US Cyber Command Reveals Plans To Hit Back At Cyber Threats 95
CNet News.com is reporting that the Air Force's Cyber Command has just as much interest in offense as defense. "Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER), a US military unit set up in September 2007 to fight in cyberspace, is due to become fully operational in the autumn under the aegis of the US Eighth Air Force. Lieutenant general Robert J. Elder Jr., who commands the Eighth Air Force's Barksdale base, told ZDNet.co.uk at the Cyber Warfare Conference 2008 that Air Force is interested in developing its capabilities to attack enemy forces as well as defend critical national infrastructure. "
dupe first, ask questions later dept (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:dupe first, ask questions later dept (Score:4, Insightful)
To put it in simple terms, if someone is abusing your network bandwidth, you don't just throttle them down, you go tell them to knock it off (or something equivalent). That's an "offensive measure" and it's common sense, isn't it?
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Re:dupe first, ask questions later dept (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:dupe first, ask questions later dept (Score:4, Informative)
First time around? Not quite. (Score:2)
US Planning Response To a Cyber Attack [slashdot.org] was discussed more than a year ago in fact.
It's still worth discussing.
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Let's put that idea into a different context. As the state and local police forces around our country take continue to take a more offensive stance do you feel safer [stopthedrugwar.org]? How about the way music labels protect their interests, is that better when it is offensive? I don't think so. I think that the only time an offensive posture look like a good defense is when you are on the side being more aggressive. To everyone not being d
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If your opponent is throwing punches, you can defend yourself all you want, but unless you can strike back, the only question is how long you can last before you inevitably break.
Come to think of it, if you consider your analogies more carefully, you'll see that both are fundamentally flawed. Lets say a serial killer is on the loose, would you feel safe if all you had was the p
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I'm surprised to learn that we're essentially doing the old "HELO" to port 139 bitchslap on the enemy as a response when we could just as well resolve their physical location and drop some thermite down their "stovepipe".
I can just see it now... "These radical script kiddies hate our network neutrality and ascii pr0ns... and so we must take the herring to them and slap them with it before they slap us."
Seriously, why is the military even us
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Perhaps you've never seen the danger zone by a horde of B-52's. Anywhere is close enough
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And they have a Cyberspace Academy now... (Score:1)
I can see the press release now. (Score:5, Funny)
"...and they tried to hit us with a DDoS, so we totally pwned those script kiddies. It wasn't hard, they were teh suk..."
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hey! (Score:2)
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still, lmao, thx
Defense. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Troubling... (Score:2)
Should we be nervous? (Score:2)
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To recap: it's really hard to fire a nuclear weapon by accident; it's not that hard to shut off a city's electrical and water supply electronically by accident (in comparison).
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They already make leaps of logic like "Bin Laden hit us, so let's invade Iraq," so just you wait for the upcoming "DDoS from a Chinese IP, tunneled through a Canadian ISP, so let's invade Venezuela" reasoning...
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Are you afraid of sudden police raids? Usually, not very. And you shouldn't have to if you live in a halfway working democracy. Raids are VERY intrusive, you and your neighbors will notice them and you'll be infuriated when something like this happens trivially. Could you see people get a tad bit upset if a raid became something that happens routinely in your neighborhood, with 99% of them being false alarms? They're loud, they're quite notica
Late breaking news! (Score:2)
When asked if the initiation a program of information warfare against the invaders was wise, given their existing foothold in orbit and on the Plains Of Qtx, K'breel, Speaker for the Council, stressed that there was no cause for alarm:
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Dupe (Score:1, Redundant)
Dup Dup Dup WHERRR Dup Dup Dup (Score:1, Redundant)
(The sound radar makes, right?)
Anyone else think "Cyber Command" staff suffer a higher incidence of wedgies and swirlies than other members of our armed forces?
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U.S. Spaceball Command (Score:2)
http://www.geocities.com/yank2010/jamit.wav [geocities.com]
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Actually, I'd think it'd be more like "give us your lunch money or we'll fsck up your mortgage, Visa cards, driver's license, and put your wife up on Craig's List."
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So...America's cyber A-Team has the 1337 skills of an entry-level con man? Can we outsource our electronic defense to the Israeli cyber team or something instead?
Given that many live happily in the armed forces without any of these threatened items, I'm sticking with my theory of an unusually high wedgie-per-day rate.
Wast of money (Score:1)
Contact General Spielberg! (Score:2, Funny)
Announcement for terrible cyber-war movie in 5... 4... 3...
"Sergeant! I've been pinged!"
"Dammit, Johnson! Get out of there!"
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(Setting: A dark, gloomy room, packed with varying rattering machinery and the machine that goes 'ping'. Various people with good hygene, perfect haircut and decent uniforms (with ties!) sitting in front of screens that paint their faces in neon green. No nachos or pizza anywhere. Suddenly, Private Johnson reports)
Pvt Johnson: "Sir, I think I picked up a signal."
