and Network Bridges. We can keep out hostile cyberforces by putting up a very tall firewall and, if need be, surrounding the perimeter with cyberexplosive charges--our Minecraft is very strong. "
The Deputy Secretary leaned in conspiratorially, "Our most powerful cyberbombs can even level entire GeoCities."
He raised his eyebrows, nodded once, and finally leaned back in his chair, folding his arms with what can only be described as supreme confidence.
Nothing posted to
Two things will happen:
1: If Daesh could retaliate on that front, they would have long ago. Nailing their propaganda arm is where they get their recruits and patrons, and this will hurt Daesh far more than any non-nuclear campaigns.
2: If Daesh does do a successful "rm -rf" campaign against companies... all the better. Real security (as opposed to security to check the boxes) is something that has been lacking in a lot of places.
Either way, it is a win for the good guys.
So they are infecting ISIS machines with Microsoft Clippy?
No good deed goes unpunished.
> Get real, this is bullshit. Anybody who has or uses an AK47 is not someone who stores meaningful data on a computer.
The armed forces of about 60 countries have and use the AK-47.
ISIL has about a billion dollars. They acquired $429 million when they took over the Mosul branch of the Central Bank of Iraq, and they now run retail bank branches in the territory the occupy. They "govern" a population of about 4 million, roughly half the size of Switzerland or Israel, and a bit larger than Barcelona or Houston.
ISIL has captured Syrian MiG-23 fighter jets, and demonstrated the use of Mohajer 4 drones captured from Syria and Iran. They have the M1A1M Abrams tank captured from the Iraqi army.
ISIL is a quasi-government, with not only a significant military administered by computers, but civil infrastructure as well - a tax system, payroll for 200,000 employees, etc. If you thought ISIL was a few guys riding around on camels, that's not quite true.
How much is a pack of Camels these days?
To "destroy" ISIS, who we gonna call?
Al Qaeda!
So many weapons we can't count them all. They are shipped by the ton. How many holes does it take to fill a corpse?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Why doesn't someone make an organization which seizes any IP that Daesh puts out, disallows any licenses for it, and actively puts out DMCA takedown notices for it? It is ironic that it is easier to go after IP infringers than true terrorists, but if DMCA notices turn off the propaganda, then so be it.
The U.S. government's actions against ISIS cause ISIS, in some areas, to have more support. It's like world-wide advertising: "Want to participate in something big? Fight the U.S. government."
Mostly secret agencies of the U.S. government use violence as a reason to be violent. Iraq was a country with a violent dictator, Saddam Hussein. People inside the U.S. government saw that as a reason to be more violent, and as a way to make money. The U.S. government has been FAR more violent than was Saddam Hussein. That was after the U.S. government encouraged Saddam Hussein to be violent toward Iran.
Those who work for violent U.S. government agencies can get promotions is they can find more ways to encourage violence.
Before the U.S. government invaded Iraq, it was a country. Now Iraq is no longer a managed country, and is destroyed as a society. The cost from the pockets of U.S. taxpayers: "... expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest".
Some people in the U.S. had bad childhoods and love violence so much that they are willing to be poor because of violence. The U.S. is no longer a democracy, it is partly a dictatorship of the violent and partly a dictatorship of the rich. Violent-minded people have control.
By some measures, the U.S government is the most violent in the world.
Next, from the DoD:
We will require the cooperation of internet companies to ensure that no message we do not approve will be disseminated.
Reply from every organisation with the 'I' of intelligence:
Lol, Noobs!! We professionals already insured cooperation by inserting every piece of malware we could could our hands on in every router and server anywhere.
Reply from the majority of sheeple:
Beeeh...
Reply from the self-described intelligent sheeple:
1984!!!
Reply from the **AA-maffia:
DoD proves us right and our rights! Send the army against downloaders!
And for tomorrow: News at 11.
Like Stuxnet, any attack that the government launches has the potential to affect computers that are not owned by ISIS terrorists (or in Stuxnet's case, Iranian centrifuges).
The more success that Cyber Command has, the more comfortable they will be with with launching cyber bombs. At some point there will be significant collateral damage.
