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CIA Considering Cyberwarfare
An anonymouse reader wrote in to say "This story reveals that the CIA will consider the use of computers to conduct a cyberwar against Yugoslovian President Slobodan Milsoevic, in addition to more traditional ways to destabilize the Yugoslov government. "
Information is warfare these days. Its kinda scary.
That's just part of the scenarios. Some of the scenarios I've seen were very extensive, and very interesting too.
:-)
It would start with a power grid failing, and nobody knowing why. Then the traffic lights in NYC would go haywire for some time. Then a large newspaper would be shut down. Then a satellite would go off course and fall back to earth. A ferocious virus would suddenly pop up and spread like wildfire across the Internet. A Boeing 777 falls out of the sky due to a strange software malfunction. An emergency breaks out at a nuclear power plant due to some software glitch. All sorts of such seemingly unconnected incidents would probably be extremely effective cyberwarfare. It would take weeks, perhaps even months before defence would fully realize the US were under attack. And currently there is nothing that could stop such a scenario from actually happening.
Personally I worry more about a cyber attack than about Y2K... Not that I worry much about Y2K, but that's a different story
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
I'm sorry, but this isn't exactly news. Well, it's news that they're going to use it against Milosevic, but it's not news that Information Warfare aka Cyberwarfare exists. The Pentagon has been working on it for a long time, and there are also lots of Cyberwarfare scenarios.
By the way, the country that is most vulnerable to Cyberwarfare is the USA. Literally everything is run by or with the aid of computers. Good Cyberwarfare could criple the US completely. Yugoslavia however is probably pretty much impervious to Cyberwarfare because most of the country is run without computers.
)O(
the Gods have a sense of humor,
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
As the US is once again discovering, simply having the most advanced weapons (lethal or non-lethal) does not guarantee victory. Whether it be a Stealth bomber or a quad Xeon box running Redhat 6.0, NEITHER can go in and occupy territory. At the end of the day, as it's been throughout recorded history, some poor "grunt", scared, dirty and hungry, armed with an M-16, Springfield, Brown Bess, battleaxe, pilum or gladius is going to end up having to go in over someone elses' bodies and say "This is mine now and you f*ckers are going to STOP."
No geek whether 50,000 ft. in the sky or 10,000 miles away behind a keyboard is going to be able to do it.
We always think that if we throw enough money and "brains" at it we can make war clean and bloodless. Win without mussing our hair. Sorry folks, it just don't work that way. Why don't we ever learn?
Another reason why the US should be careful about this is that eastern european countries seem to have an ample supply of highly skilled crackers.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Offense none my friend, but one of the primary reasons for the Second World War was the fact that the US wanted to keep out of international affairs. As a result, organizations such as the League of Nations had no real power.
This is a very creative explanation and very offensive statement, to say the least. Americans didn't help their allies when they were asked to, and this is one of the reasons why war taken that long and claimed that many lives, however I recommend you to study the history of pre-war Europe if you want to know what cause rise of Nazi and WWII. Of course, as a good American patriot, you probably also think that Americans' actions in Europe at the very end of war had significant impact on the defeat of Nazi.
I probably also have to remind you that KLA is not an US ally, and at least formally is still a terrorist organization, participating in a civil war.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
--
Lesse.. starting pay in Texas is in the mid 20's, they work 10 months per year, and good teachers work at *least* 50 hours per week. That comes out to $11 per hour. $25,000/(43 weeks x 50 hrs) This is what it's worth to teach future generations? Interesting.
Two points:
1. US laws prohibit assassination of foreign leaders (unless a declaration of war is made). US did not declare war since WW2, and declaring war under international law carries consequences (use of force/declaring war is only legal with approval of UN). Faced with choice of breaking international law or breaking national law, Clinton always choses former, as international law is enforced only in UN where US has veto, therefore, US can essentially escape harmless no matter what they do, even if entire world is against it.
2. What gives US right to decide whether foreign leader is 'acceptable' leader for that region or has to be assassinated? Isn't the idea of democracy that people elect their leaders? If Milosevic was democratically elected, and he is Evil (tm), that shows that democracy is evil. However, no better option has been presented, other than US ruling entire world, of course, which probably won't be acceptable to say, Russia and China.
