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US Admits CyberWarfare against Yugoslavia
Anonymous Coward sent us a piece of cyberwarefare news. The US Military has said that during the conflict in Yugoslavia "cyber" war was used - although refused to get any more details. In related news, the the United States Space Command has been given the responsibilty to better guard the military computer systems against infiltration.
Not all hacking/cracking (no flames, please) is done through the Internet. Dial-in access modems are very common for utility equipment like phone/electricity (I wouldn't know about water and other infrastructure). These are susceptible. There are other ways into other networks as well, especially if you've compromised the telecom infrastructure in general. Example: They're using a leased line? Fine, the attackers "own" the switch and deal with it from another angle.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
Nobel invented Dynamite (sawdust soaked in nytroglycerin) not TNT (tri-nitro-toluene).
This sig left unintentionally blank.
"In wars of the future, China will face the enemy's more complete information technology with incomplete information technology. Because sometimes superior tactics can make up for inferior technology, China will still carry out its traditional warfare method of "you fight your way, I'll fight my way," and use its strengths to attack the enemy's weaknesses and adhere to an active role in warfare. To do this, it appears that we must pay even more attention to:
- Fully utilizing the advantages of national territory and front information facilities to carry out reconnaissance on the enemy's situation and protect ourselves and attack the enemy
- Developing, improving, and utilizing China's information weapons in a concentrated way to carry out raids on enemy operation platforms and bases and damage and foil the enemy's offensive
- Emphasizing mobile war in the context of information warfare
- Conscientiously organizing sabotage operations by the Army, Navy, and Air Force, grasp exploitable opportunities, and make continuous raids to exhaust and wear down the enemy
- Organizing specialized combined special warfare troops and equip these with information technology weapons to carry out powerful special warfare.
In summary, our warfare methods must adapt to the needs of information warfare. We must use all types, forms, and methods of force, and especially make more use of nonlinear warfare and many types of information warfare methods which combine native and Western elements to use our strengths in order to attack the enemy's weaknesses, avoid being reactive, and strive for being active. In this way, it will be entirely possible for China to achieve comprehensive victory over the enemy even under the conditions of inferiority in information technology."People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
The US also started out saying that it was bombing for humanitarian reasons, then to preserve the credibility of NATO, then to help refugees get back to their homes. These were all statements made by Washington through the "free press" without anyone so much as batting an eye. NATO commander Wesley Clark stated a few days after the bombing began that the Serbian reaction was "completely predictable". So, if anyone here thinks rationally, why would the US choose an option among other available choices that would knowningly escalate atrocities on both sides? Surely we can rule out humanitarian motives on this alone or by looking at our active participation for the Turkish government right next door in its brutal repression of its Kurds. The "credibility of NATO" objective was probably the closest thing to the truth in this campaign of lies so it was quickly replaced by concern over the refugees. But, according to NATO figures, there were no registered refugees before the bombing. The UN High Commission on refugees released figures showing rising refugee levels AFTER the bombing began. In spite of this clear information that was readily available if one choose to look, the press obediently kept repeating that we are concerned for the plight of the refugees. Of course the argument went that Milosevic would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo anyway, this just speeded up the process! Now we are bombing for our designated enemies future crimes as well! The lies just get worse from here. Whether we used "cyberwarfare" or whatever other method is irrelevant. SlashDot readers are proving to be just like the rest of the uninformed population in their misguided analysis of US foreign policy. But this is not too surprising considering that internet users are generally more well off financially than the rest of the population making them one of the primary targets of the propaganda system.
You know, I've seen several posts now that assume that this was some kind of attack through the internet. I read the article and didn't get that impression. Hell, I read it and it was vague enough that you could substitute almost any type of attack for cyber and it still makes sense (well ... doesn't make any _less_ sense, anyway)
I wouldn't assume that this was a DoS attack against Slobodan's Military C&C NT server at www.babykillers.com or some such nonsense. As was pointed out, what real damage could you do? What critical assets are going to be accessible over the public network?
When I read it I got more the impression that it was some sort of attack against closed networks that might have involved a more direct form of sabotage (HERF, jammers, seal teams, etc). Ah dunno, it was pretty sketchy on details so its anybody's guess.
For the life of me, I can't find the link to it, but Yesterday's Seattle Times newspaper ran a front page story on "Foriegn Hackers attack Pentagon and military targets". The reporter cited a senate subcommitte's report on a code name project that was just made public by the Pentagon. I guess there is an extensive investigation going on where they (Pentagon) has traced back intrusions from Russian computers.
They claim "vast" amounts of information, most unclassified, was stolen from various departments. NASA is included in one of the attacks. This was done over a long period of time with out detection. It claimed they have no idea who is behind the attacks and don't know of any identities of attackers.
If you know anything about this, I'd love to hear more. I can't find any links out there that refer to this. All I have is a newspaper (which I'm not going to retype, sorry). Not even the Seattle Times website has a reference to it, even though it was their story.(?).
Anyway, thought this was relavant to the story above, except in reverse.
-colin.s-
But when all the ATMs are down, no phones, no automobiles start, no TV, no computerized gunsights, no JSTARS, no AWACS, we'll still pick up the nearest handy object and start clubbing.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Documented proof:
Some show on the discovery channel like a few months back, some guy with a pickup-truck mounted microwave transmitter totally zapped a car so the engine stalled, and wouldn't start. They had to enclose the TV camera in a faraday cage to protect it.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Wonder what the "cyber mulitary hacker punk" type looks like? camo ties and helmets with computers spray painted on there.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Hack into Slobodan Milosevich's most 31337 web server, and put a mustache on his face.
what are you trying to say ?
Electromagnetic Pulses can't just be transmitted. It's a burst of charged particles that can only generated by man using nuclear explosions (i.e. they aren't photons; they're alpha particles). Yes alpha particles can be created by means other than nuclear bombs (e.g. particle accelerators), but not sufficient enough to disrupt power stations, etc. Alpha particles are better know for screwing up satellite transmissions and creating Aurora Borealis after a sun spot erupts. I suppose scientists may have found a way to generate them without resulting to nuclear fission, but it would, of course, be very top secret and without public documentation, meaning that stories of such things are purely sci-fi unless they can be proven.
I'm reading into that perhaps too much, but if countries go to war, communication should increase, not decrease. If a government attempts to disable a communication medium dominated by citizens, that is bad. Disabling radar sites could be considered a viable strategy, and I have reservations about knocking out television sites, but the internet or ham radio operators? It just proves war is ugly and full of destruction in every way.
