CIA's Info Ops Team Hosts 3-Day Cyber Wargame 279
ScentCone writes "The CIA has booked some conference rooms and is working through a simulated 'digital Pearl Harbor' to see how government and industry handle a monster net attack from an imaginary future foe composed of anti-American and anti-globalization hackers. Having been accused of lacking imagination about potential terror attacks, they're using the exercise to better shape the government's roles in a variety of attack scenarios. The networking industry, it seems, is expected to always play a big part in detecting and thwarting such threats, as 9/11-scale economic disruption is a likely bad-guy objective."
Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, security can be achieved through a couple of simple steps: Don't use Windows, use OS's designed with security in mind. Use SELinux or equivalent on mission critical nodes. And secondly, educate the users and gain a culture of safety.
People don't die when networks crash (Score:3, Insightful)
A day without the internet is like a sky without vaportrails.
Even the data that is destroyed by such an attack is not at such a disadvantage. Though the paper-less office has been a longstanding goal, it is totally a dream. Everything has a papertrail and can be backed up.
There is no calamity awaiting us in the event of a terrorist cyberattack. The real calamity is the usurpation of rights due to terrorist attack fearmongering.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you no imagination at all? ;)
Digital Pearl Harbor? (Score:3, Insightful)
We finally get rid of one useless buzzword and this idiot wants to bring it back.
The funniest thing about this is that from the sounds of it the whole thing is being run by CIA goons. I'm no "info-warrior" but seems kind of pointless to run a war-game with people whose tricks you already know. Wouldn't it be far more realistic if they setup a network and put out the word to John Q. Hacker that is open season.
"Anti-American and anti-globalization hackers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Insofar as the intelligence community is coming up with possible scenarios, yes, I think this is a possible scenario. And worth looking into.
Insofar as the government- MY government- is identifying and singling-out anti-globalization folks as "The Enemy" and "anti-American," I'm a bit frustrated. I'm an American who is also somewhat anti-globalization*.
So, thumbs up for doing some preparation that might actually matter. Thumbs down, however, for singling out anti-globalization as "The Enemy" and "anti-American."
You're the government. You have a responsibility to your citizens to not insult moderate views commonly held by U.S. citizens, however accidentally you do so. If you're going to put out press releases, hire some rhetoric Ph.Ds or something.
*There a lot of ins-and-outs to globalization. I'm against greedy globalization, which so far has unfortunately been rampant.
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:5, Insightful)
We've become very dependant on computers and networking. Sometimes, very critical systems are left wide open. I think that having them tested for security leaks is a good idea.
A friend of mine who is a consultant did a 26 page report on a small town police department's network, finding that he was able to access everthing on thier network, including personal and critical information from home, with out a user account on the network.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:4, Insightful)
Almost all hospitals have generators, so power would not be an issue for them. Sure, the hospital might shut down the non-emeregency, non-critical care wards, they will have enough energy to protect life.
As for traffic signals not working, that won't cause a loss of life, it will cause many people to get pissed off.
If 9/11 was not about flying airplanes into buildings, but shutting down all electricity in the USA, maybe we would not be in Iraq or in the middle of a war.
Still... it would piss me off a ton if I could not watch any TV, could not check email. It is like an addiction, like caffine or cigarettes. Once you get hooked, you need your daily dose. In one way, they might be doing us a favor. Maybe people would pick up a book and think about the world, not in 30 second bursts like the TV programs us to do, but in thoughtful ways.
What the fuck am I saying. I need some cake. I am sooo fucking hungry, not like the bastards in ethiopia who fake it for attention, but really hungry for some cake with icing. Then I am going to watch the 2am edition of the news to see if anything changed from the 1am edition of the news. Then I am going to work to make enough money to pay for my cable bill, my tivo bill, my cell phone bill, my internet bill, my insurance bill... i am sure everyone gets the idea.
Slashdot folks are smarter than most. And that scares me.
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, the rest of you, pay attention to the shiny anti terrorism plan. Feel the soft, warm, blanket of security envelope you, as your government protects you from nonexistent threats. There.... That's it. Good citizen.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:5, Insightful)
Launching a single nuclear missile would shoot past the mark by rather a lot. Let's hope the control systems for those things are not connected via some backdoor to to a network in turn connected via some other back door to a network connected to the internet, eh?
These crackfest doomsday scenarios are not preparing government for the real problems at hand, today. Consider the case reported by the New York Times last week [nytimes.com] : It was probably a lone cracker, possibly a small group. rooting fifty boxes in a couple days. That was just a two day sample of a months long probably-one-man crackfest. Low level information theft poses a real threat to national security. Many government agencies are not even able to detect it.