I'm sure that between this and the devastating Climate Change summit, ISIS will surrender any day now.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
... is, don't confirm you're dropping cyberbombs!
Dang... yeah, I read the article, but still, making Daesh doubt the security of their computers a bit more pales into importance with them trusting compromised computers a bit more. How much is going to "go dark" now that the current administration decided to grab some headlines with this stuff that never should have seen the light of day? (At least, until after Daesh has ceased to be a threat to anyone.)
Or is it all disinformation? We can't compromise their computers, so make them think we have. If so, I could approve of that.
You know what really saps a society's willingness to fight?
Safety, self-determination and prosperity for everybody.
Or a reasonable facade of the same.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Contrary to numerous reports echoing each other mocking Donald Trump (but, curiously, not Hillary Clinton) of wanting to "shut down the Internet", his actual proposal was different. Specifically, it was just this:
Nice to know, somebody somewhere was listening... Time, perhaps, for NY Times itself to apologize for or, at least, correct their own piece calling Trump's (and, Clinton's) proposals a "fantasy".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
A billion dollars. Right.
Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream and Donuts are worth around $4.3billion so that's about 4x as big as ISIL.
Your post puts things into perspective but I am not quite sure it's the way you intended.
I has and use an AK-47 you insensitive clod!
most posts here seem to fall into 1 categories
1) lol, ISIS has computers
2) lol, CyberCommand trying to do something.
While I can't speak to the sophistication of ISIS IT departments they do use websites/twitter/facebook to spread their message and attempt to recruit. Disrupting this type of communication network could be very simple or extremely difficult (or anything in between) depending on how it's set up, so unless you know much more than that about ISIS IT set up, then a har-har ISIS has computers response is kind of dumb.
Lets do some word play, lets change the headline "US CyberCommand is dropping cyberbombs on ISIS" and change "US CyberComand" to "The DOD", "dropping cyberbombs" to "deploying a monitoring botnet", and "ISIS" to "on US citizens." Feel any different about their ability to accomplish this.
What exactly makes you think CyberCommand is incompetent? They probably borrow people from the DOD and probably hire former hackers, and almost certainly have lots of resources.
But maybe this was a brilliant press release, they throw out a silly buzzword like "cyberbomb" and everyone is too busy laughing at it to stop and think about it and it seriously.
no so long ago merkin command stated they would consider this short of action by a nation state in the same category as nuvclear or biologicval warfare etc.
Guess the united states of merkinkind isnt happy at being the only country to have ever used nucler weapons for real and not only want #1 but 2nd as well.
Absolutely untrue. Check out this story:
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/hack-brief-isis-data-breach-identifies-22000-members/
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
Is there a Baskin-Robbins near you? Have you or someone you know bought ice cream there recently? Dismissing them as 'comparable to an ice-cream parlor' is a serious mistake.
Bear in mind that that billion dollars is their liquidity, not their net worth. And some estimates put their war chest at 2 billion. That's comparable in scale and scope to the hillary clinton campaign fund, the available liquid assets of Exxon-Mobile or Volvo or many other big-name multinational megacorporations.
Bear in mind that with that much in liquid assets, if they didn't have so many problems on their home territory Daesh could probably bribe or assassinate enough US congressmen and senators to get the US to agree to terms.
Posting anonymously because if we do have a run of "natural causes" in our beloved leaders I don't want to get blamed.
We didn't learn our lesson and now we are going to drop more bombs on the middle east! And how many Trillions will this add to the national debt? Can't wait to see the hospital that was accidentally hit on the 11:00 news. All the mangled children caught in the cross hairs of US weapons of destruction.
How did it all come to this?
(p.s. could we at least off shore some of the work to save the US some money?)
like inflitrating their social media presence with a ton of paid operatives that try to undermine the extremist message with moderate nay sayers. filling message boards with (in this case, moderate) trolls could go a long way towards disruption of the message as well.
> Get real, this is bullshit. Anybody who has or uses an AK47 is not someone who stores meaningful data on a computer.
The armed forces of about 60 countries have and use the AK-47.