This whole Kosovo thing was wrong from the start. The UN needs to be dissolved, they are *not* your friend. Why should the other larger countries get involved? Mind your own damn business, thats the best policy. Don't go sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. Let them figure it out for themselves. Sadly people like globalism, a one world governemnt. They can tell you where to live, what job to take, what car to drive. And heres my favorite quote: "Democracy is indispensable to Socialism." Vladimir Lenin "Democracy is the sure road to Socialism." Karl Marx "The goal of Socialism is Communism." Vladimir Lenin "Socialism leads to Communism." Karl Marx "Peace is the elimination of all opposition to Socialism" Lenin/Marx Bill Clinton is a Socialist.
Bullshit. No hackers destroyed electricity power stations in my hometown, or watter suply for 30,000 people on other side of Danube or 3 bridges here in Novi Sad. BTW, destroying targets vital for civilians is war crime by Geneve Conventon. All that talk about "CyberWar" is stupid. All servers were up, web sites with photos of dead from NATO bombs were all over the web, etc. And don't forget informations (propaganda) go in both directions. Fortunately, during the war I was using BeOS r4, so all those power outages didn't mess up my PC:-)
First of all, spelling: Sarajevo. Also, Sarajevo is in Bosnia and Herzegovina, not in Serbia, and US didn't bomb Bosnia.
The wonderful thing is, it does this without killing anyone. Disabling a state's communications grid is not a big deal at all, compared to getting blown to pieces. Personally, if war is ever fought on U.S. soil, I'd much rather have my power and phone shut off than have my house destroyed.
I guess the next wave of mil-sci-fi books ("Honor Harrington", "Miles Vorkosigan" and the like) will be about this type of hacker to hacker warfare. Somewhere between "Ender's Game" and "Crimson Tide".
io'b The Submarine paradigm would probably suit this sort of warfare. You sit in a steel box and work completely by instruments. I wonder is it a coincidence that the US Navy seem to really have a handle on some of this type of making extrapolations from signals seen on the Internet.
My god, it's full of stars
the probability that these "miltary hacker" are active duty soldiers, airmen sailors, etc. is very slim...I will assure you that there are thousands of civilian employees working for the Department of Defense, with pay scales that could satisfy the whole lot of you...
Why, exactly, would this be a joke? Is the idea of a US organization tasked with maintaining US military assets in space completely incomprehensible to you?
but apart from preprogramming them with some standard attacks, how could you ensure they would win? you would have to get into online war gaming to be sure your 'bot had the best strategies ... maybe using learning strategies or Genetic Algorithms to grow or modify from some basic strategies.
now that does sound like an appropriate use for beowulf clusters. spread the clusters widely across the internet so as to use the actual infrastructure as part of the physics model. whoever captures the most flags by reducing the functionality or compromising the integrity of your opponent's wins.
sounds a little like the current cracker environment on the 'Net to me ...
My god, it's full of stars
There's such a mind-boggling load of misinformation there that it's hard to know where to begin.
j emp.html. And, by gosh, it's not even classified.
No, EMP does not consist of alpha particles. Alpha particles are simply helium atoms stripped of their electrons. They have a range of a couple inches in air before they strike another atom or molecule and lose their energy, becoming plain old helium.
EMP is just high intensity broadband electromagnetic radiation, like the static you hear on the radio when lightning strikes-- only much stronger.
They're produced by a _high altitude_ nuclear burst, wherein the gammas produced by the device as it detonates cause the creation of a large amount of electrons in the upper atmosphere as they collide with air molecules. Lower level bursts result in a far more localized, but similar, effect.
God forbid you should want to try to inform yourself, but you could just go to google (www.google.com, duh) and search for 'electromagnetic pulse'.
By the way, yes, you can produce EMP without a nuclear weapon. Check www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/kopp/ap
could you check that first url? i got the second one, but the first came up empty.
'course, i suppose it doesn't matter too much, as i'm downloading all four for that day, anyway. thanks to these, btw.
When reading this type of article most of us picture top secret NSA types sitting in front of their monitors and cracking systems. This assumption is incorrect in that it provides unreliable results especially considering during the bombing campaign the the cities where blacked out and there is a good chance that F16 or other aircraft are bombing communication centers (you can't crack a site if you can't connect to it).
It is more likely and i've heard rumors about this from several military contacts that conventional electromagnetic pulse bombs where used. These weopons are generally based on the Northrop GAM Mk.84 bomb kits and can be fitted to a wide variety of aircraft. The use of such a weapon reduces the cost in human lives because it is specificly designed to fry electronic equipment.
Just because it's information warfare doesn't mean the Internet is involved.
FooGoo
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
This, I think, is an excellent idea. Imagine the possibilities... Greatly reduced casualties. Reduced defense costs (a $10,000 computer rather than a million-dollar airplane...). Viruses rather than nukes. And I bet recruitment would be easier, too... Who wouldn't want to get paid for hacking?
I hope the US continues to use this well into the future.
These are the exact same articles, not related at all, other than they are exactly the same, from the same AP source. though... I thought I read coverage of this in the Washington Post, during the war, how yugoslavians were being denied service and such... Though I think it was more along the lines of yugoslavians sending pictures of what was really happening over there, which contrasted with what the media was displaying.
Several years back I remember hearing that the FBI was taking some heat over the fact that their conviction rate for computer crimes was practically zero, despite numerous (well, numerous for the time) arrests. You do the math.
It's probably less prevalent now, since the average perp they catch is likely a 12 year old with BO2K and a bag of scripts. Not exactly spook material.
Drinking will help us plan!
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Command is staffed by officers who are trained to handle that risk. The average hacker, on the other hand, is not.
Well I used to work for guy who was in desert storm. He stated that his job was to train native kids there how to hack and set them loose on thier own country. Thats about all he would say, and probably more than he was allowed to. But, still very interesting. Annonymous for a reason.
I would guess that in addition to the bank "diddling" that Clinton had authorized, the primary "cyberwarfare" that was involved consisted of carbon fiber warheads to kill electrical substations and more conventional things like that rather than some 31337 d00d trying to own some box.
-------------------- Standard disclaimer.
I agree. Most of Interent users here are students and generaly speaking educated people, and I can garantee that 90% of them (us) are against Milosevic.
