Ask George Smith e-mail: webmaster at dick destiny
Your host did an interview for Voice of America radio this morning.
Sparked by the circulating news of malware on the Creech AFB network used in Predator drone missions, it unavoidably got into the area of cyberattack aimed at the US.
Which I’ve discussed for years.
This is rubbish and always has been. But more people need to say it on radio and TV news, so I did for VOA.
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New Empire’s Dog Feces material, lads, Wired and Reuters on the excrement stick about a computer virus (a keystroke logger) on the Creech AFB network used to control Predator drone missions.
No links.
Full of anonymous sources, obvious US mil tech geeks getting erections over spilling the beans, readers are informed no one is panicking yet.
As a matter of context, DD remembers computer viruses being found on US military systems used in the Yugoslavia/Serbia, a computer virus on a space shuttle computer, and numerous viruses — one infamous piece of malware infiltrated on a thumb drive — on networked computers used in Afghanistan.
It’s safe to say malware as well as spyware has probably been found wherever we have networked computers involved in killing various paupers around the world.
“Holy s—, man!” I hear someone mutter. “It’s Predator drones!”
Yeah, so? All things considered, what took so long?
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Credit Occupy Wall Street with its non-violent hostile encampment on Wall Street, symbolically drawing a long overdue bullseye on the backs of the Lloyd Blankfeins and Jamie Dimons of the country.
It is no surprise then that hackers would be after their private information.
The addresses of the Goldman Sachs CEO and similar material pertaining to Chase’s Jamie Dimon were posted to Pastebin by a hacking group called CabinCr3w.
This brief ABC News story indicated the Blankfein spill was rapidly deleted, the corporate on-line world still being very much afraid of the masters of the universe.
However, apparently Jamie Dimon of Chase is not considered as menacing.
His entry at Pastebin is still up.
“The group did not explain why it had targeted Goldman Sachs, one of the most prominent investment banks in the world,” reported a seemingly slow-witted reporter for ABC News on-line.
Months ago I posted that the Wall Street banksters remained relatively safe from overt demonstrations of anger because of their anonymity.
Outside of journalists who wrote best-selling books on the economic collapse, average America remained largely ignorant of their names and faces.
At the time I called it the Lloyd Blankfein Rule and this is it:
Even if there’s an appetite for a lynching in the public, if nobody knows the names of the to-be-lynched … then the latter are probably safe.
That may be changing thanks to the NYC protests and the crews of cyber-paupers who show no reluctance in getting after the plutocrats on the Internet.
While they still enjoy the protection of the government and the rule of law — which, as many have figured out, only gets applied for the benefit of the top one percent, they enjoy no public sympathy. And it cannot but help to continually put their names in front of growing crowds of angry people.
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Protect the plutocracy from the cyber-paupers:
DHS’ latest bulletin, issued Sept. 3, warned the group has been using social media networks to urge followers working in the financial industry to sabotage their employers’ computer systems.
National pauperism at all time high:
Reflecting the lingering impact of the recession, the U.S. poverty rate from 2007-2010 has now risen faster than any three-year period since the early 1980s, when a crippling energy crisis amid government cutbacks contributed to inflation, spiraling interest rates and unemployment.
Measured by total numbers, the 46 million now living in poverty is the largest on record dating back to when the census began tracking poverty in 1959 …
Bruce Meyer, a public policy professor at the University of Chicago, cautioned that the worst may yet to come in poverty levels, citing in part continued rising demand for food stamps this year as well as “staggeringly high” numbers in those unemployed for more than 26 weeks. He noted that more than 6 million people now represent the so-called long-term unemployed …
He can’t help smiling every time he sees each shiny new Grand Cherokee, one of Chrysler’s top-selling models, roll off the line. Still, it’s tough to accept that his entire annual salary of about $30,000 is not enough to afford the least expensive Jeep made at Jefferson North.
“It would be a shame to work at Chrysler,??? he said, “and not be able to drive a Chrysler.???
