Slashdot Mirror
Pentagon Cyber Wars
Doctor Arcane sent us a link to an ABC Article on Cyber Warfare.
Talks about crack attempts on the pentagon and the likes.
Cyberwarfare may be the stupidest name I've ever heard of,
but it probably does represent the first steps in how war
will work in the future. Does it creep you out as much as
it does me? [ Speaking of creeping out: I'm flying home
today. I'm absolutely exhausted:physically, mentally, and emotionally.
but I do have an official IBM-Blue Part-of-the-Hive t-shirt
hand delivered by an elite cadre from the collective to show
for my week. Next year I want that thinkpad *grin*.
But I'm airborne today, so hold off ont he mail please
pretty please until tomorrow. Can't wait to get back to a normal
schedule after all the craziness ]
wait until tomorrow ]
If it were singapore airlines you could still stay on net...
All this "information warfare" BS is just like the mublings about "weapons of mass destruction." It's all there to make us think we still need to give the war pigs big $$$ now that big bad Russia is gone. Don't believe the hype. I'll buy a beer for anyone who cracks into the pentagon.
All "black" boxes are on different LANs than "white world" boxes. Period. TS LANs are seperated from S/SAR etc LANs via secure gateways, but this is only for different class levels.
Class and non-class are physically seperated. Last I checked uncle sam required this.
That's the military Internet, and it's not connected to the public Internet. Yep, thou art correct.
The handwringing over the "hacking" of Pentagon systems is nothing more than an orchestrated campaign to convince the feds to cough up more money for defense. "hacking" is something the public and idiot politicians can understand.
but they have such lovely snuggly chairs, i suppose that makes the trip back not as bad?
That guy has the most elite job on the planet. I want it.
People here who work with very sensitive data get their own printer that's not connected to the network. The funny thing is I can still telnet or ftp out to anywhere I want.
I wouldn't put it past them at all to be sending important secret information, unencrypted, through the public email system. They're only just starting to advance above the level of using pulped up dead trees for everything.
I've tried to unsubscribe from this mailing list for days to no avail. Could someone please have mercy on me and remove me from the list. I can't stand this constant flow of nerd news!
Bill S B
As others have pointed out, the DOD's classified networks are kept separate from the unclassified nets except for some very carefully controlled gateways.
The problem is determining what is classified and what is not. There are very specific rules about how you go about classifying information. It's not generally that easy to do. A specific decision has to be made at a high level to declare something classified. So sometimes information that SHOULD be classified falls through the cracks. I've heard some horror stories about information that would merit a Top Secret rating being placed on a web server because no one was thinking when it was published.
Hmmm. Party of Hive -- the new IBM-sponsored gen-X TV show.
booch
Those fine folks at the Pentagon just have to come up with a convincing enemy to justify their $250 bil./year appropriations, don't they? Saddam and his vaporweapons of mass destruction, North Korea and its "so secret it probably only exists in the minds of DoD analysts" nuclear program, Iran and their dual use power plants. Now this ... cyberattacks from Russia! The cowering American taxpayers looking up to the Pentagon to protect them from the revival of Russian communism, something we've been promised will take place real soon now!
... ours is a cool country, with a beautiful and diverse geography and nature. But why does it have to be inhabited by such degenerate fools?
Man
me too!
bob@aol.com
I think the US Army is powerful enough to invent this story. For the past few weeks we've been reading about cyberwarfare all over the news and now, all of a sudden, here it comes.
Let me go back to Dino Buzzati's _The Tartar Steppe_ ala cyberage :
Once upon a time a bunch of US Army hackers were getting really bored under their neon lights. They couldn't fool around on the net like their cybergeek fellas. Then, one day, USArmy wargeek 564/45 heard about a cable car falling out of the Italian sky into the cold italian steppe, killing 20 people just because another US Army zombie was pretending its war again.
So he got this idea he too could pretend war is knocking at the door...
The weak link in the equation is not the networks, classified information is kept on separate networks. It's people that are the problem. Example:
LTC White, has a classified exercise plan on his desk, and needs some info from MAJ Red. He sends MAJ Red some email asking questions of clarrification. He's not putting the classified document on a public network, but by asking questions via email pertaining to that document, he has now put a "couple of pieces to the puzzle" on an unsecure network. If enough of these puzzle pieces are gathered. Via online documentation, emails, and captured phone calls. Then one doesn't need access to the secure network or the document, they can just "piece together the puzzle".
Rob.
Just my opinion.
There are several problems with security in publically accessible computer networks fro an intel perspective. The most obvious one is the idiocy of many users who have no security training (e.g., "civilians" temporarily appointed to various positions) or the carelessness of those who are. Penetrating and just monitoring traffic volume over time can give you valuable insights into assessing the other's response patterns and can tell you in a crisis if the shit is really in the fan right now or if there is a lot of posturing and staging going on. There is also an enormous amount of non-classified information out there that is very significant--transfers of personnel are not classified (they are even published in service magazines, but at a later date) and can telegraph preparations when there is a deviation from previous "routine" patterns. A statistically significant increase in e-mail coordinating meetings can indicate there are planning operations underway or can indicate dealing with internal dissention, political wrangling underway, etc. There are enormously valuable intel reasons for such an attack that have nothing to do with apocalyptic visions--this could be the goddamn French who routinely use their full intel resources to aid french companies gain bidding information against other western companies, and have no inhibitions about sniffing around anywhere (especially if they can route through Russia as a cut-out.