I was on-line during the war. Only 2 days I was cut off, because optic cable betwen city X and city Y was cut when one bridge was blown up. 2 days later I was back on-line. All ISP worked, some of them didn't charge for service during the war. They were attacked a lot, but none of them were hacked. So, what did they achieved? Yugo BeOS user
This is not good news. I sure as HELL don't want to have to deal with my internet node having to suffer as it's hijacked by feds to ping flood or smurf some yugo site. The internet is not a point-to-point communications medium. Packets have to travel thought many other people's sites to get from source to destination and back. When someone ping floods another site, he ping floods all sites between him and his target. For this reason, the US military should be packet-level UDPed for its highly antisocial and impolite behavious toward innocent middleman 'net sites.
Something like: j4 s4m 31i7ni b4j4!
I think cyberwar is a wonderful idea in principle, but (a) so new that we don't grasp its full impact, and (b) something to which we are frighteningly vulnerable, perhaps more so than our enemies. (Where "we" = The Good Guys = The West)
I do seem to remember an official using the phrase "diddle with Milosevic's bank accounts" or something like that. {shrug}
They didn't need hacking to do that. They did it through official channels. All of his (and the ones of his high ranking officials) foreign bank accounts have been ceased and frozen.
(Apologies for the length of this message)
/.?) tactic was always to 'survive' and hope that NATO governments loose the stomach/nerve for the war and for him to keep the war machine intact.
;)).
I have serious doubts that any of the info released/implied so far, on the subject of Cyber-war against Yugoslavia shoud be taken seriously.
I am Bosnian Serb and as such have lots of friends and family in Yugoslavia. I have lived there until 7 years ago and I've stayed in touch with most of my 'nerdy' friends there, so I believe that I have decent picture of technology and electronic infrastructure there. I have been 'on-line' during the war, constantly exchanging news and 'I am still OK' messages.
There simply isn't anything worth trashing in Yugoslavia that is accessible via Internet except news sites. And that would be way too easy, and as far as I know it didn't happen (not to mention that that would be media war and not cyber war per se).
There were though, warnings on www.beograd.com (Beograd=Belgrade) and other sites of imminent danger that those sites will be 'switched off'. I think this is also more to do with the fact that most Yugoslavian information/news sites are hosted in US, Canada and W Europe. They just couldn't afford bills when their traffic shot trough the roof during the war (they were probably paying for up to xxxxx hits per day).
As far as non-Internet networks and information systems are concerned, I think that customs and tax office has the best network there of all state owned companies/government agencies. And it's not much cop either... Telco (yes, one) is owned by Italians and is being rebuilt but is still 'shot'.
Jane's Defence analysts were forever telling us on Sky News that YU Air-Force had very good fully integrated radar system (unlike Iraq for example). By integrated they meant, optic fiber between sites, all owned and made for Air Force (believe me in 'Old' Yugoslavia we could afford to dig up half of the country side and lay cable for army/air force, and Belgrade only got it's subway 2 years ago). There is/was great number of mobile (Czech and Russian made) radars in YU AF. These are pig to hack into due to their 'sophisticated' design. Anyway, it is irrelevant now - it is well known fact that YU air force kept them switched off for the most of the time to avoid detection by USAF airplanes with radar seeking missiles. Yes this was done at the great danger to human life - sirens were very erratic throughout the war. But Slobodan's (can I call him The Pig on
Only coordinated efforts by Yugoslavians on the Net were two-fold: 1) sites like www.belgrade.com were posting info on Air raids as quickly as they could. But this was too open and so difficult to verify, sometimes obviously exaggerated that no one could take it seriously. ICQ was used to the same effect (dissemination of info/propaganda) and 2) YU, Russian and other hackers sympathetic to YU coordinated some half-decent attacks on western media's and some military web sites, mail flooding of the same and thorough trashing of some unofficial Albanian sites. There is little evidence that US agencies or hackers took these guys on in an organized effort. It is interesting that at the time Sky News, CNN et al reported on 'Captain Dragan' (allegedly ex-Foreign Legion and veteran of war in Croatia '91-'92) and his 'crackers' saturating western media and NATO sites with ping/mail attacks. They had interviewed them on TV and all. Some clandestine operation...
I should also mention that I was in Bosnia just after the war in Yugoslavia, to see some friends and family (some who ran away from Belgrade) and heard horror stories about ISP's there. I had to get something of the Web and asked friend if I could use his account. He told me I could use anyone's account in Bosnia... His kid brother and his mates were cracking main ISP and using other people's ID's and passwords to avoid paying online charges, including ID belonging to one government minister. Two words: Windows NT. Get it?
I think that due to the issues of availability of technology and inflexibility of YU/Russian/etc. defense forces (but probably not intelligence services), US & NATO cyber war efforts will be focusing on defending and prevention of attack from rogue individuals and foreign intelligence service sponsored crackers rather then attacking 'installations' as such. Or taking broader definition of cyber war into account intelligence missions could be/have been conducted in cyberspace in the recent conflicts. I simply don't accept putting up agit-prop web site as a cyber warfare, that would be simplistic view of Sky News and co.
I think that recent 'slips' on the subject of cyber warfare are more to do with counter-acting stories of Russian intelligence and crackers getting into US Defense computers then some serious cyber battles in the very recent time.
*I should probably mention now that I am both strongly anti-war AND anti-Milosevic so I consider my opinions posted on this subject fairly un-biased. I hope that you understand why I am posting this as Anon. Coward ('caus I am a coward
(Apologies for the length of this message)
Ok, seems people have no clue what was going on in Yugo...
a) The "cyberwar" was performed in easy way; power stations were bombed, which was supposed to cut the electricity supplies to command centers. One part of 'cyberwar'. So stupid, I think NATO generals are extremely dumb, since every kid in Yugo knows that military has their own infrastructure which is not connected to public one (which obviously shows that 'spies' didn't do their job).
b) There was nothing interesting to hack in *.yu domain, since military is in *no way* connected to the Internet or any public network (take my word for it; I've been working there). The communication system is based on modern technologies, BUT with many backup systems that rely on old technologies (which NATO was not able to screw up with Prowlers and other crap).
c) If you finally ask NATO: "What did you achieve?" - you might get a real answer. They've blown a lot of civilian buildings, they killed a lot of civilians, and destroyed few military vehicles. Just remember the day when Yu army was withdrawing - the foreign journalists were stunned with number of vehicles that were withdrawing from Kosovo. Did you count tanks & AA systems? What was NATO telling us all the time? Lies, of course.