By the way, it seems to be more popular in government circles to invoke September 11, probably because in the current climate it helps get funding. At least there is that perception.
Worse! (Score:2, Insightful)
Bad Guys? (Score:2, Insightful)
We fear what we don't understand (Score:4, Insightful)
E.g., I still fondly remember when I was 18, and mind you I was programming assembly for some years already, I thought I could write _the_ virus that would bring the whole economy to its knees. (Which is why I didn't actually release it.) Looking back in retrospect, omg, that idea was soo retarded.
Now throw in politicians, who have about as much clue of computers as your cat has _and_ make a living by blowing things out of proportion to an audience who knows even less. Right. You can see where that is going.
In practice, our computers aren't that vulnerable, ironically, because we know they're a fragile contraption. They don't exist in a vaccuum, as some box in a corner that noone knows about. Any company has a small army of admins who can deal with threats, has backups, etc.
Even things like Blaster didn't really do that much harm. The network congestion died pretty quickly, as everyone scrambled to block ports and disinfect machines. At the corporation I work for, it cost a total of a couple of days of the IT staff's work, to deal with some tens of infected computers out of many thousands. And that was the only virus I know of that made it inside in the last half a decade. (Unlike what Linux zealots like to claim about Windows securitiy, IRL it doesn't really cost _that_ much to keep it running.)
Or I remember one bank bitching about their DB/2 corruption, but even that didn't shut them down. Even doing the irresponsible thing and keeping running with a corrupt database and repairing it on the fly, in the end worked. It cost them some millions per day, yes, but the bank continued to work.
Just about the only thing one can't really defend against is a DDOS attack. No matter how well patched and firewalled a network is, when you have 10 GB/s stuffing your inbound pipe, you're stuffed.
But here's the fun part about those: they work against one site at a time. Directing some tens of thousands of zombies to spew 10 GB/s at one site, yeah, stuffs it. Directing the same 10 GB/s at 10,000 sites, won't even start to matter. There is no way that can be a threat to the whole economy or anything.
The Truth Is Not Out There (Score:2, Insightful)
1984 has come people. They have weapons of mass destruction and we must defend ourselves. They don't have weapons of mass destruction but we needed to remove a tyrant. We have, as a basic saftey gaurd against an overbearing government, the right to be secure in our papers and possesions unless a judge signs a warrents. It is war against terrorism, the FBI needs the powers to conduct searches without judicial overview. WTF???
People, is the USA about to have a coup? It is one of the most common events in history. How many people in other countries expected the coup when it happened? I believe Bush will never leave office, or he will hand pick his sucessor.
There are so many danger signs with that family. Bush's father was the chief of the CIA in the 1970s, he ran the CIA and did all the hiring of senior staff. Then he was VP for 8 years in the 1980's. He becomes president through the early 90's, then his son becomes president 8 years later. There is a saying that power currupts, and this family has been in the highest level of power for over 40 years, and that is not counting their grandfather who was in congress.
This is more than haliburton or giving government contracts to friends. This is more than the spoils system. This is about jobs leaving the USA, about people having a lower standard of life, about more people becomming poor, about the rich getting richer, about government removing 200 year old rights gaurenteed to us by the founding fathers. What has happened the last 20 years should be a warning. A whole class of people is getting enslaved, to working for only enough money to pay for rent and very little low quality food.
Just wait people. Those fingerprint machines in public libraries are not there because libraries are going bankrupt with non-members checking their emails.
Most coups do not happen with the people overthrowing the government. Most coups happen when a powerful person gains too much influence and power, and takes over the military. But this coup will be about economics. The people with the money will have the lobbyists which will control the congress, and the rest of us will be relegated to nothings. Government will jail the loudest voices as terrorists. The rest will believe they are free, free to work for $9 an hour. Just wait.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if the USA went after the culprits of 9/11 you would not be in Iraq either. Otherwise I agree with your point.
It is probably recruitment (Score:3, Insightful)
Nah, we don't kill people. We play video games.
Sometimes I think the Army and government recruits like a gang or drug dealer. They offer people with little hope in life a job. They offer training. Stop me if you have heard this one: "The Navy will train you how to work on nuclear submaries... do you know how much people who work on nuclear stuff make outside the navy? $100,000 cash. Cold cash. Come on, let me hook you up, we'll even give you $5,000 if you sign up. It is a cakewalk, in 4 years you'll be out, and while you are in, we'll show you exotic places, exotic pussy. What do you want to do? Work in a McDonalds the next 4 years trying to save money for college? Hell, you can't even read".
