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A cyberattack could wreak destruction comparable to a nuclear weapon
People around the world may be worried about nuclear tensions rising, but I think they're missing the fact that a major cyberattack could be just as damaging—and hackers are already laying the groundwork.
With the U.S. and Russia pulling out of a key nuclear weapons pact—and beginning to develop new nuclear weapons—plus Iran tensions and North Korea again test-launching missiles, the global threat to civilization is high. Some fear a new nuclear arms race.
That threat is serious—but another could be as serious, and is less visible to the public. So far, most of the well-known hacking incidents, even those with foreign government backing, have done little more than steal data. Unfortunately, there are signs that hackers have placed malicious software inside U.S. power and water systems, where it's lying in wait, ready to be triggered. The U.S. military has also reportedly penetrated the computers that control Russian electrical systems.
As someone who studies cybersecurity and information warfare, I'm concerned that a cyberattack with widespread impact, an intrusion in one area that spreads to others or a combination of lots of smaller attacks, could cause significant damage, including mass injury and death rivaling the death toll of a nuclear weapon.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 21 2019, @11:31AM (18 children)
The pen is mightier than the sword, etc. etc.
We've built such a fragile, yet essential, infrastructure that, yes, if you manage to snarl the roads, cut the electricity and communications, millions of people will be screwed - particularly in the bigger/denser cities.
All in all, I'd much rather weather a cyber-attack that kills a few thousand people and shows us how we've been penny-wise, pound-foolish in our infrastructure buildout, as opposed to a bright flash, a ring of radiation diseased survivors and radioactive soil for decades.
Through the cold war, nobody really figured out an acceptable way to weather a nuclear strike, not even a small one. How do we get through a cyber-attack? At least half of us alive today have lived in a world with total internet breakdown, zero digital communication ability... maybe it was inhumane by today's standards, but we managed to grow the population quite a bit in those primitive conditions.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday August 21 2019, @03:21PM (4 children)
While words can be much more hurtful than bullets, a safe space offers much greater protection from all harms than an underground bunker.
<no-sarcasm>
Maybe when we rebuild computers and the network after the attack, we'll know next time not to let the great unwashed masses on. Make the next Usenet too difficult to use for marketing and sales people, for example. Make email too difficult for spammers. Make emacs a prerequisite. Delay introduction of the GUI until a higher level of tech and infrastructure exist. Even then, GUI software should use the net primarily for machine to machine communication, but not human-to-human communication. Or maybe only human to human within confined infrastructure, but not unsolicited emails to just anyone. There maybe should be an introductory short message requiring a permission token to be given before any further communications can be sent from an unknown party.
That deals with some of the human problems, such as "social" networking.
There is still the problem of building an insecure infrastructure. Require laws early on that put the liability where it belongs so that either insurance is obtained, and / or there is more than a token investment in making IoT devices secure. And that includes trivial things like traffic signals, nuclear power plants, and garden watering devices.
</no-sarcasm>
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday August 21 2019, @03:36PM
Yes.
Develop our systems using secure methods involving secure tools and security-minded programming languages.
Make sure out tools are developed similarly.
Yes, that may mean we need to rewrite almost everything.
Like the TUNES project was proposing (but never did do).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 21 2019, @03:52PM
Let the little bunnies have their internet, just don't do anything important with it.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by DECbot on Wednesday August 21 2019, @07:06PM (1 child)
Ah yes, here's your shared laptop with the latest 128 core Xeon CPU with the 192 node AI neural net and the of course the 64 node GPU cluster. Sure, the GPU count is small, but we haven't installed a display as of yet so the need wasn't pressing. When we order a display for your laptop, well see about the GPUs. I see you've completed the terminal translation training course, congratulations. What dialect of Bash do you prefer? Ah, now before I allow you to perform your first login, you must demonstrate that you've arranged your punch cards in numerical order and labeled them in proper hexadecimal. Consider me dropping all your punch cards on the floor as a rite of passage. Oh? Oh yes, we did deliberately design the punch card reader to accept a card inserted upside down. The frustration keeps marketing from attempting too many pointless terminal requests. That and always scheduling finance to have terminal time immediately after them. You know how management hates any delays to processing invoices and how much pressure and stress finance creates when they are delayed. When we really want to make marketing flustered, we've got a little one-liner we can run remotely that will randomly invert the bit order of any one card.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:02PM
My preferred Bash dialect expects all input to be in EBCDIC.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 21 2019, @05:55PM (12 children)
In the short term: In a large-scale, potentially long-lasting emergency, there will three classes of people. We saw this, in a small way with Katrina.