It's called an Airwall. It's a lot (smirk) more secure than a firewall.
:-(
A firewall uses software (or hardware) to protect your data from "those evil hackers"...
An airwall uses air to protect it. If there's nothing but air between your computer and the net then no one can get in.
At my last company I worked on airwall related stuff. Basically data would be transfered to secure computers via physical medium (floppy discs in this case!) and every single byte of data would be check by filtering software to make sure that it wasn't dangerous to the system. There were like 10,000 filters that ran on a file before it was copied to the safe machine.
Anyway. Back to work.
^
|
Just want to clarify that secure computers can be connected via public networks (WAN's). This requires the use of encryptors that are stategically placed where the classified and unclass networks connect.
For some info see this example
Well is this coincidence or has Pentagon started the hunt for budget lines? Last year they came with a funny story about a "major attack" that ended on hunting down a few teens. And all because some admins seemed to filter CIAC bulletins directly to trashcan. Besides someone noted then that it was time for budget hunts...
:)
Unfortunately they got burned in a few things. And for almost an year that didn't say almost a word about the Hacker's Ghost. Except that not long ago the poor teens were convicted for a hole left by Pentagon's own staff.
Now they arose the Russian Bear out of anywhere, and suggest that we are already in War. Frankly I don't see it. For now everything goes its own way. Every day tens of breakin attempts are made. Sometimes hundreds. From time to time a breakin happens regularly. Every week we fight spammers, nukers, crackers, sniffers, cyberpunks, jammers, and a lot of other stuff. Every month we sniff, counterattack, open and close ports or systems.
If we take the whole stuff then we have things going by thousands a month. From everywhere - Russia, Europe, Americas and even Taiwan. And all this in a academical institution somewhere in the end of Europe. But this is not War. It's statistics. And I believe that many sites do not go far from this. Look at a picture of it in www.antionline.com. There, they have a table showing every attempt and characteristics.
So what's the big noise about 60 attempts? are you joking? Stop lying and tell the real thing.
What War are these guys talking about? A new storm in a cup of water?
From a admin in Russia
PS: Is Pentagon having so few attacks? Hey I wanna take my vacations there! I'll feel myself as if I took a trip to Barbados
depends on just how black the class level is.
That system isn't centralized anymore.
...
Although I have often wondered how pissed they might get if I decided to climb up around there
They should have a Thinkpad 770X running their DB2 demo. How was it?
Remember the ST episode where the two planets fought wars via computers. Each planet's computer would print out casualty lists and the person's whose names were selected would just line up for execution.
>>And, most great technological creations came out >of war.
>WTF? great inventions like nuclear weapons... Its >nice living less than an hour from the end of >life as we know it...isnt it
The trouble here is you can't sum up history in one example. That same war also gave us jet engines, computers, the high performance turbines used in all powerstations (not just nuclear), an air traffic controll infrastructure, liquid fueled rockets (i.e. the space industry), etc, etc. World War 2 gave us 50 years of technology in 5 years.
That doesn't mean war is a good thing, but it's the sort of thing you need to be aware of if you're prepared to live in the real world.
>>It's the end of the cold war that has brought
>>about a general lack of funding for general
>>research
> Not true, it's moved a lot of
>research into the private sector, building things
>that don't explode...
Did it? Has government funding (UK or US) for non military research actualy increased? Like hell! Yes it's helped our economies to an extent, although there are restructuring costs in the short term. However we do need strong centraly funded long term technology research, which has traditionaly come from the military. That's under threat and the repercussions are not good.
Simon Hibbs
>All this "information warfare" BS is just like the mublings about "weapons of mass destruction."
>It's all there to make us think we still need to give the war pigs big $$$ now that big bad Russia
>is gone. Don't believe the hype. I'll buy a beer for anyone who cracks into the pentagon.
Well, I'm sorry you don't like your way of life, but I do and I think it's worth defending. I live in Europe and I know our general mindset on this is very different. WW2 happened on my doorstep practicaly, and I've visited places where russian tanks patrolled the streets within my lifetime in eastern europe. We have a war going on in the Balkans right now, and Russia currently has two civil wars in progress that they're involved in within their former borders (Chechnya and Georgia).
The world is still a dangerous place, and even threats to our economic interests such as the gulf war could seriously wreck our standards of living. Do you like being able to afford a computer and bitch about wealthy corporations selling cheap consumer software? Many people round the world don't have the luxury, or the leisure time.
Simon Hibbs
There's one thing americans are truly good at and that's educating and controling its population in one direction or another. The often achived success probably originates in the US' strong marketing engine. Being brought up with censored material in educational institutions it's obvious that the governing generation is about to commit several egocentric and alienating decisions which will probably shock the world.
Although the attack of Iraq might be dubious, many extra-american citizens and myself included, still believe President Clinton is doing a great job. Especially in his international affairs.
When you think how it could have been if you'd prefered someone else for president (who was it that wanted to build a wall around the US boarder?), is when you realize how caring and ambitious he is in his diplomatic doings.
// anonymous from Stockholm, Sweden
i'd love to think that real warfare would be replaced with a buncha pimply teens trying to hack each others' websites. but it's not going to happen.
cyberwarfare is just a new dimension of war. it's in the same general category as agitprop/disinformation campaigns - a handy tool, but little more.
use gnulix the government can't break in to your computer because gnulix has security features.
