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Comment by unit91 | Hacker News Reader

I was an operator on a weapon system within the last decade that did not use encryption. I was horrified, naturally, but the explanations were:

1. Well, this is rapid deployment, we can't have everything.

2. The enemy here is fairly low-tech. Shouldn't be a problem.

Needless to say, I'm not surprised by this report.

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> The enemy here is fairly low-tech. Shouldn't be a problem.

Would be perfectly acceptable if your hardware was only used for 2-3 years against only low tech enemies that don't have access to electricity during that whole time.

I think this can be a downfall of the US military if they ever get into a conflict with a capable enemy. They are so used to use super complex and expensive weapons against enemies who can't really put up a resistance. I wonder what would happen to the B-2 bomber or aircraft carriers if they had to fight China. My guess is these weapons would be eliminated very quickly.

> They are so used to use super complex and expensive weapons against enemies who can't really put up a resistance.

Tell that to Vietnam and Afghanistan. Historically the US does well against standing armies (Iraq for example), but absolutely terribly against low-tech enemies who don't engage in a way that allows these super high tech weapons to be used effectively.

Reminds me of this: http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_arith.htm

  A scrimmage in a Border Station-
  A canter down some dark defile
  Two thousand pounds of education
  Drops to a ten-rupee jezail[1].
  The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
  Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezail

I meant it in a sense of an enemy that can take on the high tech weapons. Since the Korea war nobody challenged the high tech equipment in meaningful way.

I have to quibble with that a bit. The US regularly overflew the USSR and China through at least the mid 70s, meaning our best aircraft were in a very real sense fighting their best air defense systems 20 years+ after the Korean war ended.

There have almost certainly been satellite, submarine and other engagements too, they just aren't generally publicized by either side until 30-40+ years later.

True. However, I think in a real shooting war those aircraft could be attacked by a huge number of low tech weapons and get overwhelmed. From what I know about warfare often large numbers will eventually overwhelm every kind of defense. For example could an aircraft carrier handle 10000 incoming drones? I hope we'll never find out...

10,000 drones? How big a drone are we talking? They would have to be big enough to carry a weapon big enough to penetrate at least 1/2" steel (at the thinnest, only accessible from the side). If out to sea, a small EMP could drop them all.

Battles won by numerical superiority are usually won by defenders. If it's an invader, it's almost certainly early in the game. Even at the end of WW2, Germany wasn't invaded so much as it lost in France and Russia. The Allied rush to Berlin was an early aftermath. By the time supply chains necessary to conduct a protracted war have been committed, the true cost starts making invaders progressively less interested.

A more interesting concern is the major powers using proxies to demonstrate their new tech. If Russia sold Syria 10,000 drones, that might get interesting.

> Even at the end of WW2, Germany wasn't invaded so much as it lost in France and Russia

Sorry, no. Germany was very quickly overrun in 1945.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1945-05-01GerWW2Batt... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1945-05-15GerWW2Batt...

What they possibly meant was: the war was already lost when they got invaded at all.

That certainly was true. The war was already lost when they were still deeply into Russia. the last 2 years of WW2 were just trying to fight off the inevitable.

> Since the Korea war nobody challenged the high tech equipment in meaningful way

Le Duan tried to in Vietnam, the Easter Offensive. Despite fighting to a strategic draw, he under-estimated the effectiveness of US airpower and lost 100,000 men on the field.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Offensive#Aftermath

Thankfully the answer is "If we are fighting another nuclear power such that they are trying to shootdown a Bomber that didn't invade their airspace or sink an aircraft carrier something has already gone horribly wrong." Pax Atomica is in effect and there is a very reason why all of the wars were proxy wars. Everybody knows that it can only end in everyone losing.

Let's hope it stays that way but I am not too optimistic.

I think partisans are the only ones who would dare and the only way that would be remotely deniable for intelligence agencies is if they don't have major unexplained resources - including training. Which I suppose is where cyber attacks could be useful in the sense of "remote chance of working without being utterly atomic suicidal" - if sensors go down long enough for low budget explosive attacks or their own weapons decide they must sink is their own ship. The later /really/ shouldn't happen if people are doing their jobs given the sheer number of at all given the munitions handling and design sins that would require to be possible makes juggling loaded guns look like the peak of caution.

Sounds like classic underestimation of your opposition.

Yup. The enemy may be poorest of poor, but in this day and age, their entire population probably has smartphones (or at least dumbphones), and there's plenty of smart people with nothing better to do than to play with computers.

There aren't many low-tech places left on this planet, where it comes to computing.

The catch is that on DOD systems, encryption is very difficult to add. That is, to be certified by the NSA and compatible with the military key infrastructure. So its better to avoid mentioning it unless its forced on you. Better is a relative term here. I mean, in terms of cost and effort to add. Not security.

So since it's hard to get the rubber stamp you just do include encryption, that seems worse.

You're waiving encrypted channels around as if it were de facto mandatory. Without knowing the ConOps of the system, how could you possibly conclude that confidentiality was an imperative? Effective acquisition of weapon systems is about balancing budget, schedule, performance, and risk--a lot easier said that done.

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