A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continues

[neutral]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continues

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Rollin_Calf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

If people were to step back and think a bit more broadly about the whole Wikileaks saga, there is just something a bit odd about the whole thing. Something just doesn't add up.

</div></div>

Doesnt seem odd to me,pretty straightforward,our so-called leaders have been caught being liars,underhand,duplicitious,two-faced hypocrites,....nothing new there,whats odd is that they are getting so hysterical about it being confirmed.

[johnnycakes]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continu

Natral,

I could not agree with you more.

[rudemonk]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continues

not only that calf, but that is a huge heap of stuff to make up.

on NPR they were discussing the effect on the Middle East region, in particular speaking to the effect that the outing of the region's leaders urging the US to take a strong, even a military, position on Iran becoming a nuclear power, will have on the region's press.

I think the whole thing is incredibly interesting.

[britisha]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continues

This spying and keeping classified documents on other countries by others has been going on from time &quot;immemorial&quot;...it IS nothing new; not in the least bit, and were available, some not all, if one knew the proper channel whereby to obtain this info.

<span style="font-style: italic">guh to the UN at some of these end of year parties when the Sec Counsel tek break and talk to sum drunken diplomats and hear wha gwaan</span>

The problem is NOT in the releasing of the documents, but the strings attached in releasing them by Asange, a sort of blackmail by Wikileaks...[well at least a soh mi hear on one of the tv channels] and I believe it.....dat moves it up a rank from &quot;freedom of Info&quot; to BLACKMAIL...

Now as for the cyberwars that gwine start, that is also nothing new.....[before 9/11 the threat went out to cripple the US cyber world]...this is why MANY companies have IT security to be able to prevent the hackers from taking over their sites...nothing new, it is just THANKS TO THE INTERNET more information is now more readily available...the kwestian fi mi is dis, will they hack people who visit those sites?

[Derek]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continues

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Xavier</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Natral, this is very interesting...I guess the war has started...thanks for sharing this. </div></div>


Jesus, I thought it was common knowledge that Israel messed with Iran's computer network.

[R_C]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continues

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">not only that calf, but that is a huge heap of stuff to make up.</div></div>

monk, this has been the day to day business of some agencies of the US government over many many years.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I think the whole thing is incredibly interesting. </div></div>

Absolutley !

Anyway, I came across this gem in my reading about this WikiLeaks campaign;

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Some of Wikileaks infosec-comsec advisors have done top-classified work for the US and other governments.</div></div>



(infosec is information security and comsec communication security)

[johnnycakes]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continu

Interested in more info on Wikileaks?
If they manage to shut Wikileaks down the following link will get you to what are called &quot;mirror sites&quot; that will carry the same content.

http://wikileaks.info/

Also ZNET has an extensive listing of sources and prior articles on the Wikileak story at the right side of the home page.

[neutral]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continu

Why Britain is desperately vulnerable to cyber terror
By MICHAEL HANLON
Last updated at 9:34 AM on 19th October 2010
Comments (43)
Add to My Stories


No food. No fuel. No power. Science Editor Michael Hanlon imagines the fallout from an attack on the computer networks on which we’ve become dangerously reliant.
Unlike the credit crunch of the Noughties, this financial crash came out of the blue.
Economists were silent when asked to explain the cataclysmic run on sterling in the winter of 2017. This time, greedy bankers were not to blame. And far worse was to come.
In Suffolk, the shiny new Sizewell-C reactor, the first of the new generation of atomic-power plants, started to go haywire.

New style of terrorism: Threatd could come in the form of computer networks being hacked into instead of detonating bomb like this one in the 7/7 attacks
For a few anxious hours, engineers were in a state of near-panic, fearing a British Chernobyl 80 miles from London; helicopters were on standby to evacuate the 91-year-old Queen from Windsor.
And when Drax, the coal-burning dinosaur of a power station that provided 7 per cent of Britain’s electricity, went down an hour later, the country started to go into meltdown.
Power cuts scythed through Britain, plunging cities into darkness. Even in places where the grid stayed up, people found themselves without electricity; the new smart meters, built into every home to cut emissions, malfunctioned en masse.
The nationwide panic meant supermarket shelves emptied and petrol stations ran out of fuel after just four days. Within a week, power cuts were everywhere.
There was no TV, no radio and no mobile networks.
After a fortnight, there were riots, and the military, which was itself crippled by mysterious communications glitches, was called in.

More...
Our No.1 threat: Cyber terrorists who can knock a jet out of the sky
It was only after two months of chaos that order was gradually restored. But the attack of January 2017, which became known as the Britain’s ‘Pearl Harbour’, had brought one of the world’s most advanced nations almost to its knees.
It had also cost an estimated 2,900 lives (mostly from cold — the attack happened in the middle of the worst winter for 54 years) and £80bn to clear up.
But the worst of it was no one ever discovered who was to blame.