> And, most great technological creations came
:-)
> out of war.
> WTF? great inventions like nuclear weapons...
> Its nice living less than an hour from the end
> of life as we know it...isnt it
The above being a generalization, it's of course wrong.
You may insist on concentrating on nukes as the only thing that came out of mil research, but I'll continue to use my microwave oven and other related dohickies knowing the true origins of said devices (you WERE aware of the origins of such conveniences, were you not?)
Facts are nasty little bastards. Treat them with respect.
I find it interesting that nobody has critcized their incorrect usage of the term "hacker", where "cracker" was appropriate. I'm sure a large portion of the readers here would consider themselves hackers, because they hack code on a regular basis, whereas I would guess a very small portion engage in cracking on a regular basis. For more info on the use/misuse of the terms, check out The Hacker Anti-Defamation League
It has to be the people who invented that super merced chip. THey must be computer super-geniuses of something.
if US Citizens were more appreciative of the country they lived in, and took the time to realise that the military played a major role in making the US The Greatest Country on Earth (tm), then they wouldn't have to stoop to such silly tactics to convince the proles of the necessity of more funding.
And if you want ironic: the last time i was at a college anti-military gathering, half the protesters had at least one DARPA-funded project.
oh come on, i find it hard to beleive that you lil lamers even bring that up anymore, trying to act all.. Cool n' smack about know what a hacker is, and what a cracker is. When you write the article, please use the correct terminology, but otherwise, live with it, you know whats meant, so please dont make a deal out of it. Really i think thats the thing that annoys me most, little Hacker bunny's that are allways comin up and makin a deal out of it.. gawd, get a life.
-yer pal.. Fantum
Of course. TS data is not SUPPOSED kept on networked machines. That doesn't mean people don't circumvent security rules; I've seen TS installations where you basically had to operate in violation of the law just to do your job.
Also, there >are military C&C networks; if someone screws up and makes a hole from the internet into a secure network.
Weren't there reports of a Brit spy satelite being hacked?
Who cares about your 1-dimensional political opinion! Yawn, how borish!
Check the following quote from: "Practical UNIX & Internet security" by Simon Garfinkel eo.
There was a time when computer security professionals argued over the term "hacker". Some thought that hackers were excellent and somewhat compulsive programmers, like Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation. Other thought that hackers were computer criminals, more like convicted felon Mark Abene, aka. "Phiber Optik". Complicating this discussion was the fact that many computer security professionals had formerly been hackers themselves -- of both persuasions. Some were anxious to get rid of the word, while other to preserve it.
Today the confusion over the term has largely been resolved. While some computer professionals continue to call themselves "hackers", most don't. In the mind of the public, the word "hackers" has been firmly defined as a person exceptionally talented with computers who often misuses that skill. Use of the term by members of the news media, law enforcement, and thus entertainment industry has only served to reinforce the definition.
It's good to see the rebellion is still up, personally I'm happy every time *.gov *.mil gets hacked. Maybe I've been watching to many X-Files, but in my view the biggest computer criminal is the government itself.
What about Echelon? You've forgotten that? Why do I only hear geeks here yelling: "Oh no! Evil crackers make us hackers look bad!". Check this out, maybe it's time to rethink again(tm):
http://www.qainfo.se/~lb/echelon.htm
Actually, it would in fact be the red book since it's network related. Of course, this will soon be irrelevant because the Rainbow Series is being superceded by the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (CCITSE) .
Actualy.. the Military internet is the NIPRnet in which is a slow ass internet which has 2 links to the outside Net. But i really dont see why anyone would be trying to crack at it(especialy from the pentagon??) I mean come on.. you can't touch anything cool, oh no, they are gonna crack one of the email serv's, or how about a Domain.. whoopy doo(granted those are sorta important..)
:)
(the SIPRnet DOES have stuff that is kinda important.. for example, all users on the SIPRnet have access to the TIPS..(Tactical Intelligence Product Server) This is a nice lil thing that has a lot of vital info)
the SIPRnet is supposed to be.. well... not only is it not supposed to be that well known, but no connectivity points to the Interent. You cant attack it from the outside.. its just not possible.
however, if you were able to get access to some certain data, and a comm. truck, you could infact do somthing, i mean, we arnt talking about bringing down any systems, just talking about being able to.. semi-access this awsome network(as if you would know what you were doing...) it doesnt work like our internet however, you would need to have been trained ect.
well, just re-informing you
gooday,
-FX
Even more secure is the fdisk wall whereby if you are so paranoid about the security of you system you format you drives, shut down the computers and go back to using an abacus and sliderule.
Okay, now that's funny!
Does that mean the feds are gonna bust me for smoking out?
It's pretty logical, the word cyber is used with computers, technology and networks. It was (first?) mentioned in William Gibson's famous CP book The Neuromancer, and later in Count Zero and other books, they were written before the Internet existed. These books probably influenced a lot of poeple working with technology today so there you have it.. cyber = high-tech network technology.
While Gibson coined the phrase Cyberspace, I do believe 'Cybernetic' was invented long before. Forget what the root comes from.
Yeah..they're a *total* rip off, but you could surf the net at ~9600Kbps with a laptop and one of those phones that are built into the head rest of the seats.