Point is: NATO govts are trying to save their ass in some way (remember: it's all about politics; politics is all about power), and therefore are releasing crap about 'cyberwar'. I *do agree* that real wars will include 'cyberwar' in the future, but it didn't happen yet. It's just to raise 'a moral'. The same goes for all the other information that was broadcasted during the war.
Just as an example... Did you *ever* wonder how happens that on day when Russians entered Slatina airport in Pristina, 24 Yugoslav planes took-off from there, and landed on Batajnica (Belgrade military airport)? According to NATO, *both* of those airports have been 'heavily damaged' in 75 days of bombing.
Now, either NATO was lying to people (then I should put something about 'tax dollars' in here), or Yugoslav forces have repaired those airports in 24 hours, and built 24 planes in Pristina. Well, I don't think I need to tell you which one was the case...
Now, think about something - what EXACTLY 'cyberwar' can mean? Does it include 'spreading of false information' too? Yes - for sure. Cyberwar in this case was used to spread the word over the Internet, and try to make invalid any information coming from Yugoslav sources (www.beograd.com, for example).
So simple.
Seargant: "Command?"
.02 for every post..oh wait)
S: "Command?"
S: "Command?"
Private: "Sir, they're coming. What should we do? Where's the rendevous? Is the airstrike coming? When?"
S: "Lock and load, son, we stand here."
(multiply by X units in the field)
Information is power, we know that. Controlling it and limiting it for the enemy will be a key to W.A.R. (We Are Right) in the 21st, and any other, century. Not that the above post wasn't funny, it was, but this looked like a good place for my $.02. (BTW: if CmdrTaco had
(~Singing)"Back to life, back to re-al-it-y(/~S)
+&x
My guess is that the 'cyberwarfare' involved providing disinformation of one sort or another to the Yugoslavian military and leadership thru their computer systems."
;).
Ever wondered if Yugo guys did that to NATO too?! (still beleive that Chinese embassy was hit because of 'old maps'?
Keep in mind one thing: Yugoslav army was preparing for some 40 years to defend against Russian invasion. Do you think they actually DID have plans ready, on how to defend against NATO, who was shooting from 5km altitude, and didn't even come down? I'm willing to suspect that they indeed were ready... But civilians were not. As usual.
It is somewhat amusing to think of the US engaging in 'cyber warfare'. But the serious part is not so funny. By disrupting the communication channels of the enemy, you leave them more vulnerable to conventional weapons. It might be better to screw up their phone system (for example) than to nuke them. But what if screwing up their phone system prevented a town from telling the rest of the world they were under attack and needed reinforcements?
It's very similar to the situation with non-lethal military weapons. Things like that sticky gunk they spray on people. It is very funny to watch, but if you think about it you start to wonder what happens to the people that get stuck. How hard it is to shoot someone who can't move?
Disrupting electricity is another example. You could argue that disrupting their electricity is better than lethal force. But if you need electricity to detect and defend against attacks, it suddenly becomes a more important issue. Disrupting their electricity could cause as many fatalities as traditional weapons.
Non-lethal weapons can be every bit as scary as guns and nukes.
Often with stories like this, where they don't have details, you'll find that there are wildly carying ideas of chat "cyberwarefare" is.
Army guy#1 "Huh, huh... I, like, ping-of-death'ed him."
Army guy#2 "Dammit! L0phtcrack won't download their pa55w0rdz!!!111!1!1"
I certainly hope that our world will progress to the point that cyber-enabled warfare is a possibility. It may end war as we know it.
But then the spacemen will come and destroy our euthanasia machines to re-aquaint us with the horrors of war that we had long forgotten, having played the war simulation game for generations.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
The fact that cyberwarfare is going on, and the fact that almost everything is connected these days will make you scared how far it can reach.
I work for a company that produces electrical utility relays. For those who don't know a relay in this instance isn't just a little box that you apply power too and it flips a switch that allows greater amounts of power to flow through another circuit. Power relays are complicated microprocessor systems that monitor power lines for trouble, they then trip large breakers that will cut power.
Anyways back to the topic. The power industry is currently moving towards a standardized protocol called UCA. UCA is an application layer protocol that sits ontop of either TCP or a seven layer OSI stack. Within the protocol are things called GOMSFEE objects.
GOMSFEE objects are a standardized way of naming values the relays can report back to whoever has a UCA master station, they also have a standardized way of naming the controls that a relay can accept. Such as 'Trip breaker on feeder to Iraqi command post'. No there isn't a command that is called this exactly that's just an example.
With a standardized way of naming controls, and information, it makes it easier for utilities to control their equipment. And it makes it easier for utilities to figure out what a device is telling them without having to look up a points list. But this also makes it easier for everyone else to as well.
UCA runs over TCP, which means it can run over ethernet and over the internet. If a cyberwarrior knew where a UCA enabled relay was in the world, he could hack his way through the network and then tell it to turn off power to whatever site, and in some cases in such a way that the large UPSes won't kick in. The smaller APC UPSes will always kick in. But if the relay that cuts off main power to a system, also controls the bus transfer to the site UPS, the cyberwarrior can completely shut down a site.
I don't know the UCA protocol as much as I should, but I don't think there are securities built into it like encrypted master/slave authentication. And I really don't think this would matter if it did. I'm pretty sure that a large national defense department will have the legal leverage to foce the equipment manufactures to hand over the keys to let them into the control equipment.
This is only one case of how our connected world makes it easier for the armies/terrorists of the world to do some truely dangerous things. It may be hard to kill a person accross the internet. But if you shut down the bus transfer relays in a hospital that the person is on life support in....
BTW these are my view alone, not my employers. I only deal with UCA from the outskirts at most, so I may be wrong with how it works. But I'm pretty sure I have the basic points of it.
Software Engineer & Writer of Military Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog: petermwright.com Twitter: WrightPeterM
"I'd like to see more commentary and analysis from people in qualified positions such as this."
;).
:(( ).
Well, the basic question is: would you beleive to what you read?
When you serve a military service in Yugoslavia, you find out that you are prepared to defend your country - not to attack anybody else. The point 1. Now you ask "Why?". Well, for some 40 years, we've been preparing for "Russian Invasion". And we knew that Russians had plans how to invade us in 48 hours - but we still wanted to make it hard for them.
Now, that you know this... Let's see.