ISIL has about a billion dollars. They acquired $429 million when they took over the Mosul branch of the Central Bank of Iraq, and they now run retail bank branches in the territory the occupy. They "govern" a population of about 4 million, roughly half the size of Switzerland or Israel, and a bit larger than Barcelona or Houston.
ISIL has captured Syrian MiG-23 fighter jets, and demonstrated the use of Mohajer 4 drones captured from Syria and Iran. They have the M1A1M Abrams tank captured from the Iraqi army.
ISIL is a quasi-government, with not only a significant military administered by computers, but civil infrastructure as well - a tax system, payroll for 200,000 employees, etc. If you thought ISIL was a few guys riding around on camels, that's not quite true.
I agree on the AK47 (and variants), but fiat money isn't explicitly worth anything. Turkey, which would be the stepping stone to Europe has a budget of 200B USD. Liechtenstein has a budget of 1B USD, and it's a micronation with 37k population.
I question if they have a significant army or tax base. Just look up German history regarding WW1 and WW2, and then scale that up to declaring war on everyone, but this time around they have immense manufacturing resources, incredible air superiority... Even if they managed to annex Iraq and Syria, they'd fail because they've declared the Caliphate, which they'll never get.
They're dropping actual CDC Cyber 200s out of planes and onto jihadist heads.
I'm sure the government's malware will only be compatible with their adversaries' computers and not end up infecting a lot of other peoples' stuff (unlike approximately 100.0% of past malware deployments). We should thank ISIS for using computers and OSes that are totally unlike everyone else's. They are good sports.
But on the off chance that THIS IS AN OBVIOUSLY STUPID PREMISE AND THEREFORE A STUNNINGLY STUPID IDEA, what should we hypothetically compare this to, for analogy purposes? Is this like the chemical weapons of a hundred years ago, where a change in the breeze means your own troops are breathing the mustard gas? Or is this like landmines and other UXBs that kill or maim civilians decades after their use cases are obsolete?
I know, it's just a hypothetical situation that we'll end up comparing malware deployments to these stupid things. I'm just-in-casing this, based on the absurd notion that ISIS is not a special case. Yes, you can all laugh at me.
Or is there a better analogy? Cars? (e.g. "US government is cutting the brake lines on all Toyotas, because only ISIS uses Toyotas.")
-1 Damn! Although undocumented, the U.S. is dropping "Cyber" mod-bombs on any comments that don't toe the party line here at Slashdot too! Stuff it, you fucking dweebs!
We, the People are a select few preamble Citizens that undersigned that title as distinguished from the people that did not.
Then and no
They have already started. And succeeded in some cases. An average website holding organization just doesn't have the capability of patching their servers in due time, for some mysterious reasons. Too many tortillas and beer, perhaps..
don't forget --trump-root
I suppose now is the appropriate time to point out that I own a Chinese-made AK-47. I've "used" it many times. I can't say that I've shot anyone with it but, as near as I can tell, most of the owners of them have not, actually, shot anyone. I do not see them right at the moment but I'll be back in Maine soon enough so you'll need to wait. See, I've actually got pictures of it or can make some and I imagine you're probably a bit skeptical that someone with meaningful data on a computer would own such a thing.
It's okay - it gets worse. Wait until you find out that there's a moderately good chance that you've come into contact with code that I've written. :/ No, the rifle would have been locked away and I wasn't sitting there lovingly stroking it while coding. Though, I did have a real battle axe on my desk for a long time. It still had dried blood on it from its one and only "kill." I used it to go boar hunting in Florida, it worked but not as well as I'd hoped. I ended up shooting the boar to finish it off. So, I'm not really sure if I should count it as a kill.
At any rate, it might have been on my desk but I don't think I ever stroked that lovingly. If you've ever seen a wild boar in Florida then you'd understand the challenge. In hindsight, it's one of the stupidest things I've ever attempted. It does make a good story for a certain crowd. And yes, yes there are pics and witnesses. One doesn't just go boar hunting with a battle axe and not take pictures.