What's the point of this post? Democracy isn't always the answer, nor is dictatorship of single person or even government. Truth is somewhere in between.
Teachers get more vacation time than the average salaried technoworker? Wrong.
I'm a technician in the manufacturing plant. I get every other week free. Calculate how many days that is in one year.
My dad is a professor/assoc dean at a state university. There are great benefits of that position, but I would not hype the vacation time as one of them. He works often until midnight daily, including weekends. There may be more work involved than you give credit for in this case.
I think most Americans would see a major cyber-warfare hit as a pleasant "vacation from all this B.S. ...."
I beg to disagree. I think Americans - myself included - would be very unhappy and frustrated if a foreign power deprived them of their God given, inalienable right to entertainment and time-wasting.
Consider how frustrated we become when the Cable goes out. How we scramble around, looking for something to do, when the power goes out. Most of us can't even share our frustration in that context, because our portable phones and email are out too.
If Information Warfare ever came to the U.S. of A, it would have a very demoralizing effect on the general population. It would undermine the populus' faith in it's government - after all, if the Iraqi's can take out CableTV, nothing is sacred??
We might even be forced to read a book, or [gasp!] talk to our families!!
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I'm curious about what methods the CIA are going to use. I doubt that they would be a full-frontal, all out cracking attempt. This would be too obvious and rather messy. Then again, the CIA couldn't find a certain address in Belgrade...
Other plausible scenarios include gaining the help of a sysadmin; you know, give the guy a few bucks or *ucks. They may already have a person already in place for this. Remember, this is the easiest way to compromise any system.
I guess it's also time to use those hidden backdoors that are in place. Furthermore, encrypted files? Hey, no problem. We have key escrow.
Or they could use that fancy laptop computer from "Mission Impossible", the one with the thinking machine processor with AI.:)
Posted by mgegqekk:
The Big Question:
How long will it take for us to destroy Yugoslavia's military? According to Albright we are 33% done and it has taken 2 months and 60k sorties. Assuming the same rate of destruction per sortie and a constant rate of sorties we should be done in 6 months and 180k sorties (from the start of the "war").
Of course, those are big assumptions. Since I don't have access to military plans, I'll have to stick with the old adage that "it takes 90% of the time to get the last 10% of the work done". So we should reach 90% in 5.4 months (162k sorties). But that was only 10% of the needed time, according to our rule of thumb. Therefore we should be done with the last of Yugoslavia's military in a mere 54 months and 1.62 million sorties. Fall of 2003 anyone?
Wired News just sent out a story about this same topic:
http://www.wired.com/news/ news/politics/story/19836.html
... that's all i wrote...
What the US needs to consider is this:
Premise: We are entering the information age. This means that information is power.
Premise: To utilize information effectively, we need education.
Conclusion: We need better education in order to succeed in the information age.
So remind me, how much do we pay our teachers???
How does this relate to cyber-warfare? Well, if all the tech jobs suck up our techs because there aren't enough of them due to poor education, then there aren't enough spooks (=information age soldier) to defend our country and our networks.
-B
As for the usefulness of electronic warfare against the Serbs (proud [now former] makers of the esteemed Yugo), I think you may be slightly underestimating the technology available to and in use by the Serb government and their media machine that rivals MSNBC in jingoism....
though I agree its usefulness will be about the same as anything else we have done over there so far, which is to say not useful at all.
But as for American vulnerability to cyber attacks, do you really think Americans wouldn't patiently dive into a dark period without technology? Seems to me that Europeans are generally less afraid of technology than Americans are. I think most Americans would see a major cyber-warfare hit as a pleasant "vacation from all this B.S.
Regards,
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Why exactly are we spending tens of billions of dollars bombing some country nobody heard about before this fiasco? Why are our military forces (who's only job, as far as I know, is to safeguard the interests of the general population - including defense) over there? Why are American lives being sacrified?
For humanitarian reasons?
Please. If I want to be humanitarian, I'll contribute to a charity. There's alot of better places that money could be going - like education or cancer research.
So I ask again.. why are we really over there?