No matter what people think, there are very many 'techies' in Yugoslavia (you know, people get used to fixing things by themselves when they're very young; it just continues through the rest of the life). There are also many inventors (just check records from Eureka exibitions) and very qualified people in many areas (well, would you beleive that some Serbs were developing Apollo crafts, for NASA?). Now you know something else. We like to play w/ technical things. Which leads to...
Without knowing your enemy, you can't really fight. So, NATO presumed that "it will be simple". But it wasn't...
Every security professional likes to leave a 'decoy' on the networks - so that hackers play w/ it while (s)he is observing/watching them. What do you think how many 'decoys' have been placed at the beginning of war with NATO? Keep in mind that Yugoslavia had HUGE amounts of military equipment, since many things remained after the old Yugoslavia was cut into pieces. So, you place 20 non-working radars in the open, and watch the birds coming down. And you just put new things every day, and pilots just bomb those things every day. 1 decoy = 2,000$ while 1 missile = > 2,000$. And you buy some time.
Now, I will also try to give you a clue on something else. How do you REALLY KNOW if you are bombing the airport runway? Because you see it? Try to guess what else has been done, and why military airports have been functional the day when Yugo forces were withdrawing. It can't really fit into 'cyberwar' group, but the way war was fought was indeed using a lot of 'strange techniques'.
Wonder why missiles from NATO planes were finishing in Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia!? Well, this fits into 'cyberwar'. This was done after first few days of 'watching & observing' the NATO pilots, planes and missiles. "Trick the missile" game. And it worked (yeah, I'm sure there was a Yugo radar in Sofia suburbs, for example
Then, do you think it was possible to make a 'copy' of a tank or any military vehicle? Indeed. Copy made of rubber, sold for around $5,000 (per piece, when buying more, you get discount). They were all over Kosovo. It's funny that the ONLY news station that has reported this was BBC. They were the ONLY station to give the report (made by their reporter, when NATO forces entered Kosovo) about heaps of rubber vehicles all over Kosovo (some of them were 'destroyed', some were still intact). BBC also had balls to mention rubber bridges too (those were only located in Kosovo; bridges in Novi Sad were real
Now, would you beleive in this!? It really depends on how much you are 'a patriot', and won't accept a fact that someone can trick the latest technology, that your military is using (for example; no intention to offend anyone).
There are some more things that I don't want to mention (since I really don't know if I should do it; nobody told me "don't say", but I prefer to keep it for me). But...
Let's make a summary:
Big number of civilian buildings have been destroyed by NATO. 'Colateral damage' (we're not HUMANS anymore; we're 'colateral damage' now) was everywhere. TV stations were bombed (which only opens new era; now every TV station on this planet is 'valid military target'). Post offices (where phone switches are located) were bombed. And many more things were bombed...
Are you aware (again; BBC was the *only* station where i could find this) that Yugoslav army handed a 'report' to NATO commander when they were withdrawing, where they made a summary of what NATO has destoyed. 3 tanks (BBC reporter has confirmed that later, when he was going around Kosovo in quest for destroyed military vehicles). 9 tanks were damaged, and taken back for repair, or to be used for spare parts. And the KLA has destroyed more tanks than NATO. Isn't is pathetic!?
Basically, the CYBERWAR in this war was:
- bomb power stations/tv stations/post offices
- try to make INVALID all the information that can be found on Internet (www.beograd.com, www.inet.co.yu). The first moment when you should KNOW something is 'cooking' is when that stupid German general (can't recall his name now; Jertz or something like that) started convicing press in NATO HQ that reports found on www.inet.co.yu are nonsense (about NATO losses). The same goes for Linux Myths page. If NATO has a *need* to deny that (without anybody even ASKING them about that) - it means something is happening.
- Cyberwar was used in 100% of its power on: CNN, Foxnews and ABC. It was amazing to read news on those sites, or watch those programs. Mr. Cigar (aka Clinton) has asked Blair to 'control' BBC a bit, since BBC had a reporter in Belgrade (+ few reporters that were in Kosovo, ALONE, WITHOUT anybody controlling them) and was spreading 'lies'. So, cyberwar was not only connected to internet; TV networks were part of cyberwar too.
I really have to note that BBC was the only TV station in NATO countries that indeed tried to give a view "from the other side", and that was pretty amazing. While Blair was creaming himself about 'We're going in with land troops' issue, BBC was the only station that made a homework; they took the archives of various exhibitions (for military equipment), found out what Yugoslav companies were offering, and tried to explain to people that there could be real problems if "they go in" (there is a system of deployed mines, which (when 'activated') achieves the power of nuclear blast - without the radiation; that was sold by Yugoslav company to 'interested parties'; that is weapon created purely for defense purposes).
Cyberwar = Media war = Information war.
At least if we talk about the 'last' war between NATO & Yugoslavia. There were no hackers involved (do you really think that Yugoslav army has anything connected to Internet? they do have their own network, which you just can't screw-up since all the fiber-optic is laid XY meters underground; I say XY since if I say a number, some kid will start saying "Yes, but our missiles can dig X meters underground!" - only problem is that you need to know where the cables are...).
Technology is only as good as people using it. I've had some discussions with people about "Russian vs. US military equipment". So, the point should be: "We use all the latest things in our equipment, it must be better!". Ok, now imagine this kind of 'demonstration' (done by Russian military, to 'certain' military officials).
Guys bring 2 'communication devices' (names don't matter). Each of them is computerized, and has RAM, CPU and other stuff. US device is something like 50cm x 1m big. Russian is something like 2m x 2m big. And looks ugly. US has SIMMs, Russian has some 'boards' that you could never think are the RAM. So, during the talk, a guy takes out the gun, shoots a bullet into US device, and second later, into Russian device. Result: US device is 100% broken. Russian device 'reboots' (yes, it's pretty 'complex' device), and reports something like: "24.5MB of RAM active, out of 32MB". The guy did break the big 'boards', but the machine continues using RAM boards that were not completely destroyed. Guess which device was bought...
That was the day when I stopped laughing at "silly-looking Russian equipment".
Maybe, one day the real 'cyberwar' will begin, and people who were laughing at other countries infrastructure and equipment might start crying. For the same reason I stopped laughing.
Just realize that EVERY country has clever people, and that fact "They don't work as we do", doesn't mean that they can't be as productive/good as you are. Something I've learned in past 3 years working in different countries...
On the other hand when Milosevic tries to use the Internet to push his propaganda, he's out in the cracker's home territory and they can keep him from getting his message out. That's where I would expect the cyberwarfare to have its impact, not on the ground in a relatively backward country.