The point is, you'd be surprised at what some people do and what some people own. Not everyone is boring. Some of us do some exciting things. Some of us own some dangerous things. Some of us own some elaborate and technical things. Some of us own very simple machines. Speaking of Simple Machines, if you've ever used SMF (the forum) there's a good chance you've used some code that came from me.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Wait, what if we don't want Trump to be president? Hmm? Yeah, I'm not rooting for Trump, and you can't make me!
Err... I'll just go sit in the corner on my own. No need to punish me.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Sounds like you're boaring not boring.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
Heh, nah, life's short. Live it like you're going to die. Chances are pretty good that you will. Discounting myths and unprovable legends, I've got a 100% success ratio backing that sentiment. Besides? I'd not want to live forever in exchange for boredom.
It was very, very adrenaline producing. This is *not* the typical crowd for which to woo with the story but I came down square across the top of it's scalp. It had charged, maybe about 20' away, and then veered off when I didn't move. The battle axe is a few feet long so I really got into it. I was actually hoping to catch it around the spine and make it quicker but I was too fast and that's why I hit its head.
It stopped "functioning" immediately, pretty much, and momentum made it keep going for at least another 10-15 feet. It was still alive and I'm not keen on animals suffering for longer than necessary. I could have finished with the axe but didn't want to have to keep whacking at it until it died and I had a 10 mm on my hip so I just used that.
I made sure he went to good use. He was roasted and eaten but, I gotta tell you. Don't do it. I'm a huge fan of eating what I kill. This thing? Well... It was not nearly as tasty as I'd hoped. It was old, touch, and tasted... Not gamy but gamy. Gamier than normal and, for lack of a better word, skunky. Now, I know skunky isn't really a word or anything and it's surely not a taste - unless it's what skunk tastes like and I've never eaten skunk so I don't really know. It tasted a bit like rancid meat might taste but not really quite like it. It didn't taste much like pork. It almost tasted a bit like black bear but way less fatty.
It's really not worth it. If you're going to go do it, go to cull the animal and not to eat it. I killed it, we ate it. We ate the vast majority of it but it took a couple of days, a dozen of us, and a lot of alcohol and drugs. We bitched about it the whole time but we ate it. They weren't kidding when they said they didn't eat them. I thought it strange that they'd say such a thing and then let us hunt there - any way we wanted to. I was the first (and as far as I know, only) person to do so with an axe but I guess some other dudes have gone spear hunting without any firearms as a backup. That's pretty ballsy.
It also wasn't as huge as the ones you see in the movies. If I had to guess (we didn't weigh it) I'd say it was 175 pounds but my eyes could be adding 25 pounds that didn't exist. There's no bag limit, season, or anything like that. This was just a boar hunting ranch. You go out on a big ol' platform that has a railing and giant mudding tires under it. You drive out through the swamp until you get to a rise where there's activity and they seem to come to you. You can move around but they'll come find you if you're in deep enough. It was a neat buggy. Your ass is probably 8' in the air while you're seated. It just had bus seats from an old bus and it's legal for them to drive it down the road in Florida. Yup... Florida... You can drive that fucker down the road! They did not let me drive it - we were obviously intoxicated at the time.
I've seen people propose eating them as a solution. That's not realistic. The boar's the most dangerous wild animal in Florida, or so they tell me. At any rate, that's the gist of the event. I'd go into a few more details but some folks are squeamish and don't really want to read it. In reality, it's not as cool as it sounds and a hell of a lot scarier than I make it out to be. But... I'd said I was going to go boar hunting with a battle axe. I went boar hunting with a battle axe. It's not every day that you get to be that stupid and live to tell about it.
Oh! I almost forgot. I did get wounded. Err... Except the boar was very much dead. In my efforts to drag him, I ended up with my fingers in its mouth and I cut my finger on a tooth or something in its mouth. It didn't need stitches but I did go, the following day, to get it looked at because it was kind of swollen, red, and sore. They put me on an antibiotic and I lived and kept my fingers. I'd cleaned it with rubbing alcohol and covered it up nicely but the antibiotic was probably a good idea.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Telling the population at large that the "enemy" is forbidden to speak to them really gives the imprimatur of authority and validity to ISIS.
Good job there, pentagon!