- You have the people who are relatively prepared, able to live on their own resources for a time. In the case of Katrina, this was an unusually small group, because the ones living in New Orleans had to leave, taking little with them. In the case of a cyber attack, that would be less of a factor. Just looking at my family - we're not preppers by any stretch of the imagination - yet we could live a couple of weeks off the contents of our pantry. Longer, if it's summer and the garden is going.
- You have the parasites, who will loot and rob when given the opportunity. They are a limited problem and they will cease being a problem when they try to rob the wrong people. Good people with guns are a valuable insurance policy that should not be underestimated.
- Then, unfortunately, you have the vast majority who are unprepared for Walmart to have empty shelves tomorrow. They were also the majority in the case of Katrina - people who will be utterly dependent on external help or charity. In a national-scale disaster, they will be the first victims of the parasite class. If the disaster lasts more than a few days, they will start to die of various causes.
In the long-term, people will rebuild. That is a huge advantage of people accustomed to capitalism, because capitalism is a self-organizing system. The best thing the government will be able to do is to get out of the way. The market will detect shortages, people with scavenge, and eventually produce products to fill those shortages. Let the market work, and the system will quickly (a few months) settle into a new equilibrium.
Totalitarian countries would have a much tougher time, because thinking for yourself is dangerous, yet central direction would be impossible. China, for example, might well sink back into a pre-industrial state.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday August 21 2019, @11:11PM (10 children)
This is not what happened during Russia's perestroika. Two things saved Russia.
First, most of the city dwellers had suburban land where they grew vegetables and such. While it was not much, it was enough to prevent hunger.
Second, even when authorities lost it and stopped paying salaries, people of critical infrastructure would continue to go to work without pay so heating, water, and electricity mostly did not stop.
In the US, people don't have first and will not work without pay. The infrastructure will crash in a week and will be beyond repair in a month. By the end of the second month most dwellers of a tri-state area will be dead.
That's a relatively minor disruption scenario, mind you.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 22 2019, @03:35AM (9 children)
Unless, of course, that doesn't happen. There isn't that much difference between Ruskies and USians. There's already a lot of volunteer work related to emergency preparedness in the US (indicating that supposedly nonexistent work ethic). And for any long term disruption of money-based economics, you have the same sort of pay (in kind rather than in money) to keep things going as they had in Russia.
Which was a deliberate and surprisingly successful disruption of the totalitarian state. It was enabled in large part due to the Chernobyl accident which the USSR was woefully unprepared for.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Thursday August 22 2019, @08:11AM
As a case in point, a lot of people in the US continued going in to work during the government shutdowns (admittedly I think the government expected then to do so, it the promise of being paid later).
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday August 22 2019, @11:45PM (7 children)
I hope you are right; I really do. Where I work, which is a large financial IT joint, there is no work ethics. It is gone. We are walked by security down the corridor on lay off in front of everybody with out little possessions in our arms. We hope one day they will do the same - our business masters, I mean.
So, I hope you are right, but I am sure that there will be no money. I hope that truck drivers (it takes 2000 miles on average to deliver food) will work without money. I hope that gas stations will fill the trucks with fuel without money. I hope that oil companies will deliver fuel to gas stations without money. I honestly do.
But trust me on this - finance IT will not work and there will be no money. Please prepare.
My personal plan? I am leaving the country the same night. That's where my preparations are. Sorry, I do not believe.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 23 2019, @02:23AM (6 children)
I guess we better not depend on them for food transport, eh?
Why would there be no money? Paper money for a notable example is completely unaffected by high tech shenanigans. This mantra, "no money" is repeatedly said throughout your post. But here's the thing. If no money is bad, then put money back in. Solves the problem and we can move on.
And once we've done that, then your entire post of concerns goes away. We have many historical examples of countries that have reinvented their currency from scratch, overnight. It's not that hard and a zillion people didn't die to make it happen.
You got no money. No way you're going to leave the country, if nobody is paying you to do so, right?
