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."
In Soviet Russia... (Score:4, Funny)
Digital Pearl Harbor is Nice... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you no imagination at all? ;)
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: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.
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
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, god forbid
While you do make a good point in that we associate emotions with events, I would find a news story that lasted 10 minutes to be probably 8 or 9 minutes of filler or opinion. The media has a hard enough time keeping bias out of the news with 30 seconds a clip, how much do you imagine there will be if we ask them to fill up 10 minutes? The purpose of a news article is to inform people of what is happening in the world, not to impart some deep understanding to everyone who watches it.
The truth does not matter. Everything can be spinned and made into an emotional issue. Everything can be rationalized.
The truth as defined by whom? There are 3 versions of every memory and story. 1st we have your side and how you remember it happening - this is the truth to you. Next we have my side and how I remember it happening - this is the truth to me. Next we have what really happened, but since no one is see it for what it really is it may as well not even exist. Remember, nothing ever happens exactly the way you remember it.
and even then that is not enough time to capture everything needed to understand a topic
While some places do a really good job of presenting ideas and concepts (PBS, Nova, Etc) 0 if you want to really understand a topic, don't rely on TV at all, or for that matter
Hope you'll take what I said here as some constuctive feedback on posting and not much else
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
The media wants people as dumb and as boxed in as possible so they can brainwash, when you get smarter then that they no longer intrest you and you become an out sider in society.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:3, Interesting)
Total loss of power for a sustained time can cause loss of life, not to mention huge financial consequences. That 'non-critical' care you say might be inconvienienced might be someones organ transplant or chem therapy.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
Don't forget, television is not real life.
At least, I hope not, I really hope not...
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
The dorks can play their silly simulation games and still not be prepared. Face it, if you want to be a terrorist, you've got to think like one. I doubt the CIE geeks pack the gear for that gig.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
Sorry, nope, doesn't do crap. Maybe one or two more accidents but that's it. During the summertime this happens a lot here in Vegas. Everyone's AC is getting revved up to cool down the houses in time for everyone to come home/those who have come home have just turned their AC down, and then we get large brown-outs.
Thankfully, people tend to remember what they've learned years ago. Namely that a non-working stoplight is the same as a stop-sign.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
You like to think.
It only takes one idiot on their cell phone more concerned with their trivial conversation rather than the fact that they are driving a 2 ton death machine to forget that while someone else is going as it is their turn. Almost happened with me during the big blackout couple years back.
Damn middle aged woman chatting it up in her cadillac.
But in general I w
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
Since that time, I've gone out to watch
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
Net security is important - but for God sake first make secure the liquified natural gas terminals! There are proposals for building several new giant port terminals in US which would accept tanker-sized ships fill
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:5, Informative)
"In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds... The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space. While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy. Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end. In time the Soviets came to understand that they had been stealing bogus technology, but now what were they to do? By implication, every cell of the Soviet leviathan might be infected. They had no way of knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus. All was suspect, which was the intended endgame for the operation."
You could wreak a lot of havoc on the American economy if you chose to. At present, I doubt many nations would be interested in that- it's just not in their interest. China, for instance, is making just way too much money off the U.S. economy to want to touch it. Even if we started exchanging shots over Taiwan I think they'd think hard before trying that. But what what about Al Qaeda?
"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. All Praise is due to Allah. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah."
Bin Laden's ultimate goal probably isn't to kill American civilians, kill American troops, or defeat us militarily. He wants to attack our economy. That was definitely a large part of what 9/11 was about, and it's a very large part of what the ongoing insurgency is about (200 billion for this invasion by the end of 2005, with no end in sight. What's really shocking is that everybody is puzzling over the Iraqi insurgency's strategy, when bin Laden explicitly lays out his strategy). And it will be a very large part of any future attacks, which could concievably move into internet attacks. Carnage is part of it, sure. But if he can't bleed you physically, he's perfectly happy to bleed your bank account. Incidentally, I had to go to Al Jazeera to find that passage- CNN, those J-school dropouts, post a heavily edited version without even mentioning that it was edited.
Has that story ever been verified? (Score:2)
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.