Close brackes on the Sarcasm flag.
We got health benefits!
Adventure!
Real FPS!
Your own harem!
We even provide safe spaces for SJW's!
If you are a SJW and wanting to join, we provide 100% guaranteed SAFESPACE vests. Anytime you feel threatened or think someone looking at you sideways means you've been raped then just simply press the button and an instant safe space will be provided for you.
This service is free of charge for all joining SJW's as a courtesy.
If joining, you can instantly get your health benefits with no waiting period, go over to the box labeled "health benefits" and get a pack of band-aids.
That boar was probably pretty high on the food chain, and a little like eating fish caught from Lake Erie or an urban river.
We should drop F-Bombs on them in order to show how serious we are.
when they start holding Saudi Arabia accountable and stop sending those Toyotas and H&K G34s to ISIS. These airstrikes on empty buildings and trollings of ISIS websites are little more than PR stunts.
time to set up my ISIS honeypot for some fresh 0days.
I guess that's an euphemism for trolling them on twitter, à la :'Ahmed is stoopid!"
The biggest recruitment drives don't come from Isis/daesh. The biggest recruitment comes from western actions.
Much like how British actions in Ireland drove IRA recruitment, the actions of the west drive Isis recruitment.
You would swear terrorism was new listening to some people. Its not and it follows the same patterns everywhere.
America created Isis.
A correction: the bill of rights in general, and the 1st amendment in particular, does not apply to individuals but to the US government. Foreigners in the US have the same free speech protections as US citizens. Private entities in the US are not bound by the bill of rights; Facebook can censor anybody anywhere for any reason.
There is some debate as to how the bill of rights applies to US activities abroad. For example, the 4th amendment protections apparently do not apply to anybody (US citizen or otherwise) in GITMO, but many argue that this is an unconstitutional activity. The question has not been adequately examined by the courts for such a blanket statement as yours.
fixes all this shit.
cunts.
spies
lies
dies
flies
Heh, nah, life's short. Live it like you're going to die. Chances are pretty good that you will. Discounting myths and unprovable legends, I've got a 100% success ratio backing that sentiment. Besides? I'd not want to live forever in exchange for boredom.
Ah, well, yes.... No.
You only have an approximate 92.5% success ratio backing that sentiment. Why? Because there have, throughout human history (and prehistory) lived approximately one hundred billion human beings on Earth; of these, about seven and a half billion still lives. So; so far, on Earth, the fatality rate for human beings is ~92.5%.
LOL Okay, close enough. I'm a bit skeptical of your number, by the way.
At any rate, you're gonna die. Sorry 'bout that but it's just what's going to happen. No, they're not going to achieve immortality. It's not just right around the corner. So far, everyone that was born prior to 1899 has died. Actually, I think that number's now changed - 1901 is the limit now - I'm pretty sure. Some lady's at 115 and supposed to be the oldest. She might have died though. So, yeah, you're gonna die. It's okay - there's nothing wrong with that.
I'd be interested in seeing how they came up with that 100 billion number. That seems like a rather convenient number. Ah well, it works for me. You're still gonna die. Hell, if you live past the age of 200 come see me and I'll give you five bucks.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The 100 billion number was from memory from something I read a couple years ago; a quick google found http://www.prb.org/Publication... which estimated 108 billion (I did say approximately!) in 2011. As to everybody dying? Welllll... In the Many Universes interpretation of QT, there are an infinite number of universes, one of which exists solely for your survival. If that holds true, somehow (in that universe) you'll survive past the heat death of the universe; or you'll find a way to avoid it altogether.
Hmm... Now you've piqued my interest. ;-)
Does the Many Worlds/Universes theory actually assert that there will be infinite rules and variations in physics? My understanding was that in the other worlds the physics should be exactly the same as they are here and that such was considered almost a requirement in order for that theory to even be plausible?
So, in other words, if there's entropy in this universe and that entropy is unavoidable in this universe than it should (or *must*) also be the same in every other universe. I'm not sure if it was Cox, Greene, or Susskind that I recall mentioning that?
Note: I am NOT a theoretical physicist.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."