New breed of terror: Computer hackers could plunge the country into panic by infiltrating our computer network
This terrifying scenario may seem like a science fiction movie. But it is exactly the sort of possibility currently being considered at the highest levels in government as part of the National Security Strategy.
Yesterday, the government ranked cyber warfare — attacks on Britain’s IT infrastructure — alongside terrorism as the most serious threat to national security,
giving it a higher priority than preparing for military conflict and pledging £500 million to bolster defences against such attacks.
Some suggest that yesterday’s announcement, in advance of today’s detailed briefing on defence cuts, amounts to defence on the cheap. After all, the computer programmers employed to protect us from cyber attack are cheaper than new helicopters.
But most experts warn that the threat is very real.
Our vulnerability is a side-effect of the explosive growth of computer networks in the past 30 years
‘A modern nation state could be brought to a halt quickly, probably by attacking the power grid,’ says Professor John McDermid, a computer security expert at York University. ‘
Britain’s enemies could attack 20,000 times. And they would need to succeed only once.’
Iain Lobban, director of the government communications headquarters (GCHQ) said last week that 1,000 cyber attacks are being detected each month on government networks, sent by unknown hackers who could range from individuals with a grudge to terrorist groups and entire countries.
He says the emails, often containing damaging viruses and other software, have already caused ‘significant disruption ’ — and while government agencies
have so far minimised the damage, sooner or later we will be hit with something they don’t catch in time.
Our vulnerability is a side-effect of the explosive growth of computer networks in the past 30 years. As recently as the 1980s, electricity companies, banks and the military mostly ran self-contained computer networks quarantined from the outside world. As late as 1995, MI6 had to depend on a single, standalone PC in headquarters to access the internet.
Now, every large company and organisation has connected its systems to the web. In effect, we have traded the immense benefits of going online for the potentially catastrophic risks that come from opening our servers to the world.
So how could a cyber attack take place?
It isn’t just a matter of guessing passwords; all big organisations have sophisticated encrypted systems and formidable firewalls to protect them from random attackers. But there are usually ways in.
A few weeks ago, a piece of malware — software designed to disrupt or destroy a network or computer system — called the Stuxnet Worm was ‘injected’ into the control systems of the Iranian nuclear power programme based in Natanz, causing severe disruption.
Any attempt to harness the global power of the internet to run vital strategic systems poses massive security risks
No one knows who planted it, but suspicions have fallen upon the Israelis or perhaps the British.
According to experts, a weak underbelly of many systems is simple email. Three years ago, Estonia came under a concerted cyber attack which affected banks and the media after masses of data flooded into the country, largely via emails.
Using email, a hacker can smuggle computer viruses and ‘worms’ — designed to gather secret and sensitive data about account holders and passwords — into a banking system, and leave them dormant until the right moment to strike.
But it is the electricity networks that provide the most likely target for a determined cyber-attack. In the U.S., President Obama wants to create a ‘smart grid’, connecting the U.S.’s 200,000 miles of transmission cables to the internet. Power firms would then be able to balance supply and demand with unheard-of efficiency.
However, without careful thought, this could be, in the words of cyber security expert Melissa Hathaway, a ‘dangerously dumb idea’.
Writing in Scientific American this week, Dr Hathaway argues that any attempt to harness the global power of the internet to run vital strategic systems poses massive security risks.
Put simply, if you wire your entire electricity network to the net and then someone hacks into the system, they can close your country down.
In Britain, we are being encouraged to fit ‘smart meters’ to our homes to monitor power use. Soon, smart meters are likely to be mandatory — a boon to hackers, as each house in the land will then have its electricity supply linked to the net.
We may see a new Cold War in the middle years of this century, the weapons being not tanks and missiles but increasingly sophisticated malware injected into the net
‘I could probably then turn off your house if I wanted to,’ says Prof McDermid of York University.
An even cleverer cyber attack would not involve hacking at all. In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security is worried about the amount of computer hardware used by the government, military and big commerce that is manufactured outside the country.
Viruses and worms could be into the billions of computer chips being shipped to the U.S., incorporated into the printed circuitry itself rather than having
to be smuggled in via malicious email.

The obvious defence is to buy only locally-made chips and circuitry, but with 90 per cent of computer hardware now being made in the Far East, the genie is probably out of the bottle.
Many computer experts are worried about future trade wars between the West and emerging powers. At the moment, it would be madness for the Chinese to do anything to harm their customer base.
But if its growth continues apace, then we may see a new Cold War in the middle years of this century, the weapons being not tanks and missiles but increasingly sophisticated malware injected into the net by both sides, designed to cripple their adversaries’ vital systems.
This will be the first time in history when enemies in a war are both forced to share the same weapon — in this case the global computer network. But it is no less dangerous for that.
For the truth is that, after decades of worrying about Soviet tanks, nuclear weapons and bio-warfare, in the coming years we will have to add the humble keyboard
and mouse to the list of weapons of mass destruction


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/articl...l#ixzz17kftXaIk

[johnnycakes]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continu

Natral,

It may be that the internet and all that is dependent on it will force the world into a different way that will include more of a voice for the common people.
If these systems are vulnerable and there are people angry with the way things are run who have the capability to shut things down, then social justice and a more moral way of doing things may become the only way for any computer run country /world to survive.

So far the hackers seem to be of a higher moral standing than those they are attacking.
But... I am also aware that any government and especially that of the Evil Empire can and does have capable hackers/computer wizards who are willing to sell their souls to the GOUSA.
Still, I think it is said that any defense the empire can put up can be hacked so hopefully there is no defense for the empire against a determined and moral force out to get them.

Nuclear blackmail is a very scary concept..

[R_C]

Re: A sign of future wars - Wikileaks saga continues

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Infosec-comsec protects the most valuable secrets on earth -- defense operational plans, weapons of mass destruction technology and intelligence among others. Encryption plays a vital role along with subterfuge about capabilities for offense and defensive information warfare. Deception and ploys abound. Attacks and counterattacks test for vulnerability, using means more powerful than an expected enemy. Insiders and outsiders are employed to test continuously, the unorthodox and orthodox. The witting and unwitting are drawn into tests by falling for lures set up for that purpose. A target may recognize a lure and pretend to fall for it to assay a defender's capabilities, and that may lead to a counter-subterfuge, and so on. Cryptography and cryptanalyis battle without end.</div></div>