Cyber Attacks, Act of war and the equivalence..

mike_cos

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On the eve of the publication of his first, formal, cyber-strategy, the Pentagon began releasing the first content information. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that DoD would be directed to consider the attacks that caused death, destruction or serious damage to be equivalent to actual armed attacks, acts of war which would justify the retaliatory second traditional means. Attacks on non-conventional and conventional response. A new edition, updated to the twenty-first century, the strategy of deterrence of the Cold War in the European theater where, conversely, to attack the U.S. would respond using conventional nuclear weapons.
In brief... in US will discover that a Government of a nation is guilty of cyber-attacks against US military objs, will respond with real bombs... not bullshits...
What you think mates? (hey... it's a long time I don't see Pardus...)

SOURCE WSJ
 
I read this yesterday or two days ago and wanted to hold judgement. I am still not sure what to think because of a few reasons.

1). It would take a government body to admit to a cyber attack, which is very unlikely. Otherwise it could be blamed on IP address spoofing, a compromised machine, people not affiliated with the government, etc.

2)."Destruction" or "serious damage" are pretty vague terms.

3). If it does come out that we in fact were partially responsible for Stuxnet, did we commit an act of war against Iran?

4). With how involved to government is with some of its contractors, how would they view their contractors getting compromised (is Lockheed, L3, and I am sure many others that use RSA SecureID)?

5). What about a non-government entity causing death, destruction, or serious damage via a cyber attack? Will they be considered terrorists or enemies of the State? What if it originates from within our border?

So what resources would we allocate to the response to a cyber attack? Troops on the ground? A cyber counter-attack? One of the main problems with this is that I feel as though our military is for the most part battle weary. A strategy like this could cause us more problems than anticipated. Or on the flip side, it is just something to make the citizens of this country feel a little more secure since most governments wouldn't admit to any type of cyber attack on the United States.

I understand only a small amount of the strategy has been released. That is the main reason why I reserve judgement. I would expect the full strategy answers my questions and more.
 
It's always good to have some sort of strategy in place, IMO (as long as it is well thought out). I am just not so sure if this is more of a symbolic move or something to give other governments a legitimate reason to pause.

And why now? I guess it is as good a time as any, but is it so we might have a legitimate reason to go after Iran in case of retaliation for Stuxnet (if it does come to light we actually had a part in it)?

Just some thoughts I have on the subject. :-/
 
It's always good to have some sort of strategy in place, IMO (as long as it is well thought out). I am just not so sure if this is more of a symbolic move or something to give other governments a legitimate reason to pause.

And why now? I guess it is as good a time as any, but is it so we might have a legitimate reason to go after Iran in case of retaliation for Stuxnet (if it does come to light we actually had a part in it)?

Just some thoughts I have on the subject. :-/
Perhaps it's because relatively speaking we don't have much experience in Cyber warfare. We've been hit multiple times before by "probing" attacks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberwarfare_in_the_United_States#Cyberwarfare_activities_of_the_U.S.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terr...rd-against-cyber-attacks-Intel-director-Blair

Maybe this is just a way to say- Yeah, we're not the Cyber-warfare powerhouse, but we're still the military superpower. A deterrent.
 
Perhaps it's because relatively speaking we don't have much experience in Cyber warfare. We've been hit multiple times before by "probing" attacks.

Maybe this is just a way to say- Yeah, we're not the Cyber-warfare powerhouse, but we're still the military superpower. A deterrent.

Very good points. I think the biggest issue with this is that we have some extremely talented "kids" in this field in our country. It is extremely hard to recruit them into government work because they are anti-Big Brother and anti-police State, which many of the people in this industry feel as though we are moving to, if not already there.

I think it's more of a warning to those governments (like china?) that have tried to penetrate US military network.... forewarned is forearmed....

Another good point. China has been in and out of many government networks worldwide for many years, and they were the first country I thought of when I first heard about the cyber strategy. But in all seriousness, do you think the US would actually retaliate against China? At least with bombs? If anything, the US might engage in cyber warfare, but I have a hard time believing we would be very effective (although I also believe that if another country officially attacked the US via cyber warfare, that would rally different hacker and skiddie groups in the US and around the world against that other country and it may start "WWIII" through the Internet. WarGames anybody?).
 

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I read about this in the paper this morning. I think it's so heavily caveated that it will never be used, sounds like political posturing to say "hey look we're doing something!"
 
I don't have a problem with the policy or that it's vague. Cyber-warfare could affect so much in our country you really can't be specific. It's a necessary message to tell the world. Cyber-warfare can be very cost effective and low risk without having this stated policy. Countries should know if they attack us there will be consequences for an attack. You make take down our power grid from a computer but we will take down your power grid with a JDAM.
 
I read about this in the paper this morning. I think it's so heavily caveated that it will never be used, sounds like political posturing to say "hey look we're doing something!"
Agree, but could be used to punch a minor power (Pakistan) in the nose should an Administration feel compelled.
This could also be used to harass China, India, S.Korea and a few other hacking power houses.
 
As others have said, it's only possible to tell (superficially) where an attack has come from. Proving it's a government behind it all is neigh on impossible.
 
oh really?... I had not noticed...
Libya is a good example, as is Bosnia, Kosovo, Operation DENY FLIGHT.
Afghanistan is iffy (Don't think it is an Article 5 Operation).
Only once (maybe twice) has NATO conducted operations under Article 5, anyone wanna guess where the Art 5 ops were conducted?
 
Libya is a good example, as is Bosnia, Kosovo, Operation DENY FLIGHT.
Afghanistan is iffy (Don't think it is an Article 5 Operation).
Only once (maybe twice) has NATO conducted operations under Article 5, anyone wanna guess where the Art 5 ops were conducted?
Hey mate... mine was only a provocation....you americans must begin to be used to these provocations after some election results in Europe.. ig in Italy communists are raising again... not everyone is kind to the USA as Berlusconi.. (and me)
 
Thank you Saint Michael.

07-S_Michele.jpg
 
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