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This really reminds me of the Pentagon's testing of anti-satellite weapons. By doing this kind of crap we are only provoking other countries into developing similar capabilities and thus, with us being the most voulnerable to these types of attacks (satellite and computer), we naturally must spend billions on securing ourselves from such attacks. Good thing, too, as it keeps the great military-industrial complex churning.
It's great to be an American.
- Domestic support for Milosevic is getting stronger with evey bomb dropped over a Serbian city. (If you doubt this, then ask yourself who you'd rather hate: The guys who have just bombed your house or your local administration, which, after all, takes care that you get medical treatment and gets you quatered somewhere else)
- The NATO alliance is weak, the reluctance to send ground troops and the obvious lack of political commitment nullifies any actual military advantage (strategic bombardment is pointless if not followed by an invasion)
- The "marketing" problem in explaining a continued war if the self declared goal is peace (and not victory).
- Every embarressing mistake like the destruction of the Chinese embassy will futher limit the alliance's political options.
- With the main targets destroyed, it will be increasinly difficult to destroy military targets without unacceptable ammounts of collateral damage.
- And last but not least: The cost of the campaign exceeds the caused damage by at least one order of magnitude.
Remember that the purpose of war is not the destruction of the enemy but the enforcement of a political goal and as far as politics go, Milosevic is the clear winner so far.My bet is that there will be a cease-fire RSN followed by a token peace-treaty (after all, Milosevic's political goal - the expulsion of the Albanians - is almost reached) that allows the NATO to somewhat keep it's face but will basically fix the status quo.
The part I find disturbing is the bit about attacking Milosevic's foreign bank accounts. Which I assume is illegal in those countries. Way to set a good example, government. *sigh*
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I think that the US again makes their usual error of judging military options on the effect they would have on themselves instead of the enemy.
While even a partial breakdown of the IT infrastrucure would have a devastating effect on a country like the US where you even pay your hambuger by creditcard and most economic transactions involve the exchange of information instead of actual goods, this clearly isn't the case with the more traditional economy of Yugoslavia.
The same hold true for the strategic bombardments: The Americans never had war on their territory and therefor react very senitive to own miltary losses (remember the 3 three captured GIs), while Europe and esp. the Balkans have a long tradition of warfare and won't get demoralised so quickly by a high-tech air campaign.
IMHO the NATO alliance would have done better in systematically arming and training the UCK (and maybe offering them tactical air support) than, after months of ineffective bombardments, being drawn into a guerilla war that they are unprepared and unwilling to deal with.
the problem right now is that Mr. Mislovec has been sending out groups of army people, who have been roaming the countryside and doing horrible things to ethnic albaninans.
so, our strategy so far has been to think of things that might help the serbian army, then blow those things up.
if blowing stuff in cities up hasn't stopped the army from killing kosovars, i doubt that disrupting satellite television in serbia or causing mr. mislovec's windows box to be |\|UK3D or screwing with mr. mislovec's ATM account is going to stop the army from killling kosovars.
August 12th 1999
Anchor:One of the worst power outages in the United States just got cleaned up this week. Unfortunately this power outages was during one of the worst heat waves recorded in the state of California and many ave suffered from heat exhaustion and stroke. Hundreds suffered from the unbearable heat, resulting in dozens of heat related deaths. Several hospitals lost power for much longer than expected before backup generators came on-line, resulting in 12 deaths.
News reporter:The body of Gregory Hill a.k.a IzeMa|\| was found early this morning by friends coming to pick him up for work. He had been shot in the back of the head assassination style. Friends say he had no enemies and they have no idea who is respocible. Nothing in his apartment was stolen or vandalized. It is rumored though that Gregory was part of a CIA assembled team of "hackers" that fought a clandestine information war against the Serbian army in Kosovo.
Headline:Attacks by hackers have crippled several national banks causing the loss of nearly 2 billion.