Some people rubbish the parent, but (Score:4, Insightful)
didn't say anything about death (Score:2)
Well, say someone broke into stock market computers, or bank computers, or servers of some other major financial institution...I'd say the potential for disruption is even greater than what happened on 9/11.
Worse! (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
*whistles innocently and walks off while checking the rear view mirror for details*
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2, Interesting)
"Fantastically improbable" is the key phase there.
The ATC system, at least in the US, is comprised of some pretty old and pretty obscure equipment.
Not only would you have to take out the terminal area radars but you would also need to get the radio systems of both the pilots and the controllers. And don't forget that commercial airliners have radar and on
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.
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think they are comparing the 9/11 attacks themselves to a crack-fest, they are compairing the resulting economic disruption to something that could be done through a coordinated cracking session. I'm not wholly convinced that economic disruption of such large proportions can be coordinated through cracking though.
Don't use Windows, use OS's designed with security in mind.
I'd agree with this - certainly for m
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
Which is all true except for the fact that the write up said nothing of the sort:
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:3)
Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste... (Score:2)
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:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2, Interesting)
Or, suppose that someone manages to sneak a virus inside a nuclear plant control system. Wait -- that actually already happened! Slammer worm crashed Ohio nuke plant network [securityfocus.com].
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2)
Spoken like a true Y2K Chicken Little.
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2)
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2)
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2)
Attacks are the least of the problems with communications networks. If you want to prioritise risks, you need to work on incompetence, greed and bureaucracy before you look for black hats under the beds. ahref=http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/mar2002/b o ul-m28_prn.shtml [slashdot.org]http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/ mar2002/boul-m28_prn.shtml>
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.
Is that your attack strategy (Score:2)
Is that you're terror attack strategy? Try to break into the 911 network just as someone who doesn't speak very good English, is having a heart attack?
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
Re:Is that your attack strategy (Score:2)
These 'cyber' attack strategies assume that Akmed in Iran can attack via the Internet and so talk of bringing down power grids & phone exchanges is worthless because he can't get a physical connection to those networks.
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2)
Call me cynical, but if you have to rely on 911 service, you're in trouble.
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2)
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.
How deep do you want to look? (Score:2)
Socially: An electronics crash would result in mass social disorder. Loss of school records would mean weeks of paperwork sifting, confirming, checking and double checking to make sure people didn't make counterfeit diplomas. Throw in messed up court cases, work schedule mix ups and just general confusion and you've
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.
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2)
Like it or not, the phone network is steadilly vanishing in favor or VoIP solutions. Yeah, ok - the vast majority of calls are currently going over the PSTN but I'm not sure it's going to be _that_ long before this changes (I should think that in 10 - 20 years the majority of calls will be over the Internet).
Not to mention the fact that the PSTN _is_ connected to the Internet - your DSL connection, etc runs over the same digit
Re:People don't die when networks crash (Score:2)
I have no clue as to what these countries represent in terms of actual security breaches as my systems
Tis already happened! (Score:5, Funny)
Sadly my website http://www.rogertheshrubber.net/ [rogertheshrubber.net] has already fallen victim to the hordes of the digital pearl harbour. There is [utwente.nl] a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Simulation Games are useless (Score:2)
Now I am not saying the government has no talent. I am just saying the money that attracts top talents are with the corporations.
Re:Simulation Games are useless (Score:4, Interesting)
To some people money doesn't matter. Time and time again the military and intelligence communities attract hugely talented individuals because of the work environment. Dave Grossman talked about this in his book On Killing [amazon.com]. There is a small minority of people who are talented warlike mischeif makers who given the right environment, ethical and monetary backing can go a long way to louse up the enemies day. Bruce Schneier says the same thing in Secrets and Lies. Examples of this in history are myriad. Google topics like the Tunnel Rats in vietnam. The bad guy mentality in the right environment attracts these guys.
You don't have to have to be a "bad guy" but being/thinking so is what separates the best intelligence and military personnel from the average. Obviously, you still need a 'good' value system but the 'bad guy' psyche still is needed.
It's even written in the vast majority of intelligence literature out there that the best overall intelligence guys are borderline 'bad guys'. Examples are myriad:
The original detective Eugène François Vidocq [vidocq.org] was the founding father of criminal investigation. He was a notorious bad guy whose innovations bolstered police intelligence gathering.