...and when you got there (Singapore), they'd probably cane you for what you posted to alt.sex.bizarre while in flight.
./ I've seen, the poster would have been eligible for some stick time behind the hands of a grand cane master.
Seriously, folks, Singapore is probably one of the most fscked up Malaysian countries if for no other reason than the huge disparity beteen it and its' neighbors.... I won't even go into my usual National Web Cache or the human rights issues rant. Just remember that, of all the non-AC posts to
So, think about that the next time you hop on a SA Jet headed for Singapore with the though of using their "internet" service.
Besides airborne internet sucks rocks.... it's on par with the "cellulear" experience.
That's why my servers identify themselves as something other than what they are. I'm also running servers which are more secure than more common ones. And I'm designing more traps for dummies with things like the Deception Tool Kit.
I think we need MORE information warfare against the Pentagon. One positive development is that there's been dozens of "anthrax hoaxes" in the US clustered around Los Angeles and abortion clinics. The one real attack recorded, which was a spraying of Tokyo from trucks by Aum Shinrikyo, resulted in no infections.
So, everybody, distribute your sarin recipe today over the Internet! I've heard all you need is a chemistry set and a few easy-to-obtain ingredients, and you too can attack Tokyo with "weapons of mass destruction"- but you'll kill fewer people than you would with a Ryder truck full of ammonium nitrate- or even if you had just gone postal with a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun. But think of the media exposure!
I'd have thought someone would have used the title '31337 hAx0rs' (in the most pejorative sense) by now... LOL
yeah, right,
...and they keep all the folkes who knew how to operate the plug boards and replace vacuum tubes
in suspended animation...
Get a clue... does three feet of lead mean anything to you?
Don't worry citizens, a crack team a cyber crime fighters is being assembled as you post.
When the team is complete, these cyber g-men will be quite busy running down the sources of all bothersome spoofed packets.
Be afraid, be very afraid....
(posted by someone who was told, in the course of their own personal investigation, that telnet hi-jacking was a highly technical and specialized attack and could not have happened...(don't these people attend their own black-hat briefings, or what?))
>If US Citizens were more appreciative of the country they lived in, and took the time to realise that the military played a major role in making the US The Greatest Country on Earth (tm)
As a former member of the enlisted ranks, who has worked on DARPA funded projects while attending University, who has been around the world a little, and who now resides outside of North America. You're wrong.
America is simply wealthy, nothing more. nothing less.
And, as the addage goes, it won't by happyness; it'll just fund the research. I've found better places on the planet to live... I'll let you know when I find the perfect place (or maybe I won't). If I'm able to find the perfect WAY to live... well, then, I will have found the meaning to life the Universe and all that; at which point, I'll be ready to die...
As for America's wealth, this will change when the Emerates get their shit together (after all, the US can only push the Middle East so far before consequences of the long term variety (longer than 4 years) start to accumulate) and oil goes high once again. History DOES repeat, you know...
...and, no, I'm not a peace-nik... I'd be more than happy to take you down at 500 yards, if you piss me off.
cyber, as in cyborg
...not some dead fscking language....
OK, I'm posting as an AC 'cause I actually need to this time.
I do occasional work with the DoD and their InfoWarfare (as it's properly called) people. I don't get the nuke codes (), but I've enough clearance to play with some of the nice crypto toys. Lots of nice stuff. :-)
Anyway, as other people have pointed out, the Secret stuff from the DoD is locked away from hackers (as is the stuff in other NATO and affiliate countries) by the simple expedience of air. However, there are two points people are missing here about the whole thing:
The big problem here is that you can cripple a modern country without touching it's military. Knock out their power grid. Take down the Telecom system. Screw with food distribution. Disrupt their banking/financial system. Or even worse, subtly alter important data (census info, funding allocations, credit records, etc.) Note that you don't have to be overt to cause a big impact. What if an enemy manages to create a (bogus) scandal that results in the fall from power of a political party/person? You know the old standby: replace an unsympathetic gov't with one more to your country's liking?
From a military standpoint, all these critical infrastructure systems are wide open for electronic attack. Notice I said from a military standpoint. The kinds of attacks and trials we do (against both US and foreign targets) require sophisticated methods not available to even well-organized cracker groups. But not beyond the reach of a well-funded and well-connected terrorist group, country, or even company. Basically, we estimate that you need a funding base of about $10 million to become an InfoWarfare player. If you have that much money, you probably have the requisite contacts and other support mechanisms required to wage an InfoWar.
The silly thing here is that we're not talking large sums to do some good defense of the USA. It's not like we need $5 billion or so. Given that we already have most of the technology, I'd say the U.S. needs to spend about $100mil each year on it. That might seem like alot, but it's really not. Considering we have by far the most to protect, and the most to lose.
Yes, the DoD is probably blowing things out of proportion to get more funding. No, most critical infrastructure is not vulnerable to anything but a highly-skilled and heavily-funded opponent. However, there is a considerably danger here that can't be ignored. Think of it this way:
In order to compete militarily in the world today (ie be a top 25 military force), you have to spend $10-15 BILLION or more per year. Plus get someone to sell you all those neat hi-tech millitary toys. And, it's totally obvious that you're doing so. If you're a government, you can wage hi-tech warfare on most 1st world countries for a paltry $50 million or less, and do it almost completely undercover.