Joking!? I mean, I don't give a damn about Miloshevic, but listen to yourself...
How do you know:
a) that 'his' propaganda is not maybe the true one?
b) that 'your' (favourite news station) is not lying one?
Without being able to hear both sides - you can't judge anything. You're just proving that you're ignorant.
FidoNet? Are you serious?
My memories of FidoNet link back to one vulnerability - just call the sysop's mom and tell her to make her son use the computer for homework instead of those silly BBSes.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
They confiscated my computer on a T3 right around that time and were ping flooding people across the world with it. Now it all makes sense.
They'd hit the communications systems, that means hacking telephone switches. These might not be on the internet, but its not too hard to dial into the systems remotely.
I expect US sold them all the equipment and so getting remote access would not be a problem.
Anyone remember AT&T system 75's?
I see. Thank you for the clue-in.
I coded for the US Air Force as an enlisted
member for 4 years(ending last week, thank god).
I guarantee you that it was all done by a couple
of otherwise ignorant Airmen and 1LTs who just
downloaded all the new scripts from whatever
site it is you get scripts from nowadays.
While there I was being considered for just this
job, but couldn't get the security clearance due
to my checkered past as a juvenile deliquent.
Had the Yugoslavian gov't been smart enough to apply security patches(maybe ZDNet does their security auditing), the US wouldn't have succeeded.
in fact, i'd say, "it's about time.."
Either way glad the story made it.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Yay, the whole /. will be enlisted during the next war!! CyberViet!!!
The word "woman" is no longer politically correct.
The word "woman" is no longer politically correct.
You should use "Female-American" instead.
Oh, surprise, we used cyberwarfare. Big deal. In fact, I'm all for it -- it's a lot easier to accidentally kill some innocent civilians with a bomb than over a network. Furthermore, any way to attack the enemy without putting American lives at risk is fine by me. This seems to be the least savage piece of warfare I've ever seen, really. I kind of wish they'd tell us exactly what they did, though. Maybe in 50 years.
Of course they did. What is cheaper? A cruise missle of or a hacker. A smoking ammo dump or 10,000 people with out water ,power and gas due to a hack. Bang for the buck (no pun) I would take the hacker . I
It makes sense. In fact, wouldn't you be worried if they didn't?
Think real hard! Which scares you more? The NSA hacking into you computer systems? Or maybe the USAF dropping a few dozen 1000 pound bombs near and around your house?
/. was that the article glossed over the important bits of cyber-terrorism. Well, I think that the US military is a lot better at making things explode in third world countries than they are at shutting down the Subway system in downtown Sarejvo.
Sure they used "cyber-warfare." Hacking doesn't blow shit up!
This actually has a lot more to do with the Jane's article then is first apparent. Consensus on
I certainly hope that our world will progress to the point that cyber-enabled warfare is a possibility. It may end war as we know it.
But I think we should also remeber that Gatling (of the large spinning machine gun fame) and Nobel (father of blowing things up and inventor of TNT) both thought the same thing of their inventions.
Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.
Back when I was in college, the internet was just a very useful medium in which to exchange ideas. Sure, there were problems that errupted from flamewars, a few compromised accounts, denial of service attacks, etc.
If the net was down for a day due to a dumptruck backing into the air conditioner system letting the computers overheat, satellite was down, someone cut the cable, or whatever, life went on. It was never made into a federal case. Someone may have got a talking to or wrists got slapped. The worst case when the VAX was rooted. The person in charge was fired over the incident and the student was later in school.
Now, it seems people are taking the internet more seriously by putting all their eggs in this basket, but understanding less about what happens to that traffic. The net these days seems to have connotations of Al Gore, Microsoft, AOL, the FBI, and child molesters, and terrorism.
Few people think about the community of people that make this information network happen. Its about people hooking up hardware and writing the software to make it all happen. Money seems to distort the fun nature of all this into corruption.
Al Gore created the internet? Bullshit. Microsoft innovate the internet and the road ahead? Big Lie. FBI and the NSA need to watch it? Keep their Goddamn hands out of it! AOL the internet? They provide many people now, but started off badly.
Is it just because its now a 'past' issue that they announce this?
I haven't seen any mention of this type of warfare against Iraq but perhaps that is because the US govt. is still in a 'conflict' state with them, even if it doesn't make a lot of headlines these days.
I don't see any comments about the US's 'cyberstance' against China, either. I would imagine they are just in a monitoring state with China(see Echelon), I can't imagine them releasing Computer virii or doing full scale computer cracks on Chinese networks.
American democracy is continually perfected and replenished under the good, just, and noble leadership of our leader, William Jefferson Clinton!
/. volunteering their services in the neverending pursuit of national security and American hegemony.
I look forward to a flurry of cheering emails from the self-proclaimed anti-statists of
USA! USA!
Space Command? Is this a joke?
AdamL.
http://sprawl.net
With the supposed vulnerability of the US military computer networks, you'd think that they would try to avoid retaliation a little more.
Maybe the vulnerability is a ruse. Some old server that the pentagon lets people trash so the real stuff is left alone.
Sneaky bastards.
So, how exactly does the government gather their personnel for this?
Are there secret cracker training grounds near Langley, VA?
Or perhaps they get them the "Stainless Steel Rat" way, by asking the crackers that they catch if they'd like to join up and actually get paid to do the things that they do so well?
-Vel
I sort of doubt that any Yugoslavian air defense computers were online and connected to the internet. You can't just knock down their systems while sitting behind a computer back in the USA.
So what did the US do? EMP? HERF? Trained rats that chew through the wires?
I can just imagine commando teams of SEALS and Rangers secretly digging thru dumpsters in Belgrade, looking for l337 inph0z. *g*
Did you read the article? They didn't 'admit' anything. The reporters were fishing and he gave them an answer like 'you may assume we used all our resources...' or something like that. Sounds pretty sketchy to me.
Exactly how do you translate "l am 3l337 hax0r d00d" into Serbian?
George
Hmmm, I wonder if you have to know the difference between Imperial and Metric 100baseT cabling lengths...
:)
This might be my opportunity to send Mir crashing down onto the AntiOnline servers...
Seriously though, I rather like the fact that these two are now related fields.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
.. at least that's what the poll said.
/.'s international flavor, I also try to specify, where applicable, my own cultural biases.
