Security → Why Cyberwar Is Unlikely

»www.securitynewsdaily.co ··· ar-0931/


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rich

Very ironic that just above this post is an article with the exact opposite view of the talked about subject....Seems to me that the more these kind of situations are discussed,the more likely they are to occur...»Web Security Expert Warns Of Cyber World War (E Kaspersky)

It would be very irresponsibly......downright stupid.......for it to be said it wont ever happen.....when it already has begun.....years ago.
The government knows.........an sure would not be wasting millions of dollars on projects related.

Cyberwar has been ongoing for some time. Including attacks originating from the US. Details are kept as secret as possible from public view.

Sir FF4;

An you would be totally, completely correct........what is really interesting is that there are so many people on the internet that is not aware.....they have no idea regarding the past......an even less understanding of the present.

The government knows only one thing - how to increase spending and justify that... It's a bureaucracy, remember? It always needs just that - spend money. Sure they will cover cyberwar with high secrecy, unless public starts to explicitly insist on getting reports on what the money were actually spent on. And even then they will find out a way (a new law) to lie you about that... Do you expect any protection in return? The bureaucracy will give you one - a cyber passport... Pay for it and feel yourself protected now. Do you need that?

I don't share love affairs with war, as many others obviously do (otherwise how to explain why we, the US, spend on wars the same amount of money as the rest of the world combined!?!). And I had been and always will be against warmongering, and in cyberspace particularly.

Cyberwar is now a fact of life in 21st Century wars. Actual and potential enemies of America already know the dimensions of Cyberwar and have moved into full combat.

With a real world combat engagement in Georgia and Estonia, the Russians have shown skill. Make no mistake; in certain arenas the Russians are smart and capable, and as the invasion of Georgia shows, ruthless. They have world class scientists and engineers. It is well known they are excellent Cyber Warfighters who have now also apparently harnessed their criminal hackers to augment their worldwide reach. This melding of Russian conventional military might with reported state sponsored criminal cyber syndicates is ominous and powerful.

The Peoples Republic of China's attacks in United States Cyberspace are well known to even casual-mail and Google users, where viruses linked by the media to Chinese sources circle and wait for openings. If the dollar value of the troves of information reported by media to be carted off by the Chinese were toted up, the number could be many billions, if not a trillion. If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson could visit America in 2009 they would call the Chinese attacks Acts Of War.

America is awakened. The Pentagon is standing up a new Department of Defense major combat command This new Cyber Command will be headed by Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, who currently commands the National Security Agency (nickname "no such agency"). He will be promoted to four stars and be the first Commanding General of the Cyber Command to be Headquartered at Ft Meade, Maryland.

General Alexander, a warrior trained at West Point, has a well earned reputation as a visionary in 21st Century Warfare and the reach and power of technology. As Director of Technology Assessment, International Technology Security in the Office of the Secretary of Defense I visited and worked with the Army's Intelligence and Security Command then headed by Major General Alexander. It was clear that MG Alexander knew how to maneuver in cyberspace in cutting-edge ways.

If confirmed to his new position General Alexander will be standing on the shoulders of a giant -- his visionary fellow West Pointer Mike Wynne. Secretary of the Air Force Wynne launched the USAF Cyber Command, which created the template and many components of the new DOD Cyber Command. Secretary Wynne pronounced with clarity that Cyberspace is a war fighting domain like Air, Sea, Land, and Space, where Intelligence operations, like training, supply, and Medical operations are one component at work in the Domain

The fundamental principle of American Cyber Doctrine must emerge with focuses on Law Enforcement and war fighting, returning the Intelligence Community, which in the last century
extended into the Internet, to their primary role of cyber intelligence gathering and some cyber operations. This return to basics by the IC will be beneficial, since they completely missed the impending collapse of the old Soviet Empire and gave no apparent warning of the Russian attack on Georgia.

The two overall functions in Cyberspace are Law Enforcement and Investigation, the mission assigned to the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and War Fighting, assigned to Cyber Command. Euphemistically, it can be said the first two are engaged in Dot.Gov and Dot.Com Cyberspace and DOD warriors fighting and defending our country from foreign attack are engaged in Dot.Mil Cyberspace.

The Wall Street Journal in a headline written on August 12 2008 perfectly captures the 21st Century warfare that the Russians have apparently employed in their invasion of Georgia: "Georgia States Computers hit by Cyber attacks. " The world has seen an opening chapter on how Russian cyber war capabilities are combined with Russian conventional forces. This chapter of war is being written in blood.

In our 1999 book "Red Dragon Rising" co-author William C. Triplett II and I postulated an electronic "Pearl Harbor" with The PRC attacking Taiwan. Using all their military capabilities, for example airborne and seaborne infantry, tactical air, naval armada, other elements of the attack could include: Surprise attack, Internet attack ("Cyber Attack was not in the lexicon then), Psychological Operations, and all tools of attack. That scenario now is at the center of US war planning.

The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army can in 2009 launch a massive Cyber assault on Taiwan. Some command and control networks would be destroyed while others would be deliberately spared so they could be manipulated from the inside. Radio and television signals can be jammed and false images of calls from Political Leaders advocating surrender broadcast. Banking systems and specific accounts can be targeted. Information war could also deliberately leave some radar signals intact to warn of "virtual assaults" feeding the confusion and bringing command and control systems to a halt. Finally, Fifth columns at home and abroad can spread rumors and try and keep Washington confused.

