Bruce Schneier: Has U.S. started an Internet war? | Hacker News Reader

Bruce Schneier: Has U.S. started an Internet war?

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237 pointsTitanous119 comments

I've long suspected 90% of the budgets and bills they are trying to pass is to help them offensively against other countries. And yet, 100% of their arguments in public were that they are needed for defense.

The government seems to be lying about a lot of things it's doing in your name. You may be okay with it, but just don't act surprised when the retaliation begins, which of course the US government will make it seem like they started it, and now they need even more money and you having fewer liberties to help in the "cyberwar" that they started.

And just like that the "cyberwarfare industry complex" will keep expanding just like the "military industry complex" for decades to come, if nobody wants to do anything to stop it before it can't be stopped anymore, and its budgets will keep increasing year after year, with no one daring to touch them.

>> the US government will make it seem like they started it

This has been done extensively with the war on terror. The idiocy of the "they hate our freedoms" statement has been weighing on me lately. I agree that caving to a terrorist's demands immediately is a bad thing to do because it encourages a violent approach to change, which we shouldn't do. But shouldn't we also take a step back and say "hey - we're killing people on the other side of the world - maybe we should stop!". If "they hate our freedoms" they must be pretty happy to see what the Patriot Act has done in response - because evidently we gave them exactly what they wanted.

You know what's pretty stupid? Routinely violating the sovereignty of a state that has nuclear weapons with drone attacks that kill their civilians (i.e. Pakistan). I doubt they'd ever launch a strike on U.S. soil, but if one of those weapons were to accidentally fall into Taliban hands... It's entirely luck that the Taliban are so brutal (i.e. Shooting school-girl activists in the head) that they don't have universal support in Pakistan.

Unfortunately the Pakistani government seems fairly complacent about that one. It distresses me that even a nuclear power like them seems to tolerate so much of our shit. I think that nuclear deterrent is not as strong as we would like to think.

The US government funds much of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies. Around $18 Billion dollars in the last decade of official aid, of which more than half is military - not sure if there are even figures for the last few years but they've presumably grown. That's a lot of incentive in some very powerful parts of the government to allow the US carte blanche to kill whoever they want to. One day some of that money will probably be used for an attack on US soil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_aid_to_Pakistan#U.S._f...

The Pakistanis must authorize, allow, and support US drone operations in their airspace. This is the only plausible explanation for the US drone airfields within Pakistan, which were visible for some time on Google Earth, (though I have not checked recently).

You know it has become fashionable to hate on Ron Paul and his supporters, but he is one of the few politicians I have ever learned anything from.

Namely that in 1988 the US shot down an Iranian passenger plane, in its OWN air space, with a MISSILE! Which of course killed everyone on board.

Imagine if there was an Iranian aircraft carrier parked around NYC, and it fired a missile into an passenger airliner taking off from JFK. Imagine what would happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Holy crap, I completely missed that. I thought KAL007 was the worst incident like this.

> However, the United States has never admitted responsibility, nor apologized to Iran.

Why not? That would seem to be the proper thing to do.

KAL 007 was worse. The Iran Air Flight 655 debacle started with Iranian gun boats firing on one of the ship's helicopters. i.e. the shoot down was during combat initiated by the Iranians. KAL 007 was ultimately shot down because the Soviets involved didn't want to lose face or worse by letting it escape their airspace (it had probably left by the time it was fired upon).

The gun boats were firing upon the ship's helicopters because they were in Iranian airspace ...

That's what the Iranians claim. We obviously claim differently.

But even if they were correct, or honestly mistaken, why is shooting at an aircraft a good response to it intruding on your airspace? When you're not in a hot war with the intruder nothing good can come from it. In fact, this brings us right back to KAL 007....

The Iranians were in a hot war at the time. A particularly brutal one. The people they were fighting had US support, who were providing: "Several billion dollars worth of economic aid; the sale of dual-use technology and non-U.S. origin weaponry; military intelligence; Special Operations training; direct involvement in warfare"

As I said, "nothing good can come from it". Wikipedia says in reference to Sadam's threat to wage chemical warfare and underlining it by gassing a number of Kurdish villages "and some larger towns", and this shoot down (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War#Iran_acce...):

"The lack of international sympathy disturbed the Iranian leadership, and they came to the conclusion that the United States was on the verge of waging a full-scale war against them, and that Iraq was on the verge of unleashing its entire chemical arsenal upon their major cities."

They were well within their right to shoot at the Americans, who were only in the area to provide aid for Saddam, who was gassing Kurds and threatening to gas Tehran. Expecting the Iranians not so shoot back was foolish, and shooting down that airliner in retaliation was plainly barbaric.

The aftermath of the incident has no bearing on whether the Iranian reaction to the intrusion was rational or justified. The order of events does not support such a line of reasoning. What you are basically saying is that nobody should ever shoot at Americans no matter where they are or what they are doing, no matter the current military or political circumstance. Ridiculous.

Just to make it completely clear (I hope), I'm saying a country should not shoot at entities of another county it is not in a hot war with.

And I think that is a fine principle, but an unreasonable expectation.

To be clear, the shooting down of the airliner was a mistake (it was misinterpreted as an attacking F-14). It was not done in retaliation to anything.

It is not clear at all. That version is heavily disputed, and reflects only official US Government's view.

The U.S. was in a hot war as well.

The shootdown of Iran Air 655 occurred during Operation Earnest Will, which involved the convoying of Kuwaiti (not Iraqi) oil tankers through the Persian Gulf to protect them from Iranian interdiction contrary to the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea regarding international waters and navigation rights.