The man’s “salary” is 10k below, or only 75 percent of, the national average wage.
It’s the Guitar Center model of employment. The sales clerks are paid so low they can’t afford the America-made premium instruments.
Riots have not yet started.
US commits supercomputer research to predicting riots:
Research that took place in the US – no comment on why the US would be interested in studying unrest – used millions of articles as a feed for a computer and found that if you gave it enough information about unrest it could tell you that there was unrest.
In this case the analysis was carried out retrospectively, but according to those involved it could also be used to spot upcoming problems, which in the context of US backed research starts to sound a little bit sinister.
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I cover the IT security industry for IT-Harvest. I am the author of Surviving Cyberwar, a Government Institutes book available on Amazon. I have presented at conferences and industry events in 26 countries on six continents. I am a prolific source for journalists and news media.
I bet.
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I continue to maintain the cyber-defense industry is for the haves.
Half the populace could be in plywood shacks and lining up for a chance to have what’s left of the laundry done at homeless centers and we’d still have to put up with warning about cyber-attacks on the financial system.
These assembled quotes, inspired by the recent outbreak of cyberwar fear pieces, added to by McAfee Associates, a company now acting as an intelligence agency, issuing reports that we’ve suffered through a five year cyberwar, the equivalent to a Pearl Harbor (boldface snark, mine):
What’s the point of these attacks? Alperovitch isn’t sure but he believes, “If even a fraction of it is used to build better competing products or beat a competitor at a key negotiation (due to having stolen the other team’s playbook), the loss represents a massive economic threat not just to individual companies and industries but to entire countries that face the prospect of decreased economic growth
Decreased economic growth.
The first shots appear to have been fired in the first major cyber-war. The next question is: “Who’s behind them???? Alperovitch isn’t saying, but some observers suggest that China is behind what might be called a technology Pearl Harbor. — some PC mag on-line.
One of the scenarios I evoke frequently when speaking with clients about computer security is called “Frontier Friction.” At the beginning of the story, a coordinated terror attack takes out the servers of a large banking institution. They also take out their backup systems. A coordinated cyber-terror attack further disrupts the financial systems. In essence, all forms of non-physical finances become impossible to track and all transaction systems come to halt overnight. No recovery plan exits for such an attack. The developed world reverts into the third world within weeks. — FastCompany
The developed world reverts into the third world within weeks. Ignore the economic collapse here and in Europe today.
“The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyberattack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental systems,” Panetta said. He has said that cyber security will be a key focus of his Pentagon tenure. — one of about a thousand citations
Thanks, Leon.
Keep noticing the obsession with attacks on banking and the financial system. It’s a way of salesmanship. There’s no currency in selling cyberwar defense (or even much value added ice cream cone cybersecurity ‘ware) to the already broke middle class. It doesn’t care and doesn’t like buying it, anyway.
However, the plutocracy — or the collected coins in the US treasury — those are other matters, entirely, things to lust after.
Infrequently, something skeptical shows up in the mix. Invariably, it will not have been published by a big US computer security consultancy or sprung as a scoop by a news agency:
The targets for such criticism include Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), a consultancy with extensive ties to the US government which in 2010 won at least $400 million in cyber-security contracts. BAH’s executive vice-president isMike McConnell, former director of national intelligence (2007-09) and a leading cyber-hawk (“the United States is fighting a cyber-war today, and we are losing???, he has written in the Washington Post) …
[Peter Sommer’s] report outlines what it sees as real risks, while dismissing some “exaggerated scenarios???. For example, the study says that a cyber-attack is unlikely to cause great loss of life, or disable the banking system. “One hypothesis is that banks might get wiped out. That really is a bit of nonsense, because it’s trivially easy to back up computers???, Sommer says.
Sommer should know what he is talking about, for in the 1980s he wrote a genre-creating book ( The Hacker’s Handbook, under the pseudonym Hugo Cornwall) and has seen many alarms about cyber-malfeasance come and go. He says the current spasm risks wasting precious national resource …
Booz Allen and Smilin’ Mike McConnell. Yes, did that. You read it here, first.