This is what cyberwar means, it isn't just attacks from us to them, it's also retaliation. Think about how vulnerable the US is to a cyber attack of any kind. I don't have to write up a scenario for all of them, there are just too many. This is just another weapon for some armchair general to tell someone else to use. Cyberwar is NOT by any means a clean business. Many people will die if there is ever an all out war. The destructiveness isn't measured in number of deaths or cities destroyed, its measured in the destablization of an economy, local or national. And its things like that which cause the powers that be to rescind the rights of the constitution in order to "protect" the American population. We become a powerless military state "for the duration". How many books and movies have been written about this sort of scenaro happening? TONS. You know why? because it's a very valid fear these days. This sort of espionage has been going on as long as there have been networks of any kind, except now those networks are much more crucial to our way of life. Before the Cold War ended i had to worry about a nuclear war that wipes out life as we know it, now I have to fear a war that will destroy the technology that our society depends on. Imagine all the Y2K hoopla coming true, except the culprit isn't a bunch of date errors and roll over problems, but intentional attacks on our infrastructure.
But what can I expect from the NSA and CIA, which were created to serve the national interest, note I said national interest and not public interest. The NSA for years has been logging decrypting and reading e-mail in Europe, the CIA regularly practices their cyberwar capabilities on foreign computer systems and networks. The NSA also collects as much information as they can about ANYONE they want. You think the FBI is bad about information gathering, I would love to see some of the files in the NSA libraries. These two organizations have become so far removed from the public interest they are practically whole new branches of government. But you think "oh well no one would work for the NSA unless they were a die hard patriot" or some crap. Well what happens when they come to you with a naughty piece of dirt from you past that would ruin your life if someone found out, or you were majorly in debt and they promised to get you off the hook if you helped them out on a "project". The CIA used to do this to get foreign nationals to betray their own country, what would stop them from getting hackers to work for them the same way. But all casulties would be a result of war therefore justified.
The reason this is so long and I'm so pissed about this is because when I saw the Berlin wall come down I figured that we were going to enter a more peaceful time. No more mutually assured destruction, no more wondering how far you have to be from ground zero to survive. Now we have to fear our technological infrastructure being threatened. Sure, a few lives lost in a power outage or plane crash isn't the same as a nuclear holocaust, but cyberwar uses a very old and tried form of warfare: terrorism. People become afraid to use the technology we've become accustmed to because there is the fear that it will be the next cyber terrorism target.
p.s. I dont know anyone named Gregory Hill, it was the best name I could think of on the spot. no offence to anyone.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
This story didn't say anything the first time it was on the CNN homepage. Why should now be different?
Here's the techie synopsis:
The CIA is authorized to investigate means of distabilizing the Milosevic government.
Nothing cyber, nothing tech, nothing new.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Politicians want to mandate that secure products use key escrow. Who's going to buy a product when a government that openly engages in "cyberwarfare" holds the spare key?
Not that key escrow or this war are right in the first place...
I consider this as scary fact. If US Government legitimizes 'hacking' as form of warfare, there will be nothing to stop any other country from doing it.
For example, report talks about 'attacking Milosevic's bank accounts'. Presumably held in countries other than US, since in US, Clinton can order the funds frozen or seize them. Now, US is not at war with those third countries (most likely it will be Cyprus), but will be actively trying to rob those countries banks, while maintaining complete diplomatic relations.
Consider following. Lybia trying to break into UK banks to steal money held by (whoever) in UK. It will now be perfectly legitimate to do that without declaration of war or anything. Scary thought.
Why exactly did sources within the CIA leak this to CNN? If this is supposed to be classified, why are elements within the CIA talking to a press organization that is closely watched around the world?
Maybe this is just a feignt? It makes no sense to say hey Mr. Bad Guy better look out we are gonna hax0r j00r computers. I think this is more a leak just to frighten Milosovic and his government and force them to waste resources trying to defend their informational structure against a non-existent attack.
The true story here is that CNN, Slashdot and others were the actual weapons here...spreading disinformation. We all know how powerful a weapon FUD is... This time its the CIA doing it instead of Microsoft.
And if I'm wrong, there should be some people thrown into jail for compromising a classified operation during time of war.
Information is warfare these days. Its kinda scary
This is scary? Getting bombed or shot is scary, having your computer hacked kind of pales in significance, don't you think?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Since its inception, arguably some of the 'best' (if such a term can be used), most devious, and damaging cracking has its origins under instable and/or repressive european regimes; Germany, Bulgaria come to mind. Repression has always, and will only promote cracking.
This said, is the US prepared for possible repercussions from any 'cyber-warfare'?