America will ultimately win any Cyber engagement if we keep our focus and dedicate sufficient resources. Mike Wynne knew this: It can take a while for the American military to get it right, but once warriors are recruited trained and focused we have the best military the world has ever seen.

Air Force Cyber Doctrine had an extremely attractive feature, and the new DOD Cyber Command can build on it: the US Cyber Command is a military fighting force that would interest 18-year-old men and women some who are already the most computer savvy individuals in the world. These young American men and women, who really enjoy Wired Magazine, have reached adulthood with an instinctive know how on how to use computers -- for good or ill. They are perfect warriors in this brave new world.

A great American General, later President, Andrew "Andy" Jackson in the War of 1812 understood the power of innovative American battle tactics. General Jackson augmented his regulars at the Battle of New Orleans with frontier sharpshooters and pirates. The poor Red Coats did not know what hit them.

A US Cyber Command can attract our best Cyberspace sharpshooters along with swashbuckling Cyber Buccaneers. Russia, the Peoples Republic of China, Iran and others will soon have a cold dose of reality that in awaking the American sleeping giant Cyber attacks can run two ways.

(Edited: Link)

Wow! Cold War is already in the past? Nuclear war is in the past? Star war in the past? War with terrorism (definitions may very with every day approaching) is in present. Cyber space is a new threat of war... You know what? Someone used to make a huge amount of money from all of that constant scares and creates a good business plan to justify the new, even bigger budget spending on next imaginable wars. So far it was working very well for them. But the problem is - those absurdly high war spendings already bankrupt the country. We in a budget crisis now, aren't we? Economy goes into a sink, doesn't it? But instead of building new roads here in the US to replace those last century worn out obsolete slow roads (as just one of many, many examples of extremely important tasks) the same bunch of warmongers is looking for new ways to spend tax money on new wars... Yeah, close schools, parks, sky rocket tuition costs, that well make our country stronger, right? Take and move all those resources into a new war - cyber war... Are we out of our minds or what? Why any war spending has unconditional priority here, in the US? We seems to forget that county is stronger only if its economy is stronger, not if it has a bigger stick. Even the colossal can easily go down, if it has weak legs (economy), especially when arms get big sticks...

And who are we listening to? A four star general? A Kaspersky? Insane...

Cyberwar is FAR MORE LIKELY than 'ordinary' war.

Just sit in front of a couples of LCDs in a air-con room, press couples of buttons, then BOOM BOOM BOOM & chaos on your enemy side.

The cost is so little and you wouldn't see blood in your hands... [for the peace of mind of 'ordinary' fellas]

Simple route reconfiguration and your "war" is over...
But, for some it's enough to justify billions of tax dollars for a new spending....

Foolproof plan for defeating sudden cyberattack in three easy steps:

Step one: Stand up from chair
Step two: pull out desk from wall
Step three: Unplug large phone cable looking thingy from the whirring box

Result: World War Internet averted!

Please don't leak that highly classified material to our enemies!
(China and Russia always spy on us)

We all know how cyber war goes. I've seen in it in many movies. Exactly as mentioned - from a couple of LCDs in an air-con room... They enter a password. Then BOOM BOOM and our guys win. I remember that But you know what? That requires additional billions of real tax payers money (and as we know from the history all wars are usually cost us no less then that) and will continue to move economy into the direction, where it goes the last decade (the top 1%, who decides where spending should go, will get richer, the rest are not count, as usual). So, please keep your new way as a big national secret. We'll apply it when something will happen...

Edited: changed mind about posting

WASHINGTON—The U.S. government accused the Chinese of being the world's "most active and persistent" perpetrators of economic spying, an unusual move designed to spur stronger U.S. and international action to combat rampant industrial espionage threatening U.S. economic growth.

Russian intelligence agents also are conducting extensive spying to collect U.S. economic data and technology, according to a U.S. intelligence report released Thursday that concluded China and Russia are "the most aggressive collectors" of U.S. economic information and technology.

"The nations of China and Russia, through their intelligence services and through their corporations, are attacking our research and development," said U.S. counterespionage chief Robert Bryant.

Read more: »online.wsj.com/article/S ··· cl9qPT44

Read more: »online.wsj.com/article/S ··· cl9loxZb

Meanwhile, back in reality land...

US, Europe Throw Their Very First Joint Cyber-War Party - 4 November 2011:***

The US is doing the same to them. Everyone is doing it to everybody. That article is just grandstanding propaganda.

Exactly.

It was not all that many years ago when Space Travel was considered impossible.........
Amassing how a person restricted in their thinking so willingly labels other people as being equally handicap. The Mind is truely whats amasing....the thoughts one person has today may be the future of tomorrow.
CyberSpace is still new, un-tested in its limits......most people already have seen what computers are capable of.......an computers are an ever growing enviorment......an it would be irrational to think that CyberSpace wont expand, grow......an open many doors once thought closed or not even to exist.

Uncle Sam & EU MUST act fast for SSL DDOS tool is out in Full-disclosure...

Fortunately, there are still ways to prevent it

[SSL computational DoS mitigation »vincent.bernat.im/en/blo ··· ion.html ]

Sorry, the 'SSL computational DoS mitigation' page did give a EVEN MORE POWER DDOS POC tool at the very end of that article, which will blow the CPU load of ssl sever 100x..... [& it is very easy to mod it from NULL-MD5...]

Cyberwar is just the new Cold War.