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A dose of horseshit from plutocrat Richard Clarke today, one of the fathers of cyberwar and cyberterror furor going back to the Clinton administration.
Clarke opines on the pages of a Boston newspaper. Very little of it is worth reading for value in 2011 America. Arguments about cyberwar are of no interest to the American middle class. National “defense” again it is without value.
What Clarke knows — he’s a smart guy — is that the serious attacks on the country have all been internal. And they have nothing to do with the bullshit meme of cyberwar.
The problems that plague the United States — economic failure on a breath-taking scale — have nothing to do with the issues he’s pursued for the last decade. It’s an astonishing thing to have been shown to be so wrong in the last three years.
The enemy was not the explosion of the wired world. And, in comparison to what has been done to the average well-being of Americans, theoretical cyberwars and Stuxnet viruses are trivial things.
In the US, most journalists on the cybersecurity/cyberwar beat act like insane people. They call up and always want to talk about what a cyberwar would look like and what can be done to forestall or mitigate it.
My gut reaction is “Who cares?” Americans want protection from Wall Street and the economic system that has, for instance, caused a record explosion in the number of people who must rely on food stamps.
When I tell American reporters these things they act as if bitten by a poisonous snake coming out of the telephone line.
What? You question the authority of the Clarke’s and Mike McConnell’s of our great nation?
Nope, just asking for some grounding in the real world. Some perspective. Not the opinions from someone used to employing argument from totem pole authority over and over.
Anyway, some excerpts from Richard the Plutocrat and “The coming cyberwars:”
IMAGINE IF President Kennedy issued a nuclear war strategy in the 1960s that omitted the fact that we had nuclear weapons, B-52 bombers, and long-range missiles. What if his public strategy had just talked about fallout shelters and protecting the government? As absurd as that would have been, that is similar to what the Obama administration just did with regard to the nation’s cyber war strategy …
[Generals] have bemoaned the inability of the civilian departments and the private sector to defend critical US networks (like banking, electricity, and transportation) and have suggested the military may have to defend those networks.
During his confirmation hearings, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta voiced concern about the possibility of a “digital Pearl Harbor’’ that would cripple our electric power grid, banks, and transportation networks.
There it all is. The plutocrat obsession with attacks — always mentioning banking and electrical power — the former which gives away the concern that the paupers could come for their stuff. And so they need military grade protection.
You can ask people to mull over a simple thought experiment having to do with the US economy.
Yesterday, the news was very bad. The stock market tanked due to lack of faith in the stability and wisdom of the US government and economic health of the nation, so reliant upon it. The Chinese — who are often mentioned as those who could launch a cyberwar on the US — issued a dressing down on the matter.
As tightly intertwined as China is with the US, it absolutely must export to this country, of what possible value would be an attack from that country on our economy and financial system in cyberspace?
Assuming such a campaign could be mounted (and I doubt that it actually could), it would be a disaster for them. Yes, try to damage the purchasing power of your biggest customer even more.
That’s just rubbish thinking.
But that’s the Richard Clarke view. Clarke knows absolutely nothing of what matters to or affects average Americans.
In his last book of fiction, Breakpoint, which included various cyberattacks on the country, Clarke telegraphed to readers his great fondness for Kistler, sellers of 80 dollar bottles of white wine. (That’s the low ball figure, here’s the high. Only $114.00, cheap.)
Nice drink. I heard about it from the famous cyberwar plutocrat.
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What happens to some people who once were held in high regard re intelligence matters?
Sometimes they turn into fuddy-duddy lamers, blind to many of their limitations.
Such is the case with David Wise, a respected journalist who covered Cold War security affairs in articles and books for many years.
For the most part, that work is well behind him.
Today, he’s at Big Think, making a fool of himself on cyberwar:
There’s a lot we don’t know about the digital warfare that’s going on. Both sides have developed military plans to cripple, disable the internet or digital resources of a possible adversary. That’s not a secret.
