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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: 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.