Officer: "Can you pinpoint it?"
Pvt Johnson: "Yeah, the computer is on it."
(We look at a
And, it's called "Project 2501"... (Score:1)
Sir, we are at launch! (Score:2)
Re:so they plan to attack over our privately owned (Score:2)
They really are no different than everyone else on the net except that they have their computer brought for them by the American taxpayer.
If my server gets DDoSed are they going to help defend it? It is on US soil after all.
~Dan
lamest name ever (Score:2)
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In a word: Yes.
What does a "Cyber" command do? It "cybers"? Yeah, count me out.
Imagine the possibilities (Score:2)
I have allways wondered why people don't automatically Re-DOS the DOSer. Is that even possible, just start picking targets that are attacking, and flood them back till their network card pops or something.
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It'd be like playing starcraft. If you put a solder agianst a tank, your going to lose the soldier right? But if all you have is soldiers and you focus fire down on the largest units first they all will ev
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The average DDoS is not conducted by some machines in the possession of those that attack. It's a network of machines infected with backdoors that allow the attacker to use those machines. The current fad is sending out spam, but they can be used for a DDoS as well.
So. Now you, the attacked, go ahead and snipe those machines off the net. Which is usually no big deal, we're talking consumer PCs running on consumer DSL lines here, if you have a halfway powerful r
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I have always wondered why people don't automatically Re-DOS the DOSer.
Yeah, because when your pipe is full of traffic you don't want, the best thing is to double it and hit a load of home computer users who will just think the 'net is a bit slow today.Re: (Score:2)
I'd conserve my remaining bandwidth for normal operations afterall what good is my server if it's unreachable?
~Dan
I guess this explains a few things... (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess that explains what happened to me?
I got an email from a supply company requesting payment of nearly $15,000 for, I kid you not, 2200 telephones. Apparently, they'd been ordered, purchased and delivered to my former duty station at NCTAMS PAC in Hawaii.
Mind you, they were all delivered to a mailbox that was probably all of 8x3x5 inches. I did the math, and 2200 desk telephones wouldn't have fit inside the whole mail BUILDING, let alone the post box.
Nobody at the base ever saw the order-they would have, since that many phones would have come on 5 pallets-and nobody knew what they heck was going on. Finally, after working with the business owner, it was determined that the owner had been hacked.
The phones went one way, the bill went the other, I got a nervous laugh, the poor business owner got screwed and the military was twirling around going "Wha?! Wha?!? HUH!??!"
Didn't have to pay a cent, though. Wonder how it turned out?
Is The Pirate Bay gonna get bombed? (Score:1)
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Unless I miss my guess, the US Cyber Command would be more interested in things like the power supply in Tehran or the water supply in Damascus. You know, systems used by nation states that could become enemies.
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More to the point, how long until they start taking down all of these REAL terrorist websites that we always hear about in the news? If Al-Qaeda is able to communicate and release statements over the web, it seems logical that the Cyber Command (snicker) would want to interfere with that as much as possible. Yet I've never seen any reports of this type of action. Have I missed them somewhere?
Denny
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An attach on Sweden's infrastructure (DoS attack) might be seen as an act of war. I would certainly view it as such.
~Dan
Not very intelligent in the long run (Score:1, Insightful)
You got that right (Score:1)
Wrong headline (Score:1)
I want you! for DDoS Army (Score:2, Funny)
Join the national DDoS army now. Its your patriotic duty!
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Air forces (Score:4, Funny)
One air force should be enough for any country.
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Tear down and reassemble the PC box.. timed of course.
Why did you put that PC together so quickly, Gump?
You told me to, Drill Sergeant
Technology won't solve the problem (Score:2)
What kind of offense? (Score:2, Funny)
Step 1. All the computers owned by the government are turned into one giant botnet if they aren't already associated with one.
Step 2. Communicate. Rather than the usual chain of command, everything will be run out of an IRC channel on EFNET that has a key and is invite-only.
Step 3. DDos the middle east, Korea, etc.
Step 4. US Government starts selling shell cacounts for eggdrops.
Step 5. US Government gets into the warez business and opens up a porn site.
Ah, I miss growing up on IRC
The means to attack... (Score:1)
Their Site Made It Really Hard For Me To Apply (Score:1, Interesting)
In a Herculean effort, I succeeded in applying to the Cyber Command just now. But I must say that their website doesn't speak well of their cyber expertise; they make it extremely difficult to figure out how to even apply. The "Join" link on the Cyber Command website [af.mil] just goes to the main Air Force recruiting site [airforce.com], where all I learned is that I'm too old and too fat to join
why is the NSA involved with US Cyber Command? (Score:2)