{"id":177770,"date":"2019-06-16T18:55:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T23:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/06\/16\/this-is-not-going-to-end-well\/"},"modified":"2019-06-16T18:55:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-16T23:55:00","slug":"this-is-not-going-to-end-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/06\/16\/this-is-not-going-to-end-well\/","title":{"rendered":"This is Not Going to End Well\u2026\u2026\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
One of the problems with cyber-weaponry is that any time you use it, you are giving the detailed plans of that weapon, and the means to produce that weapon to use against you.<\/p>\n

One needs only to look at the history of Stuxnet<\/a>, where, once it was out in the wild, it was repeatedly repurposed in other attacks.<\/div>\n

Needless to say, the permanent war crowd in the seems to think that whatever they do to someone else will never reflect back upon them. <\/p>\n

So it comes as no surprise that we now have reports that the United States is launching attacks on the Russian power grid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not only are we giving the Russians these cyber weapons, but we have just validated attacks on our infrastructure every state and non-state actor so inclined:<\/p>\n

The United States is stepping up digital incursions into Russia\u2019s electric power grid in a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin and a demonstration of how the Trump administration is using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively, current and former government officials said.<\/p>\n

In interviews over the past three months, the officials described the previously unreported deployment of American computer code inside Russia\u2019s grid and other targets as a classified companion to more publicly discussed action directed at Moscow\u2019s disinformation and hacking units around the 2018 midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Advocates of the more aggressive strategy said it was long overdue, after years of public warnings from the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I.<\/a> that Russia has inserted malware that could sabotage American power plants, oil and gas pipelines, or water supplies in any future conflict with the United States.<\/p>\n

But it also carries significant risk of escalating the daily digital Cold War between Washington and Moscow.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gee, you think?<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

But now the American strategy has shifted more toward offense, officials say, with the placement of potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before. It is intended partly as a warning, and partly to be poised to conduct cyberstrikes if a major conflict broke out between Washington and Moscow.<\/p>\n

The commander of United States Cyber Command, Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, has been outspoken about the need to \u201cdefend forward\u201d deep in an adversary\u2019s networks to demonstrate that the United States will respond to the barrage of online attacks aimed at it. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, if your opponent discovers this, they have the same tech that you do, as well as the means to manufacture and deliver the payload.<\/p>\n

This is shortsighted and dangerous.<\/p>\n

But there is also something even scarier:<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place \u201cimplants\u201d \u2014 software code that can be used for surveillance or attack \u2014 inside the Russian grid.<\/span>

<\/span> Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction \u2014 and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It appears that the only thing scarier than Trump being in charge is Trump NOT<\/b> being in charge.<\/p>\n

The idea that military and intelligence authorities could initiate attacks on a potential adversary without any sort of authorization from civilian authorities is profoundly terrifying<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the problems with cyber-weaponry is that any time you use it, you are giving the detailed plans of that weapon, and the means to produce that weapon to use against you. One needs only to look at the history of Stuxnet, where, once it was out in the wild, it was repeatedly repurposed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[395,369,394,455,406,377],"class_list":["post-177770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-computer","tag-espionage","tag-foreign-relations","tag-russia","tag-stupid","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177770"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}