Also, consider this scenario: country A and country B are technologically advanced and enjoying a healthy economy. Country A has a large military, with no InfoWar capability. Country B has a small military, but a considerably InfoWar ability. Both are in a heated dispute about something (which covers several months time). As the dispute continues, country A suffers a considerable downturn in it's stock market, which causes international investors to flee, which in turn results in a severe economic crisis. Country A determines that the market crash was due to InfoWar by country B (perhaps through bogus stock speculation and manipultation). Since the result caused considerably harm to country A, does it have the right to physically attack country B? What constitutes a "legitimate" attack? How does this fly with the international Media and other countries?
Without the military, can openers wouldn't exist.
LOL! :)
As someone already stated, it came from Wieners '48 article and later books on 'Cybernetics' of which he is among the founders. 'Kubertine' in greek means 'steersman', whether that be of a ship or of a country. The way the word is used about automata, I believe, is 'self-steering' -- his book(s?) on the subject deal mostly with feedback, information and communication (both between automata and automata and humans), and also on the 'design' of living beings.
Norbert Wiener, btw, is the only one I've ever heard of who got his Ph.D. in math at age 19.
>As a former member of the enlisted ranks, who has worked on DARPA funded projects while attending University, who has been around the world a little, and who now resides outside of North America. You're wrong
yeah, i guess i was basing my comments on a limited viewpoint, only on such silly facts as:
- i can go shopping for just about anything i want (try doing that in 50% of the world, plus it'll cost more in the other 49%)
- i can say just about whatever i want without dissappearing (again, try doing that in 50% of the world)
- even living in one of the largest countries, i can use an infrastructure to get to just about any part of the country in 2 days (amazing large highway system - if you complain about potholes here, check out the roads in most 3rd world countries)
plus a few more, including some smaller issues like cheap postal rates, plus fast delivery (oh, no, complain about a 1 cent rise in cost when it's still a lot cheaper than other developed coutnries, plus will get there in 2-3 days), amazing internal natural beauty, the ability to easily live a life in which i can take the time to write crap like this, etc. etc.
>History DOES repeat, you know...
definitely agree with you on that one. and it's because people fail to realise this, and fail to take measures to prevent this, that the US is doomed. every great civilization has risen to greatness, had its people become lazy, then fallen. same thing with the US. Once US taxpayers forget what it takes to keep a nation strong, the US will go the way of the Roman Empire. (i can already see future generations visiting the Mall of America, not to shop, but to see a Ancient American Ruin)
Oh, and I worked for a private company this summer that did work for the military (made plane parts and stuff). Security is tight. Like, all classified information is on computers on a seperate network which is enclosed in a pressurized pipe system. You can't get to the network without changing the pressure and shutting down the network. All the computer rooms are metal lined to prevent eavesdropping.
I can't imagine that important stuff at the pentagon is any less secure. If you do crack into the pentagon from the internet you're probably not going to find much except personal emails from some secretary or some insecure scripts the webmaster uses. I seriously doubt that you're going to find top secret military documents or alien invasion plans.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Then again, you'd probably end up in Singapore..
Ok, "cyberwarfare" has to be the stupidest non-word I've seen in a while. Who came up with the the mistaken idea that the prefix "cyber" refers to computers or the internet? The prefix "cyber" means "relating to government" (the Greek word for government is "kybernisi").
So, therefore, "cyberwarfare" means "war between governments" or "government-sponsored war" or something to that effect. Isn't nearly all war between and sponsored by governments?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I disagree. The term "hacker" refers to a knowledge and love of computers (which often includes programming). There's no distinction between "bad" hackers and "good" hackers. They're all hackers.
However, I agree that "hacker" is not a synonym for "person who breaks into systems." Some of those people may in fact be hackers, while a large majority of they would be what I call either "script kiddies" or "hax0r d00ds."
So, where this article uses "hacker," they may or may not be correct. The people they refer to may very well be hackers, but they just as easily might not be.
However, "crackers" is not the appropriate terminology, since crackers refers to the talented asm coders who remove copy protection schemes from software.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
so what was his rationale for making "cyber = high-tech network technology" when "cyber" in fact means "relating to government" or something to that effect?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Posted by tid242:
keep in mind that while this article states a "percieved" threat on a, for the most part, secure system doesn't mean that there aren't similar threats abounding.
true story:
during the gulf war a group of scandanavian hacker-type people offered to crash the US Military communications network in the ME for several million dollars. saddam, the brawny idiot he is, declined the offer.
afterwards US analysts came to the conclusion that the hackers could have crashed our military networks and it was a very real threat in the future. i'm not saying that it would have caused iraq to win the war, i don't think they stood much of a chance personally, but such an attack on our military communications networks abroad could seriously fuck up our shit and cause a lot of problems. as our networks going down during key moments in the gulf war could have suddenly made our war over in iraq a lot more complicated.
sorry about the sketchy details, i read about it in time magazine a long time ago (uh...like after the gulf war...).
anyway the point is that there is a threat, but no so much a threat on the pentagon's secret shit.
Posted by OGL:
I had the pleasure of installing an ip logger this week and found myself being port scanned by different 14 year olds at a random location across the globe around once every two hours. This is probably going on on every campus in every school in America. Face it, if you have a machine which has a static ip, and you run some kind of service on it, someone's gonna make a try. Luckily for national security most of them are just retarded kiddie hax0rs with no life.
