China Plots Cyberspace War Strategy

gaijin|dog writes "According to this article in the Washington Times, China has said that Internet warfare should be equated to combat operations for air, land and sea forces. Communications, transportation, finance, electrical power networks and other critical services in the US are listed as likely targets. Kinda scary considering the resources China could use against us." My personal opinion: this article is a dizzy mix of fact and scare-mongering. But you ought to read it for yourself and make up your own mind how valid it is.

Comments

Dragon Is Not Hiding its Claws

[Jaborandy]

That scary part of this article is the comment that the dragon has reached the point where it doesn't have to hide its claws. From my American perspective, China is the biggest threat to peace and stability. This is true in both electronic, conventional, and nuclear warfare.

The real point of this article is that China is trying to make itself powerful in any way it can. America is currently very vulnerable to electronic attack. So vulnerable that if an attack were mounted, we might not know how to react.

When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, we knew immediately what to do. It meant war. If China were to take down one of the Pentagon's networks for a few days, what would we do about it? The confusion it would generate is far more scary than even a clearly defined first strike. When people are confused, they make mistakes. Between China and the US, the mistakes could get big.

But enough talk about apocalypse... For now it is mostly just blustering. I think the best thing that could come out of this is that the US and other contries might develop electronic warfare departments of their own. If it hasn't happened already, I hope the US has plans in place detailing what we will do if we are attacked over the Net. I know we already have some sort of an electronic warfare division, but I'm sure the bulk of it is classified.

Do you think we'll see an official US govt. response to this newly publicised threat?

There's Something Fishy Here....

[John Murdoch]

One of the signs that a story has been "placed" by a PR firm is when the story gives extensive attention to a single source--who coincidentally has just published a book on the subject. That seems to be the case here--William Triplett is identified as the author of a new book, Red Dragon Rising .

One of the threats that Triplett explicitly raises is that the Chinese might be able to use Internet warfare to raise havoc in petroleum refineries--causing fires, spills, etc. He emphasizes that oil refineries are generally located close together, as though this represents some kind of danger.

That reminded me of something--I've already read this book, only it was a novel. Back in 1986 Tom Clancy and Larry Bond wrote a thriller entitled Red Storm Rising (Clancy, Red Storm Rising, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1986). The story begins with an attack by Muslim terrorists on a massive petroleum refinery in central Russia. One of the terrorists uses computer commands to wreak havoc--causing spills, igniting fires, and causing mass destruction. The fires destroy a major portion of the Soviet Union's petroleum industry, because all the refineries are located so close together.

Whether, and how, the U.S. might respond to a concerted Internet attack is an interesting question. But I wonder if this guy represents a credible source....

...

[Signal 11]

Top Ten CyberWarfare Techniques

• Uploading warez and pr0n to the target site, and then posting the URL to usenet.
• Giving the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) a list of valid e-mail accounts on the target machine.
• Posting a link to the site to slashdot.
• Upgrading the site to Windows 1900^H^H^H^H2000.
• Remotely disabling the espresso machine via a super-sophisticated Power Deactivation Sequencer, thus causing crazed and caffeine-deprived civilians to start a revolution.
• Tell AOL they have an entire country that wants a free trial offer!
• Invite Linus to give a speech to senior military officials about linux. "You know, it's a small kernel.. but it's a nice kernel... I like my nice kernel..." (ed: anybody remember that keynote?)
• Using electromagnetic pulses to make women's hair stand on end, thus forcing them to continually be in the bathroom to "fix" their hair.
• True story: dropping oversize condoms onto enemy troops to demoralize them. The US actually did this during vietnam. It may not be cyberwarfare, but hey, mentioning sex will get this post moderated up, up, up!
• There is no 10 - somebody else will be posting it shortly though I'm sure. =)

--

the usual suspects

[MillMan]

This article serves a few functions:

1.
To make sure the average citizen is anti-chinese, or to make sure Americans stay patriotic. The whole nuclear secrets scandal was shown to basically be a scam, this is similar territory, at least in it's purpose.

2.
To maintain legitimacy for our military and to increase support for military funding. Notice how the article mentioned something like 39 million dollars being allocated to "protect computers".


This stuff tends to work on a society that is short on facts and long on tabloid bullshit. Lets face it, there are VERY few people who know anything on this topic, including those in high level government positions. Since most people take the media to be the accepted version of truth, they buy it. Of course people don't trust the media nearly as much as they used to, but this is still true for the most part.

Any country that wants to be a player in the next century *should* be developing this type of technology. Who doubts that the US is way ahead of the Chinese in this technology anyway? The US gets all whipped up anytime some country even hints that they might be increasing their military in some fashion, even though we easily have the most powerful arsenal on the planet.

This is just another piece of extreme right-wing xenophobic rhetoric.