SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3196
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 Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 22 2019, @01:14AM (4 children)
This sort of story has been done to death. It's more "manliness porn" along the lines of Starship Troopers for people with a burn it all down mentality, letting them imagine themselves as hard-bitten, rugged ubermenschen with the innate brains and brawn to survive an apocalypse.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by r_a_trip on Thursday August 22 2019, @08:57AM
Azuma Hazuki, I think you are completely correct here. In the history of humanity there always have been devastating circumstances of one kind or another. What we see is that people come together and organize and rebuild. Even after total destruction, people organize to rebuild, restore order and to work cooperatively.
This "Mad Max Apocalypse" is a fantasy where people (dare I say men?) imagine themselves to be heroic and tough and able to survive on their own by wit and strength. Shooting their way to a new world order. Let me ask one question though. If you are not "Rick Grimes" now, what makes you think you will be "Rick Grimes" after the shit hits the fan?
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday August 22 2019, @02:25PM (2 children)
More like Farnham's Freehold, warts and all.
Starship Troopers (the novel) was all about the cult of militaria and it was because of the team that formed the group survives although members of it die. It is unsurprisingly modeled on actual military experience, and more than once Heinlein went on record stating that it was a work asking the question, "Why do men fight?" (and I use the masculine because he did and that was then,) but also he suggested that the book didn't actually contain the answer to that question and only hypotheses. Anyway, it was much more the notion that they were soldiers and trained to survive whatever they were ordered to (as a unit).
While I much prefer "Alas, Babylon" for what might have occurred post-apocalypse (definitely dated to the late 1950s) and that communities will survive and/or will rebuild, having the skills and a plan for how one will independently survive until that occurs is still rather important. Which is why preparedness efforts of the government have for some time focused on the concept that is now You are the Help until Help Arrives [fema.gov]. That link is focused on the immediate term, but the big question is over what time frame is one prepared to do that.
I think what I'm aiming for is that there is a balance between "manliness porn" and failure to live because one wasn't prepared to survive.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 22 2019, @11:00PM (1 child)
There is, but all of our self-styled hard-bitten rugged individualists are firmly into the manliness-porn side of the map and have been for ages. Some of these selfish, solipsistic pricks *want* it all to go to hell in a handbasket because they think, they actually think, it'll be their time to shine and that they'll somehow be vindicated.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday August 23 2019, @01:49PM
Maybe not all, but your point is taken. It's a powerful and tempting fantasy - the things that aggrieve one and "keep one down" will suddenly go away and one then comes out on top as master of one's environment and self and will live happily under nothing but self-rule. Closely aligned to, "it's their turn now and I never deserved what I got."
This sig for rent.