-W.W.
Don't ask how I know, but I have it from reliable sources that clasified data may not be kept on a computer connected to external networks.
I don't know if they have that command center under a mountain, but when they do need to transport data long distances, they have not forgotten the bandwidth or security avaiable in a military convoy filled with 8mm (or whatever technology) tapes. When they need a lesser amount of data, they have networks they trust, but though they may run IP they are not internet connected.
Of course they do have internet connected computers, lots of them. Orange book rules (or is it red book) prevent any system less then A1 (or B2, I can't recall) to store even low classification information on a net connected system.
Crypto export laws etc. don't apply to the U.S. military. The Russian computers would probably not be any more secure, regardless of any changes in computer laws no more than >90% of the machines in the US would. In any event I'm pretty sure that Russia doesn't give a rats ass about U.S. encryption laws.
The encryption laws should be changed but not for these reasons.
The only changes which would effect the security of individual computers would be somewhat akin to a propoganda campaign like during WWII. Just change the slogan from "loose lips sink ships" to "loose ports aid terrorist cohorts" or something.
I'm suprised that any foreign attacks on US military computers don't originate from US ISPs. If you're going to go to the trouble of cracking into a Russian machine, why not just extend it and crack into a US machine after that. The more jurisdictions you cross the better. Beauracracies don't like to cooperate with each other.
For that reason I think the whole conclusion is a sham. Most of the attacks from Russia are actually from Russian citizens and they for the most part aren't organized groups, or aren't organized with any particular faction. The cold war is more or less dead and gone to the public, they need a reason to bring it back (buzzword enabled no less) to squeeze more quarters from every dollar of the US citizens.
Just another attempt to rein in the chaos of the net.
Gee, people don't seem afraid of porn, maybe they'll be afraid of cyburworfare!. Just imagine! Big bad racist garbage-can-lid-throwin dudes like Kevin Mitnick could be walking the streets! Take part in your community to help support increased cryptography restrictions, and the death penalty for anyone who uses a "handle".
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
All that proves is how central the US military is in American society.
As a rule, the inventions follow the money. If other government agencies (or private citizens) had that kind of research capital, I think we'd have a different sort of inventions now. I don't think "the Super" would have been one of them.
The military invented the internet, yes, but it would have happened anyway. Probably under the control of (shudder) AT&T.
Wouldn't it be nice if there were non-military agencies that had a budget for Advanced Research Projects like the internet? Think of just how disney life would be.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Fall down! The computer says you're dead!
Did not!
Does too!
Mooooooooooommmm!
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Every day tens of breakin attempts are made.
I attempted to do the worm and injured my spine.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Data classified secret or top secret cannot be accessed on a machine with outside access- no exceptions. Anything less is considered by the Federal Government to be a breach of security, punnishable by a minimum of $20,000 (possibly a LOT more) and possibly a 20 year stint in a Federal Pen.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Just as often as the fsckups with stuff that genuinely should have been classified "ts" is the situations where something that should have been classified at a lower level got classified "ts" or "secret"- even though it really was confidential or unclassified in nature. It's a fscking nightmare to straighten out something incorrectly classified. (Which is part of the reason why things like the "ts" stuff getting out in the open by accident happen)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I don't know if they have that command center under a mountain...
...
Been to Colorado Springs lately? Cheyenne Mtn, sits adjacent to Pike's Peak.
Orange book rules (or is it red book)
I believe it's the Orange, and IBM seems to have the redbooks .
3lixyqueue
I don't know if they have that command center under a mountain...
;-) NORAD inside Cheyenne Mtn., sits adjacent to Pike's Peak. It was always `rumored' that their computers were not solid-state equipment to guard against EMF pulses, and upon asking them that on a tour, my question was prompty disregarded.
...
;-)
Been to Colorado Springs lately?
Orange book rules (or is it red book)
I believe it's the Orange, and IBM seems to have the redbooks
And do they really want people to believe that they put sensitive nat'l security info on a system accessable by the World?
3lixyqueue
Lousy Kirk. In that episode, he was all: "Prime Directive? What Prime Directive?"
Okay, I admit, that was a cool episode. And, admittedly, Kirk is one damn good diplomat. I wish they were still showing old ST around here. Grrrr.
You know, I would take this whole thing seriously if it weren't for the fact that the entire staff of ABC are so disconnected they might as well be luddites. They really made asses of themselves with that report.
Borish?
.
Oooohhhh... you're a homicidal maniac.
Oops, I think I pissed him off.
Cringe.
.
Hmmmm... I always thought crackers were white folks from down south... the opposite of yankees.
:)
.
Hmm..
:)
Does any other airlines have internet on board?
Just wanted to know which airline to select next time.
begin rant
rabid peacknik mode on
> don't forget that it was the US Military that invented your precious Internet
The military did invent the internet. Credit given where credit is due.
>And, most great technological creations came out of war.
WTF? great inventions like nuclear weapons... Its nice living less than an hour from the end of life as we know it...isnt it
>It's the end of the cold war that has brought about a general lack of funding for general research
Not true, it's moved a lot of research into the private sector, building things that don't explode...
>a lot of us computer people work for Defense contractors
Same goes for Microsoft. That doesnt make them automatically right...
