Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Don't Hack The Pentagon Or Else!

Update 9th June 2011
Cyberwar, Stuxnet and People in Glass Houses

You might end up with a missile down your chimney.

I can see why they are a tad concerned, given that some bloke sat in his bedroom can drive a coach and four through the Pentagon's super duper security system, but there is more to think about here, and the more you think about it, the scarier it becomes.

If we take a look at this paragraph, raising the concerns that it does, I think we can assume that a sophisticated attack by a hostile nation or group isn't going to leave a trail a mile wide leading back to the hacker's bedroom as in the case of Gary McKinnon. At best it's going to be hidden, at worst it's going to be attributed to someone else entirely.

The report will also spark a debate over a range of sensitive issues the Pentagon left unaddressed, including whether the U.S. can ever be certain about an attack's origin, and how to define when computer sabotage is serious enough to constitute an act of war. These questions have already been a topic of dispute within the military.

But let's take this thing a step further and think American hegemony. Given America's penchant for false flags, be it the Gulf of Tonkin or more recently weapons of mass destruction, and gawd knows how many inbetween, little alarm bells start to go off in my head.

Not that Twenty First Century America seems to need false flags any more, bombing the shit out of anybody who doesn't toe the line seems to be the order of the day, and doing it with impunity I have to add. If this proposed law/edict gets onto the statute, it's nothing more than carte blanche to up the stakes and widen the scope of America's bombing agenda.

Imagine for a moment if this declaration had been in place during the Bush years, nobody would have heard of WMD, or more recently Obama's humanitarian intervention in Libya, we would have been spared all the bullshit about mushroom clouds et al, and we would have been spared the truly nauseating lies and hypocrisy of Bush Lite, Barack Obama.

America is under cyber attack! says who? the Pentagon. Yeah right.

Cyber Combat: Act of War
Pentagon Sets Stage for U.S. to Respond to Computer Sabotage With Military Force

The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

The Pentagon's first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country's military.

In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," said a military official.


Recent attacks on the Pentagon's own systems—as well as the sabotaging of Iran's nuclear program via the Stuxnet computer worm (previous) have given new urgency to U.S. efforts to develop a more formalized approach to cyber attacks. A key moment occurred in 2008, when at least one U.S. military computer system was penetrated. This weekend Lockheed Martin, a major military contractor, acknowledged that it had been the victim of an infiltration, while playing down its impact.

The report will also spark a debate over a range of sensitive issues the Pentagon left unaddressed, including whether the U.S. can ever be certain about an attack's origin, and how to define when computer sabotage is serious enough to constitute an act of war. These questions have already been a topic of dispute within the military.

One idea gaining momentum at the Pentagon is the notion of "equivalence." If a cyber attack produces the death, damage, destruction or high-level disruption that a traditional military attack would cause, then it would be a candidate for a "use of force" consideration, which could merit retaliation.

he Pentagon's document runs about 30 pages in its classified version and 12 pages in the unclassified one. It concludes that the Laws of Armed Conflict—derived from various treaties and customs that, over the years, have come to guide the conduct of war and proportionality of response—apply in cyberspace as in traditional warfare, according to three defense officials who have read the document. The document goes on to describe the Defense Department's dependence on information technology and why it must forge partnerships with other nations and private industry to protect infrastructure.

The strategy will also state the importance of synchronizing U.S. cyber-war doctrine with that of its allies, and will set out principles for new security policies. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization took an initial step last year when it decided that, in the event of a cyber attack on an ally, it would convene a group to "consult together" on the attacks, but they wouldn't be required to help each other respond. The group hasn't yet met to confer on a cyber incident.

Pentagon officials believe the most-sophisticated computer attacks require the resources of a government. For instance, the weapons used in a major technological assault, such as taking down a power grid, would likely have been developed with state support, Pentagon officials say. more

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bush 'saying something stupid'?, as mad as a March hare, on second thoughts.

Himself said...

He is reported to be making millions on the speaking circuit.

What does that say for his audiences?