Michael Levine [totse.com] who was one of the top undercover agents ever assigned to the Drug Enforcement Agency said in an interview that "The secret to my success was ..... A police lieutenant, with whom I worked many years later, looked at me, after I had done, in one day, something like four or five undercover buys from different groups -- from Hispanics, from Blacks, from Whites -- and he was covering me along with my group. He said: "You know what the thing is about you, Levine? You're a guy who should've gone bad. You should have been a gangster. You should have been in jail. But somehow you turned out right. And that's why you're so ..." [convincing]. And I thought about it, and I thought about my youth and about the way I grew up, and I realized that there was a lot of truth in what he said. I was FROM the streets. The streets were in me. There was a thin line between me and the guys who I was working against. And that line was so thin that drug dealers couldn't see it. Do you understand? The line that separated them from me as a suspected agent was so thin that drug dealers could NEVER believe that I was an agent. And that's an attitude .... that's something you can't teach."
The CIA Case officer Gust Avrakotos [amazon.com] who ran the covert operation arming the Mujahideen by proxy through Pakistan in the 1980's Afgan-Russian war was nicknamed 'Dr Dirty' by his CIA peers because he was such an aggressive rule-breaking intelligence operative who had an inherent 'bad guy' view of intelligence operations which helped him numerous times in executing deals inside and outside the CIA.
Ex US Army intelligence analyst Ralph Peters [amazon.com] Essay "The Black Art of Intelligence" speaks that the best intelligence analysts have a specific talent for the job and that talent is an underlying understanding of the dark side of humanity and this talent is born not made.
I could go on and on. Of course, you don't have to be a bad guy or empathise to be good at the job. In fact having an organisation filled with these guys would be counter-productive. But, like I stated, what separates the good from the brilliant is this 'bad guy' mentality.
"The best soldiers have a seasoning of devilry." General A.P. Wavell
CIA security.... (Score:3, Funny)
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 na
About time Some appreciates the Sweet Deal that is (Score:2, Interesting)
Let me tell you something, the military is a swank deal and everyone should stop crying wolf over a bogus issue. Let me break it down.
Okay, so starting off, military pay is kind of on the low side. However, its not low considering the great benefits, which render the salary pure gravy. Especially considering, you're getting free paid training. How many companies offer free paid training, with to
agreed but you missed the problems (Score:2)
The process of breaking you down to nothing and building you up again (aka boot camp) is something that a lot of us individualistic types get squeamish about. I'm certainly not a good candidate for military service simply because of my antipathy towards established authority. (I did take the ASVAB at one point... highest score the recruiter had ever seen)
The hourly pay ten
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.
Re:Digital Pearl Harbor? (Score:2)
The problems with this approach are a) you're not really sure you're going to get any useful information ("Well, we got rooted, really fast. So that was interesting, and no
"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:"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"...
Actually... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Actually... (Score:2)
I'm sure there are even less people listening to them after their most recent 'report':
Re:"Anti-American and anti-globalization hackers" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"Anti-American and anti-globalization hackers" (Score:3)
Re:"Anti-American and anti-globalization hackers" (Score:2)
Btw, how are they simulating an attack on "The Internet" when they are all in the same state?
Re:"Anti-American and anti-globalization hackers" (Score:2)
First off, I don't think it implies that "anti-globalization" groups are inherently "anti-American". The fact that the two terms are joined with an "and" makes it clear that they are two separate concepts, both of which are being examined here.
Secondly, those are the groups these attacks are likely to come from. If you're a logging company, your security scenarios would largely focus on attacks by eco-terrorists. Not because ecologists or environmentalists are necessarily
Government computer security? (Score:4, Interesting)
Has any progress been made in the last few years on improving the state of government computer security?
Re:Government computer security? (Score:2)
I'm kinda worried that someone working on information systems warfare thinks they can make an anonymous post to a popular website
Change is hard in the military because of what is at stake. If something works, people really don't want to change because it may cost lives if not done properly. There is not alot of room for experimentation.
Re:Government computer security? (Score:2)
Military conservativism can also costs lives, usually at the start of a new war.
The example that springs to mind is that of regiments being mowed down on both sides at the start of WWI because neither side properly appreciated how devastating a machine gun nest could be against a regiment of riflemen marching line abreast.