I like
+&x
...against the Iraqis during the Gulf conflict, hoping to disrupt their communications so radar sites couldn't be used in a coordinated manner. I don't think it succeeded, but it was a good first shot at offensive information-warfare operations.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
wtf are you talking about?? Childish is only for the weak minded Microshaft people who refuse to believe that the internet has power You're prob. one of the people who believe text email viruses exist!. Wake up and look around... if kiddies are breaking into major corporations, I'd like to think our government can handle a few computers themselves... esp. since the DOD / NSA have been around longer than the net... unlike you or me. Iridium
uberhax0r.net
What makes a computer cracker a better target than say a code cracker, intelligence inpreter ( ala CIA ) or any other noncombat roles that aid in the effort to disrupt enemy operations. People are aware of the risks when they sign up for the military. If they don't like it, tough, they signed their names on the dotted lines. War sucks, eh?
--
http://cheeser.blog-city.com
...[Scenes from the front, WWIII news coverag]
...'"
:)
"Sir, we've got incoming!"
"Lieutenant, keep that firewall up, damnit!"
"Ach! ICMP everywhere! I canna take it anymore!"
"Get me a line to the Pentagon."
"PTPP link established. Using 1024-bit encryption. Go ahead, sir."
[Typed: Colonel Johnson requesting permission to use the secret weapon.]
...
"Crap! They're e-mailing us porn!"
"Damnit! Shut down the routers!"
"Sir, we've got Back Orifice, trying to get in through that last NT server."
"Ahh! Why didn't that get switched to BSD?!?"
"Too much red tape, sir."
"Unplug it. We won't need to worry about rebooting anyway."
"Aye, sir."
"Status on the Linux boxes?"
"They're under a lot of stress, but they are taking it well."
"Good."
"Sir, you know that inefficent router we have? Well, I just found out it's M$ based. We can't shut it off. We're going to have to wait for the porn to finish."
"Damn. I hope HQ gets back to us soon."
...[Incoming message from the Pentagon: Permission granted. Give 'em hell, Colonel.]
"Yes! We have permission! Get ready to launch the secret weapon."
"SMTP online, preparing to send."
"Set it up for HTML plus plain text. I want both mime and UUEncoding. Let's get ready. Images will be 32 bit RGBA. Text is to be as follows: 'Buy! Buy! Buy! *LOW* prices on your favorite collectable items!
...
[Bad Text to Speech Synthesis] "S.P.A.M. launcher ready. Please enter authorization code."
...
"FIRE!"
...
"150 billion spam messages sent. They're falling back! They have offered to surrender!"
Yeah, okay. So, it's kind of long, but I was in the mood to write a dumb story about 'cyberwarfare'.
Think about it logistically. The US (via NATO) stated that they wanted to damage the Serbian Army's capacity to wage warfare and at the same time minimize the casualties of the Serbian population at large. One easy way to do this would be to disrupt their ability to communicate. I do not make any claim to be an expert on Serbian communication technology, but would feel safe in saying that they rely at least to some extent on technologies that could be inhibited by interference and/or denial of service attacks. Although this has no physical effect on individual soldiers, it can cause havoc at the higher levels of organization as they struggle to reorganize and fall back on other methods of communication. The net result is that you cause some high-level chaos, without killing anyone. In addition, you damage the morale of the ground soldier, thus reducing his/her ability to fight. This, I believe, is the result that the NATO command was hoping to achieve.
I'd like to see more commentary and analysis from people in qualified positions such as this.
Not to mention the Serbian Orthodox Church which seems to be pretty heavily wired. They've been vociferously anti-Milosevic.
And the brethren went away edified.
The article didn't actually say that, but the official sources weren't saying an awful lot. There's plenty of room for speculation.
And the brethren went away edified.
Dobra fora. :-)
You're romanticizing the military's hiring of computer-geeks too much. The services don't go out courting geeks and hackers. Engineers don't get a bad deal, but that's still mainly mediocre pay and free graduate school.
I assure you - no one can tell the difference between the guys working in personnel who shuffle papers all day, the guys working in Aircraft maintenance who constantly bitch about funds because they've got 4+ F-16s that just sit in a hanger all day and get scavenged for parts, and the hackers, who sit in front of the computer all day. The hackers hired by the military are normal personnel, from the outside perspective. Do you really think that the military will get so desperate for hackers that they will allow someone to not go to boot camp, not get their hair chopped, and not wear a standard uniform to work every day?
Military hackers are just people, doing their job. The vast majority of these folks are just kids - doing their stint in the service, and just waiting to get out, because - you said it, and so did I - the pay sucks. There are enlisted personnel on base with wives and kids who are forced to live off food stamps, because the military cannot pay them enough to support their families. It's ridiculous, when you stop to think about it. Military service used to be an badge of honor, worn proudly. Nowadays, it seems as if it's a last resort. Kids without too many other options resort to it. Can't get a job that pays well out of high school? Go into the military! They'll take care of you. That's where these military hackers come from. They're kids who don't have any other options.
Do you rememeber that article in Rolling Stone by Katz? Those two kids, Jesse and Eric were geeks, but they were stuck in dead-end jobs in a dead-end town. Those are your military hackers. And do you know the worst thing? The military's not a career, not for those types - the private sector is too inviting. The best talent goes to the private sector, leaving our country's information in the hands of the next set of kids that are just using the service as a means to an end.
Wake up morons! MONEY sits in accounts (in nice places where they jodel;-) ..... those banks have online ........ row, row, row the boat.... gently down the stream ....
Oh well, what did the U.S. achieve with all that cyberwarfare thing going on? Nothing. Some examples: a) NATO managed to kick the serbian TV Belgrade off Eutelsat satellites in Europe. Nope, they didn't hack into satellites, they had an EBU meeting and formally closed their uplink down to stop the "propaganda". b) NATO managed to destroy most of serbia's radio and TV broadcasting capabilities. Nope, they didn't hack the stations, they bombed them. Nope, not just the transmitters, but also the buildings with civilians in them. Yeah, NATO targeted the buildings and not some remote airports. Bad luck for the casualities, that. c) There ware rumors about closing down Yugoslavia's links to the Internet, since the evil Serbs somehow managed to spread their "propaganda" over the internet as well, but that didn't happen. Cyberwarfare at its best. d) There was heaps of NATO "propaganda" broadcasted over traditional information channels into Yugoslavia, i.e. radio and TV. Cyber-what? Hacking into Tanjug, the main news agency? Rooting the boxes of Milosevic's party? Nope, that didn't happen. e) Breaking into the military system? As if... As some AC already stated above, that would have been pretty hard for someone sitting at a NT box somewhere in Montana. If that's cyberwarfare the U.S. way, I'm really impressed. :) Seems to me that someone is launching heaps of hot talk now to raise some funds for another military investment. Cyberwarfare on a third world country like Yugoslavia? Yeah, sure ... good luck.