Then the real story starts after boot camp. "You want me to do what? Tie a rope around my waist and drop down off the side of the battleship and clean the salt off the boat??" then in 4 years "My time is finally up. WHAT??? I got extended. By who?". And then the worst trick of all, 5 years later. "But I have nuclear experience, why can't I work for Ford? What, you exported all your jobs? Where??"
They have to get people in one way or another. Army and government recruitment is like spam for making your penis bigger. They will rip off anyone they can. It is ashame we let them in highschools to sell their programs to kids under 18, to prep them for when they turn 18. Kids should need to have their parents sign an approval form for their kids in highschool to watch the recruitments.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you know how many Americans think Iraq had WMD or was involved with 9/11? With 30 second news spots, and an ever smaller attention span, Americans will believe just about anything. Just package the editorial as news, pump in some patriotism and emotion, and Americans will do anything the big boys tell us.
Hell, god forbid if the news started spending 10 minutes on each news story. Sure, that would only be 4 or 5 news stories a night, but it would be better to know something about a topic than just associate an emotion with a 30 second news clip. "God Damn Iraqi's, they set off another bomb. That does it... time to send more troops, lets bomb them more. Those bastards. Screw the bystanders, they probably deserve it anyways, they asked for it.".
The truth does not matter. Everything can be spinned and made into an emotional issue. Everything can be rationalized.
Is it any wonder the government wants to cut funding for PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts. They are some of the few places left that will spend half an hour on an issue, and even then that is not enough time to capture everything needed to understand a topic. The powerful are better served with a population that does not think deeply about the world, their lives, and what life is for. Most just think about the next car they want, or how to make more money. They don't think about happiness, at least not the way Aristotle or the philosophers did.
Re:anti globalism = anti americanism? (Score:3, Insightful)
What many these days seem to fail to realize is that one's country and one's government are too very different things. If that were not the case, those fighting for America's freedom from British rule during the American Revolution, the quintessential example of an American patriot, would not be considered patriotic at all.
I'd like to remind everyone that the kid wearing the "Fuck Bush" t-shirt is still very much a patriot, so long as he loves his country for blessing him with the freedom to express his beliefs that contradict the administration's policy.
(And yes, I do realize that anyone kid wearing said t-shirt is, in all likelihood, doing so for attention rather than to further a political opinion.)
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2, Insightful)
Cold as it may be, but a country can afford to loose a few thousand people. It can't afford to loose one or two large corporations.
For the record, I find the above fact sickening, but this does seem to fit in with the world's priorities at the moment.
Slashdot has caught the political meme (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, I am left-leaning as well, but for fucks sake keep your politics to yourself. It's completely off-topic yet gets modded up becuase of
Cmon guys don't drag this place down a notch. It's annoying to sort through at +4/5 expecting cool comments but all you get is some guys off topic political rant that fits the
Re:"Anti-American and anti-globalization hackers" (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. I'd even go one step further and disagree with their use of "anti-American" itself. I mean, it seems that these days all you need to be "anti-American" is to disagree with some of the current US government's policies, the right to which would seem to be a fundamental tenet of democracy. If that's the case then Amnesty International is an "anti-American organization" for protesting about the US government's use of Guantanamo Bay. I live in the UK, and I've never heard anyone utter the words "anti-British"...
US: want peace? then stop pissing people off!!!! (Score:1, Insightful)
Some people rubbish the parent, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Is that your attack strategy (Score:3, Insightful)
Your response has shown me that I didn't make myself very clear in the posting. I was simply refuting the statement that no one dies when networks go down and provided a simple example to back it up.
I'm not so small minded to think that attacking just the 911 system would be an effective terror attack. Now, take down the cell towers and phone exchanges in NYC would cause havoc enough, but do it while turning off the power grids and killing off the communication channels the emergency response units use to communicate to people in the field. With no way to contact police and emergency responce units, the greed and paranoia of 8 million people would quickly make a war zone look like a kindergarden.
I could go farther, but I don't want to give up too many ideas to the RIAA/MPAA and the phone company to use for evil.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I remember reading the original statement:
"And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.
As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.
It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is
Actually, at the time I was kind of shocked at the self-imposed censorship of the American media. Sometimes I think the USA has achieved a more effective way of brain-wahing than the Soviets could have ever dreamed of...No in-depth analysis in news media, no space for political discussion, people afraid to vent their political views, a presidential campagin that can only be won with loads of money, indirect elections for president, moralism, fear of "communism" (or, as the neo-macarthist term would have it today "anti-americanism"), etc. And, no, I'm, no a lefty.