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 24 2019, @12:26AM (5 children)
Well, perhaps it is because I am looking from the point that I know which is finance IT. While one may think paper money would work, it is a fallacy, I believe. First day or two you might be able to buy gas for paper, but on the 3rd day gas station would not be able to. They need electronic messages going through my infrastructure to pay. They have no other way. And then it is all the way up to Federal Reserve. I believe after a week there will be nothing anywhere available for sale paper or gold or whatever.
I do have emergency paper and gold but mostly because most people would not know it is useless and accept it at first.
Not true. Generally, mental preparation is the first and the most important step. One has to mentally prepare to leave right away. How? Just to give an example (not that I plan to) I can walk from the Island of Manhattan to Canada. I know exactly how to and I am mentally and physically prepared.
By the second month millions will try it, but most of them will die. One got to be before the first wave.
Let me give you another example. During Stalin's darkest times they'd arrest people of power in the middle of the night. I've read the accounts of a few survivors. Typical apartment of a rich Russian would have a service entrance for the help. Folks who survived kept an emergency bags and when KGB was banging on the front door at 4 am they'd walk the service entrance out and hitch hike a truck to a large construction site in Siberia. Over there nobody bothered them. Yes, they exchanged their privilege for a low life as regular citizens, but they survived. KGB did not bother looking for them.
Mental preparedness to act is the first step. During bad times, one who acts survives while one who reacts dies.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 24 2019, @01:23AM (4 children)
A dude would drop that paper off daily at some bank and get new paper. The 3rd day wouldn't happen.
Not with paper they don't.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 24 2019, @01:51AM (3 children)
This is not how banks work now, sorry. As per going old ways, managers at banks would not risk long prison times by doing what you propose. I guess some might. Perhaps government will suspend the rules. What they did in 2008 was pure financial crime after all. But I don't think so. We probably would not be able to even get cash.
Nevertheless, my disaster recovery plan at the office if the issue is wider than about 30nm radius is not to continue the business in any form. It is to preserve records so moneys could be returned to the rightful owners... eventually.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 24 2019, @02:36AM (2 children)
I agree. But it's how they would work after the electronics has been taken down. The point is that we would merely need to implement solutions we already know work.
Are we speaking of cyberattack or suicide by government? If a government is willing to kill hundreds of thousands of people merely to enforce meaningless finance laws on equipment and organizations that no longer function, then we have much bigger problems than no money.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 24 2019, @03:07AM (1 child)
You seem to forget that the US is the country of the Law and laws nowadays are enforced. There is no way I will release a single dollar without proper rules executed such as electronic end of day report to the Federal Reserve because some psychopathic prosecutor might send me to prison for the rest of my days. In fact I will simply not show up to make sure I am not even near such unspeakable violations. One does not know what will or will not be enforced after the fact and the safest way is to enforce all of them even if people are dying around. That's how children are charged with "attack with a deadly missile" for throwing a peanut off a bridge.
Yes, we do have much bigger problem than the money or no money. It did not affected most so far, just a minority, but when a disaster strikes all bets will be off.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 24 2019, @03:48AM
The US also forgets that a lot. This objection is absurd.
It won't be an unspeakable violation (that we are casually chatting about BTW, indicating it's quite speakable), because it won't be a violation in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:10PM
The question also being those who will attempt to take those. You address that below, but put enough hungry people in a small enough area and your odds of survival go way down. Unless you've found good ways to camoflage and conceal what you have (and staying inside all the time is a pretty sure sign you have resources).
Presuming that you are allowed to retain your guns. One shouldn't forget the public gun confiscations and desire of the New Orleans police chief that only the police should have firearms post-Katrina. Think it's much of a leap in these go-red-flags-times for teams checking on survivors to demand firearms turn-ins? Although reparations were made later, all it takes is a declaration of martial law.
Not really. If they have nothing then why would the parasites bother with them, or are you suggesting they'd go full cannibal off the bat? They are more likely to become the parasites. Desperate people may do desperate things.
Unregulated capitalism is good? Yeah, it may be self-organizing but unregulated capitalism leads to profiteering. Markets don't work so well if you can't get to them. And the ultimate expression of unregulated capitalism is allowance of slavery.
[citation needed] And that's all that needs to be said.