I see that you are talking about cyberwar against Yugoslavia during air strikes. But you have totally wrong idea about what cyber war means. Nobody attacked some .mil comps or things like that. Most people from Yugoslavia (including myself) tried to send TRUE about what is happening here. You think that CNN and other media reported true from here ? No way. USA and NATO didn't had real human reasons to do this, except theirs own interest. So they lied about what is happening here. And all of us tried to distribute true to media, people and governments outside the country. And I think succsessfuly. Cyberwar was in distributing true, not anything else.
Best regards from Belgrade...
I actually think "cyber-war" is really very childish. If there IS ACUALLY SOMETHING CRITICAL PEOPLE ARE NOT DUMB ENOUGH TO PUT IT ON THE INTERNET (Well that's what I think, I could very well be wrong).
What would the point of a cyberwar be? So they _may_ manage to deface a website here on there, what exactly is the damaged done?
I think it's a childish idea
So it was the U.S. government that sent the spam promising me the "hottest sex," when the site turned out to have just a picture of a naked slobodon trampling over a city. I still shudder at the thought of that picture.
Them boys in Washington sure are clever.
no no. You've got to spell it correcty or babelfish won't recognize the words: 1 4m 31337 h4x0r du0d.
I can see it now
:-)
*KLAXONS, RED FLASHING LIGHTS*
"What is it, lieutenant? Inbound ICBM?"
"No sir. Inbound pingflood from some 3l33t high school jerk."
"Ah, OK. Standard response. But use the 350 Kiloton yield for being stupid enough not to change the source IP."
"Yes sir!"
Do we really want an office where it's your JOB to overreact to be in charge of electronic security?
Just a thought...
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
Does this make sense as a srategy? Demand that the Serbs throw out Milosevic, then proceed to cripple the primary infrastructure used by the anti-Milosevic factions. I'd wonder about it if I already weren't so damn certain.
And the brethren went away edified.
So, say you're a hacker and you're hired by the US government to work securing .mil networks, and make good money, and later on you are offered a position on a black hat squad for things like messing with an enemy country's phone system, et cetera.
Military pay sucks, and your skills are in demand, so you blow off suggestions that you go through boot camp (who needs that, right?). In another world, the army would respond by offering you huge pay if only you agree to go to boot camp and an officer training course. But there's hardly enough budget to get you even to look at the armed forces, and they need you.
And then a war starts. From the comfort of your office in a military base you set out to root machines on the other side of the front, you're having the time of your life. But, guess what:
you're a fair target for the enemy now. Look sharp, soldier! On the bounce! Forget about going to your favorite net cafe until the end of the war. Don't show your face in public. You don't know who might be waiting to shoot you in the back of the head.
Think about. If you're engaging in efforts to disrupt an enemy's infrastructure, why should he not try to find you and shoot you? Why should you be regarded as a civilian?
So, I don't know uder what terms the military hired its current crop of crackers, but I do have to wonder..
If William Cohen had not been in on the discussion, I would have guessed our good General Shelton was not long for his rank. I am glad that our military finally admits to their deeds. Unfortunatly, I also think their lack of meaningful detail makes them look like a pair of script kiddies caught 'getadmin'ing a NT box in the school computer lab, uncomfortable and totally unfamiliar with what they have done.
A note to all foreign governments and companies: Grab a copy of *BSD or Linux, and secure it. Not only do you have to fear the local SK's; the US has formally entered the hack business. No longer can you count on the hacked box as some kind of sport; it may be Uncle Sam, stealing your production figures for dissemination to US companies or snagging important defense information.
On the lighter side of things, I'm going to give a call over to the USSC tomorrow and see if I can drum up a job. I've spent too much time hacking my own boxen and not getting paid.
.sig: Now legally binding!
Does anyone have documented proof for use of a EMP weapon by the United States (or anyone else, for that matter)? I know that there was/is extensive research into the subject, but I was curious if this ever has gotten beyond the *wow, wouldn't it be cool if...* department. The USAF, since it appears that they will be handling all the "cyberwarfare" through their Space Command, probably has it's work cut out for itself, given the state of security (both physical and internet) that it's going to face. ;-) "Hey, Captain! I tried "password" and it worked!!"
-------------------- Standard disclaimer.
I don't have any reliable sources, but what I read makes sense to me. Rumors had that the VJ (Yugoslav Army)'s network was made up of i86 machines running localised versions of FidoNet software (BinkleyTerm, etc. - anyone remembers them?), and 2400 baud modems connected by underground wire. I doubt that the Pentagon can do anything about that... what was evidently done was not "cyber" at all. Maybe they tried to figure something out at the very beginning, but as things evolved it was very clear that iron was better than carbon, and much better than electrons.
Anyone willing to assess the quality of the warfare engineering can conveniently follow these two links, Railway Bridge I and Railway Bridge II, courtesy of NATO; I'm told that they did not make it onto the screens of the majority of North-American TV sets. Big prizes for those who spot the odd thing out in the movies.
--"I could not sleep tonight, the sky was red..." "My mother asked me when they stop bombing." (A friend of mine from Montenegro, a country officially supported by the State Department.)
American democracy is continually perfected and replenished under the good, just, and noble leadership of our leader, William Jefferson Clinton!
:P
yeah, sure
when our 'fearless leader' isn't using the Constitution for toilet paper
I pretty sure the previous post was an excercise in sarcasm, but I seriously doubt that personal freedom and rights is a subject that Clinton worries about much.
My guess is that the 'cyberwarfare' involved providing disinformation of one sort or another to the Yugoslavian military and leadership thru their computer systems. Or maybe they just spammed Milosevic's email address with offers of cheap porn and MLM schemes until he was too pee'd off to think clearly.
Will you be exposing "national security" secrets by telling people in other countries about bugs in the software and how to fix them? Will helping someone improve security in their system be treason?
Next thing you know, open source will be considered munitions.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
The ultimate weapon in cyberwarfare would be to convinvce your enemy to use Windows.