SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The virtual battlefield in the Middle East could soon heat up:
Military chiefs are prepared to give President-elect Donald Trump the options he wants to intensify the fight against the Islamic State, including the possibility of granting commanders greater leeway to use secret cyber-warfare and space weapons, the top Air Force leader said.
"We've heard him loud and clear that he's going to be looking for options," Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force Chief of Staff, told USA TODAY. Goldfein said the recommendations may center on permitting field commanders more flexibility to deploy an array of weapons against the militants, who are waging a terror campaIgn beyond their bases in Iraq and Syria. "If we want to be more agile then the reality is we are going to have to push decision authority down to some lower levels in certain areas," Goldfein said during a December trip to this air base. "The big question that we've got to wrestle with ... is the authorities to operate in cyber and space."
Capabilities in those two areas are among the military's most closely held secrets, and their use now generally requires approval at the highest levels of government. The military has the ability to use cyber weapons to shut down terrorist websites and disrupt communications, but it is cautious about authorizing such actions because of unanticipated effects beyond its intended targets, such as disrupting legitimate websites and servers.
Last May, Defense Secretary Ash Carter urged the military space community to "join the fight" against the Islamic State, though he declined to describe how. The Air Force controls satellites for GPS and communications. Cyber capabilities are already in use against the Islamic State, also called ISIL or ISIS. "We're ... using cyber tools to disrupt ISIL's ability to operate and communicate over the virtual battlefield," Carter said in February.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:51AM
90% of the "weapons" they can deploy attack holes in the systems we use every day. Just think if the NSA would document the holes they plan to exploit, and let the vendors patch them. 99% of the American public would have safer computing environments. Then again, 99% of the foreign public would also have safer computing environments but, hey, fuck em.
This is not a tech problem, this is a political problem. Make us safer, make it harder to hack them. Hmmm. You're the NSA. You fucking goddam make us safer you stupid asshats.
The NSA needs to closely guard the holes it finds in Russian, Chinese, North Korean, etc OS's and systems, and do the best it can to ensure US vendors plug the holes they find.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday January 04 2017, @08:06AM
On top of that 90% of the weapons ISIS uses are not subject to cyber attacks.
Its hard to attack an AK47 with a computer.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @08:31AM
But slick video production is ISIL's greatest weapon!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 04 2017, @08:52PM
This. And the stupidity of the Western media, too.
Some idiot in the desert threatens the world, with less credibility than a linux geek threatening Microsoft, but OMGOMGOMG it's NEWS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @08:55PM
Then again the Linux geek has conquered Micro$oft...