>A lot of Americans still believe a strong military is important
The same forward - thinking bunch who believes New Mexico is a foriegn country, Reagan knew what he was talking about, and Elvis is still alive...
>Just because you don't think so doesn't mean your point of view is necessarily gospel.
same for you...
rabid peacenik mode off
end rant
0 1 - just my two bits
Of couse I knew, but you don't argue by giving both sides of the issue. I was replying to a post extolling the virtues of the military's research. I was simply trying to make the point that the purpose of any military is to kill people and break things, and therefore the goal of military research would be easier and more efficient ways to kill people and break things.
0 1 - just my two bits
If I may, Singapore is no more part of Malaysia than Mexico is part of the US. It is an island just off the Malaysian peninsula.
Their laws are harsh but have you ever walked in the city ? You can literaly eat off of the sidewalk/pavement.
And anyway - I for one am glad that yank kid got his ass wupped for spraying graffiti in their country. Who the hell does he think he is. Bet you he'll think twice about doing that again, even now when he's on good 'ol US of A soil.
I disagree. "Crackers" are crunchy food items that go good with soup.
Scuttlemonkey is a troll
So even the probability to cause a WWIII would not make some idiots change encryption regulations. They complain about being attacked through cracked computers on ex-"enemy 1" networks but they forget to mention that they have done everything they can to create this situation.
Very typical of american politics. They feed terrorists in Afganistan and Algeria for years and after that they are concerned that american tourists (f.e. one of Intel vice-CEOs) are being killed. They do anything they can to prevent computers around the world from being secure and after that they complain that they are being f... from russian boxes. Just brilliant...
Mil.heads, whatever...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Simon I think that you have hit the nail on the head. I am an American and I do think our way of life is worth defending. Its been a long time since a battle has taken place on American shores and I believe that some of my fellow Americans have taken all this 'freedom' for granted.
lcase - @home in cyberspace
At least not in the situation you described. Financial disruption isn't considered to be an acceptable grounds for war by the American government, or most gov's for that matter. In all likelyhood, if the attacks could be proven and their origin verified, you would see extreme economic and trade sanctions taken against country B.
There is a better example of cyber-war that could lead to a bomb-war though. Let's say that country B got sick of negotiations, and took out the telco and power grids in a major urban center. Chaos would reign (imagine New York with no power or phones for three days). Would we attack then? Yes. Reagan pretty much set the standard for those types of intrusions with attack on Libya in the 80's. For those that don't remember, that was a sticky situation for the US. You had Libyan non-government civilians attacking US citizens outside of US held land (i.e. no direct military threat or national disruption). Reagan drew the "line in the sand" and basically said that if the action is supported by a foreign government, and brings real, deliberate, physical harm to US citizens, we have the right to attack and defend ourselves. An attack on the stock market would hurt, but it wouldn't cause the kind of harm that he defined (and his statements are held as the litmus test of such interventions today).
I'd also like to add another point to your statement. It isn't actually required for a hacker to gain access to encrypted or secure networks to gain important information. Imagine the strategic value in locating a message on a non-secure military email server, from some Army generals secretary, indicating that the said general was about to leave with his troops to go visit some "military situation" before that information was made public. This information could be leaked to the press or an enemy government and tip them off to a potential attack before it came.
Also, regarding secure encrypted communications, it isn't always necessary to read that information to know somethings up. In WWII the Pacific Allied armies sucessfully predicted an incoming Japanese attack (on New Guinea I think) by monitoring their radio communications. Now, we couldn't actually understand what those communications were saying, but when Allied codebreakers noticed a massive increase in the number of transmissions being sent to one area, they correctly predicted that an attack would come from there, and the Allies were able to fend off the attack. Now, imagine you're an enemy of the US and American armies are sitting right across your border threatening to attack (the Saddam Hussein situation). What would you surmise if your government paid cracker informed you that he just detected a massive increase in the communications networks of the American army? That's what the Pentagon is worried about.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
I suspect that there's actually quite a lot of potentially dangerous information even on the "public" network. You never know what might turn out to be damaging. Many organizations' telephone directories are confidential, with good reason; memos and spreadsheets get passed around; file sharing gets left on accidentally or on purpose; you name it. It's too easy to just happen to leave indirectly sensitive information on the wrong machine.
If my assumptions about basic human nature are correct, there are probably illegal gateways from the "secure" net to the "public" net, too. It's just too inconvenient to have to go to a different machine to get your email, and just to cool to "beat the system" and make your own solution.
I believe journalists noted a drastic increase in late night pizza deliveries to the White House and Pentagon shortly before the Gulf War started.
What was that about using military resources to aid private corporations? Oh, yes, I recall both Israeli and Chinese intelligence engage in industrial espoinage too. Looks like we're in good company.
I do not believe there exist many nations that do not spy on all their buddies.
The Army is begging for $$$
An interesting thought, but perhaps it's not the army and not even about money. The FBI has been pushing pretty hard against digital privacy lately--they could be orchestrating these "attacks" to promote a sense of insecurity so that more Americans will be sympathetic to the FBI's stance against privacy.
Just a fun guess.