It's largely unavoidable (IHM). Military regiments tend to stress tradition. It's useful to help create a necessary sense of group identity and and
sounds like fun (Score:3, Interesting)
Digital Pearl Harbor? (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
That's pretty limited. (Score:2)
You fools. You fail to realize the potential of thousands of script kiddies who just got out of school for the summer and are really bored. Prepare to be WinNuked into submission!
Help from private technology firms (Score:2, Interesting)
This is a very important statement. The US govt may have their eye on all the networks, but given the nature of the Internet, as well as the PSTN to some extent, they just cant do it themselves. It has to be strong collaboration with private firms, whose technology may well be better than theirs, as well as all the big service pr
Bad Guys? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bad Guys? (Score:5, Funny)
Defending yourself against the United States makes you a "bad guy?"
From the perspective of a citizen of the United States, yes.
Re:Bad Guys? (Score:2)
Re:Bad Guys? (Score:2)
And it turns out, because of propositions such as the above, the Bush government is one major PR disaster and every government that associates itself too closely with him get lambasted in election days (Spain, UK, Italy,
Nice how you fail to mention Australia [telegraph.co.uk] in your list, the most obvious counter-example. Georgia [latimes.com] seems to not consider Bush's administration a "PR disaster" either.
Also, if I recall, Blair *won* in the UK (admittedly not by much, but that certainly wasn't the result the anti-US crowd
Re:Bad Guys? (Score:2)
Blair's party lost 100 seats in the parlament because of the war.
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 ag
Re:The Truth Is Not Out There (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The Truth Is Not Out There (Score:2, Funny)
You need to learn some history.. (Score:2)
the new bomb they have developed, that kills all the people in a city
It's called the enhanced radiation weapon, or Neutron Bomb, and it's older than probably half the readership of this website, having been developed during the Carter administration back in the 1970's.
As far as the coup thing goes, have you never heard of the 2nd Amendment and the NRA?
That's certainly what the Iraqis are finding out (Score:2)
Re:The Truth Is Not Out There--Rebuttals? (Score:2)
Parent is a little off-topic, but really, the end of Democracy and the rise of indentured servitude is important enough to repeat.
And I figured out he was talking about a Neutron bomb. I don't think it's an issue, because t
Re:The Truth Is Not Out There (Score:2)
Well, there's always hope.
totally friggin off-topic, but (Score:2, Funny)
Does anyone else notice that
Wrong branch? (Score:2, Interesting)
"Information Operations Center, which evaluates threats to U.S. computer systems from foreign governments"
, which is understandable, but the conventional notion of "terrorists" aren't "foreign governments". Does this mean we're expecting to go to cybercarpetbombing against France, the "anti-Americans"?
Greetings, Professor Falken (Score:2)
(I apologize in advance... *somebody* had to make the reference)
Shouldn't that read "Anti-American-Globalization"? (Score:2)
Globalization can be good, pity some (non-internet enabled) Americans have a twisted idea of what it (the rest of the planet) is about. I think a re-education will solve all the problems, and not the hosting of a LAN.
This story is a case in point by grouping 'anti-American' and 'anti-globalization' into one concept. Showing just how easy it is to alienate the rest of the world (whic
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
Accused by who? (Score:2)
Uhh, the only one who accused the government of lacking imagination about potential attacks was the Bush administration, and those claims have been very throughly proven wrong...
The "lack of imagination" is a defense... an alternative to saying "we actually knew the dangers and are grossly incompotent in protecting against them".
(p|s)equel poll (Score:2)
(No 'neither' replies please)
terrorism, communications, and electronic warfare (Score:2)
In a conventional war you want to take out CCC infrastructure. No communications, no instructions, no control and the military s at a loss as to how to act
Terrorism exploits communications infrastructure. It relies on a relatively low cost 'attack' generating 'terror' which would be hampered by crippling this infrastructure. The attack could be as simple as starting a rumor in the middle of flu season.
Attacks on the credibility of news sources may already be in progress, Goodbye Dan, and cost little. Imag
Re:You totally missed the point (Score:2)
Re:You totally missed the point (Score:2)
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 no
Re:Anti-American I can understand... (Score:2)