It’s very difficult to say who has the upper hand in this battle …
None of it worth a cup of spit.
One lonely commenter shares a gratuitous insult:
A jerk off half witted article…….
A heap of speculation and fear mongering to add some spice.
Go back to licking stamps for a job.
That’s a bit harsh. David Wise was never a stamp-licker. But he is someone who ought to know when it’s time to leave this particular stage to betters.
Recently, Steve Aftergood somewhat favorably described Wise’s new book, Tiger Trap, on the secret war of espionage between the US and China.
“While the subject matter often lends itself to exaggeration or anti-China animus, Mr. Wise generally evades these hazards and sticks close to the facts,” wrote Aftergood.
Damned by faint praise, kind of.
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Some professor who puts her classes to sleep discovers a reason behind cyberwar hype:
The drumbeat in support of government monitoring and control over private networks becomes deafening when the drummer is Bush-era cybersecurity chief (and now executive vice president of Booz Allen) Michael McConnell …
It may be in consultants’ interest to create an atmosphere of fear when it comes to the Internet. But mindless saber-rattling is hardly in America’s interest. Some basic work is needed to improve security of the government’s own networks. Beyond that, if we want to make private networks more secure, the answer involves calmer approaches: investing in research and development, spurring the creation of safer software and educating our citizens and companies about computer security.
(Susan Crawford, a professor of law at Cardozo School of Law, specializing in Internet policy and communications law, is a Bloomberg View columnist.
Smilin’ Mike, cyberwar flogger-in-chief, from over a year ago.
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Smilin’ Mike and his firm, targeted by Anonymous. The ‘they had it coming’ rule in action.
A file containing more than 90,000 e-mail addresses plus passwords, logins and other information was put on The Pirate Bay file-sharing site.
The group [Anonymous] said it stole the information by targeting a poorly protected server on the defence firm’s network.
Booz Allen Hamilton declined to comment on the incident.
In text accompanying the download package, Anonymous said it was “surprised” at how easy it was to infiltrate the server given the consulting firm’s record of working on defence and homeland security.
If one goes to the Pirate Bay and reads the preamble from the group, it carries the strong scent of they-had-it-coming. Which I’ve mentioned previously.
Specifically, Booz Allen Hamilton and its cybersecurity operations director, Michael McConnell, are targets probably because of the very large role they played last year in cyberwar hype.
McConnell took it upon himself to enter the opinion pages of the biggest newspapers, to appear on 60 Minutes, trumpeting the danger of cyberwar. In computer security circles this was seen by many as abusive revolving-door behavior aimed at transferring more taxpayer money to Booz Allen’s cybersecurity contracting.
Booz Allen has been very strongly committed to hiring computer security specialists from the clutches of the government then leasing them back at premium rates.
And I covered the business quite a bit about a year ago, here, in Cult of Cyberwar: When Booz Allen’s mouthpiece attacks.
Look for the box containing the number of counts for Booz Allen and Michael McConnell appearances in the press. They were definitely working it.
Earlier this campaign got into Lockheed Martin, another business very big in providing contracting cybersecurity services for the US military.
At this point in time, national cybersecurity interests have nothing to do with betterment or benefit for the middle class. Basically, its part of the ruling class/warrior class/arms manufacturer tier. Alert readers will have noticed this isn’t about shadowy enemies attacking what the cyberwarriors are always going on about — a threatened infrastructure, water and power. Instead, it’s an attack on the firm that regularly used the ‘argument’ as a reason for awarding it more contracts.
When you see discussions of cyberwar in the mainstream media, that’s where it’s coming from, not from any altruistic desire to protect the average person’s life from something bad. It’s all about money and the financialization of cyber-defense.
Computer security, the lack of it, on the global network is a very substantial problem. But our cyberwarrior contractors aren’t really about fixing it or even managing it in some equitable way. Think of them more as the clouds of flies following garbage trucks to the dump.
Collected posts on Michael McConnell, Booz Allen and cyberwar — here — from the archives.
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