My father was an old Sperry Univac (yes, from before Sperry, long before Unisys) Field Engineer who worked on secure government computers. He told me about one machine which was powered by a generator, which in turn was belt-driven from an electric motor. Why the Rube Goldberg power supply? So that the computer would not produce any fluctuations in power draw that could be detected through the power grid. Mind you, this was back before solid-state computers, so this might have been a reasonable concern. Dad tells great punch card stories! :-)
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
Also written before Gibson had so much as learned how to use a word processor. There may have been an interview where he said he didn't want to know how computers worked, so that reality wouldn't get in the way of his creativity.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
I believe the usage of "cyber-" referring to computers comes from Norbert Weiner's 1948 paper "Cybernetics" on automatic control systems. According to WWWebster, the Greek kybernan means "govern" in the sense of controlling or steering. In addition, I seem to remember an anecdote that someone suggested the word "Cybernetics" to Weiner as a nonsense word that he could make to mean whatever he wanted.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
It may be mere coincidence, but a few weeks earlier one of the guys who worked here had met a French girl in a bar. She was the standard French girl : beautiful, mysterious, flirtatious, etc. She claimed that she was an out of work "nanny" and needed a place to stay. He agreed to let her stay at his place until it was time for her to go back to France. According to him she never asked him about work or anything like that, but it makes you think....
TANG! was invented for the space program.
So was Velcro!
So was Freeze Dried Food!
So was.... well lots of other things.
I know. The gov't has had IW groups for a long time now. Their job...wait around until a defensive mauever is necessary, or until they are given the order to attack. Most of these attacks,
no matter where they come from or how systematic they seem, the gov't wouldn't come forward with this story if they hadn't already had the situation under control.
The 250 billion $ / year defense budget could fund 2,500,000 freeware programmers at 100,000 $ / year. Enough to write a new kernel, GUI and all applications one thousand times over every year. Good thing we have our priorities straight.
Hey Simon, wake up. We are living in what is known as a War-Time economy. Meaning that nearly the largest driving force behind our economy is military industry. We need to keep this machine fueled because the corporations that produce arms make A LOT of money. We spend too much time worrying about future war and ignoring future peace. Defending our lifestyle is hogwash.
Hey, don't forget that it was the US Military
to invented your precious Internet, okay?
Taxpayer military funding is what payed for
arpanet.
And, most great technological creations came
out of war. What better way to speed up
innovation? It's the end of the cold war that
has brought about a general lack of funding for
general research anymore...
Besides, a lot of us computer people work for
Defense contractors. Cut the Military funding,
and our jobs are gone... There is another side
to this issue. It's not just wasting money. A
lot of Americans still believe a strong military
is important. Just because you don't think so
doesn't mean your point of view is necessarily
gospel.
Thanks for reading.
--- witty signature
Man these people have the balls and no life.. Most of their connections are lease lines, so that just one hell of journy just to get into the switching system..
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
It's always been this way. Ever since WWII the United States has needed to continue the great war machine and to keep funding coming in. Without any actual war taking place, they needed to come up with bullshit like so to keep the funds rolling in. You also have to think about who this article is targeted at. Many a person will cringe at the word "hacker", yet they don't really understand what it implies. All this publicity surrounding attacks on pentagon computers is just obvious fund raising, too bad we can't send in Ken Starr.
While this is probably true, that someone could take out our computers during time of war or some other critical time, but I see this as a terrific example of how we have become too reliant upon our machines. People used to win wars by using their skill and cunning to attempt to outsmart the enemy, now it just a matter of locking on your missles from thousands of miles away and pushing the little red button while getting head from an intern.
There was a good article in Wired about a year ago that outlined what could happen in the future if a so called "Cyberwar" were to happen, and perhaps this bullshitting by the government is just one of the first steps in an already thought out war, with no casualities, no battles, just 1's and 0's flying at each other over copper and fiber.
Yeah, but I wonder if articles like this are red herrings to give hackers [and foreign powers?] the impression that the gov't is "really worried" about this, when there perhaps they feel that they really have no reason to worry. I mean, it would lend authenticity to the perceived "threat".
...
Then again, now that I've brought this up, maybe the cat is out of the bag and I'm going to mysteriously disappear in the middle of
--
Mark Conty
mdc@isd.net
Mark Conty
mconty@integra.net
Reuters retracted that news item. There's another story here in /. about it...
--
Mark Conty
mdc@isd.net
Mark Conty
mconty@integra.net
Just to clarify something, just as the US was the first country to utilize the atomic bomb for warfare the US is also one of the first to utilize hacking computer and phone systems for warfare. Iraq was the hackee in 1991. This has been published in the news so should be researchable.
Also, I worked for the DOD in '86-87 as a student and I am well aware that they seperate their networks. Computers are VERY CLEARLY labled as secure or insecure and are on seperate networks. If they have continued that policy and I can think of no reason for them not to then I would be VERY suspicious of anyone claiming there were gateways between the non-secure and secure networks. The DOD does not mind double duty when re-entering data. There are many ways to get info into a computer without using a network. Also work is divided up between that which needs a secure system and that which does not. The Walker spy ring did wonders for fixing holes in American security by revealing we had TOO MANY secrets and thus too many people needed secret clearence to do mundane jobs.
--Pete
I've always heard "cracker" used as someone who reverse-engineers software. Or, someone who decrypts. And "hacker" as someone who breaks into machines without authorization.
>Cut the Military funding,
>and our jobs are gone
Ending WWII also put an end to SS Officer's jobs.
Your job as a weapons builder can't be used as an argument for maintaining military funding.