Throughout this operation, Iran conducted mining efforts within the Persian Gulf. On the very first convoy an oil tanker was hit by an Iranian mine (luckily causing no injuries or loss of life). Later in the convoy operation U.S. special operating forces managed to capture an Iranian minelayer in the act of laying mines.

Later during this same operation, USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) was struck by an Iranian mine (proven based on serial numbers matching mines noted from the aforementioned spec-ops mission).

The mine caused damage which is normally fatal to warships of that size (the keel cracked and both engines were knocked from their mounts). She had to limp out of the minefield on auxiliary thrusters while the crew fought to contain damage and save the ship. 10 sailors were injured badly enough to require evacuation. 4 of those were badly burned and had to be sent all the way back to the U.S. to recuperate.

As a result of that, the U.S. Navy launched a short surface operation against Iranian platforms (Operation Praying Mantis) on April 18, 1988.

Meanwhile, about a year before Iran Air 655, on May 17, 1987, an Iraqi (U.S. ally??) Air Force jet had attacked the frigate USS Stark (FFG-31) with two Exocet missile in the Persian Gulf. Though the damage to the ship itself was not as severe, 37 sailors died and 21 more were injured.

In the context of all of that, on July 3, 1988, USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air 655. To be clear the ship captain was clearly in the wrong. Even with the 'fog of war' and the problems of having to use instruments to fight instead of one's own eyes he had enough indications to know he wasn't under attack.

But the shootdown itself didn't come out of thin air, and the U.S. was brought into a tense situation in the lead-up to the events of that day (though admittedly, they didn't do much to de-escalate either once it started happening).

Even more reason to not be surprised that the Iranians shot at the US.

Just so I'm clear, you're saying that a country preventing their own merchant ships from being attacked in order to maintain free trade on international waters in accordance with international law justifies blowing up one of that country's warships?

I'm saying that war is shit, but if you are in one then don't expect not to get shot at. There is no sense acting indignant about it. They were not shot at out of the blue, there was an existing conflict.

In this discussion it hardly matters who was on the right side of the overall conflict, however, in this specific engagement: the Iranians shooting at the Americans was reasonable and should not have surprised anybody; the Americans shooting back was reasonable and should not have surprised anybody. The only real problem was the American shooting at the airliner.

Keep in mind too that the Americans did not know it was a commercial airliner. It certainly was not a deliberate targeting of a civilian plane.

Actually, according to the WP article sources they did.

There were Americans on nearby warships who knew (and arguably, should have provided forceful backup; but the other warships had far inferior radars and thought that Vincennes knew something they didn't). The watchstanders on Vincennes did not know. They should have known, but there was no "bright line" that makes a given radar target look automatically civilian or automatically military on the display. Watchstanders and the CO have to make that determination based on a confluence of factors, including IFF transponder frequency, flight plan, whether the craft is ascending/descending, etc. The CO came to the conclusion early that the indications he had were of an attacking aircraft. Part of that was based on a determination that the aircraft was descending in a hostile attack pattern. It wasn't, and the AEGIS radar showed as much. But when the life-or-death decision point for your ship rests on whether you see a '-' or a '+' next to a altitude change rate it's not astonishing when a watchstander makes the wrong call.

The Vincennes watchstanders tried hailing the aircraft two times, but didn't get a response. But even that didn't really help resolve the issue; was it an hostile aircraft maintaining radio silence or a confused civilian airliner? They used a frequency a civilian airliner could have picked up, but it turns out there were several other frequencies the airliner could have been monitoring as well, and besides... how was the Iran Air 655 pilot to know Vincennes was ever referring to them?

Vincennes was having to make a hail to the effect of "unidentified aircraft south of Bandar abbas with speed 350 knots, heading 210, you are on a hostile course and this warship will take defensive measures". What civilian airliner pilot would think that applied to them (though Vincennes quoted speed-over-ground and not the airspeed the pilot would have been looking at).

So there were tons of 'Final Destination'-esque problems that occurred here, but foremost of all was that the watchteam (CO and CIC watchstanders both) determined early based on a single misread indication that they were being attacked, and the evidence they had available to them after that could easily be construed to support that determination.

The US administration agreed to reflag Kuwaiti tankers as US tankers as a dodge around US law that prohibited the US from convoying foreign merchant ships, as part of administration's broad policy of support for Iraq's unprovoked and extended war of aggression aimed specifically at seizing particular Iranian territory, mainly Persian Gulf ports. (Why protect Kuwaiti tankers as part of supporting Iraq's war? Because the reason Kuwaiti tankers were being targetted was because Kuwait was spending billions of dollars supporting the war; Iran was attacking the flow of money supporting Iraq's war effort.)

The entire operation (and several other operations close in time in the Persian Gulf) was the US administration choosing to directly intervene in support of Iraq in the war with Iran; the limited scope of the intervention was a matter of sell it, above all to US domestic audiences, as something other than the direct support for Iraq that it was.

I understand that there were way more geopolitical considerations than just "Iran bad Kuwait good". Whatever other problems Iran might have with Kuwait, didn't justify closing off the whole Persian Gulf.

And if the U.S. wanted to re-enact a modern form of the old "Cash and Carry" plan they imposed on the U.K. before Pearl Harbor, then they were within their rights to do so as well as long as they obeyed UNCLOS.

The additional U.S. direct intervention on the side of Iraq (e.g. weapons, training) has been pretty conclusively demonstrated to have been stupid and unhelpful with regard to geopolitical stability in the Middle East (several times over, by now).

But in any event, if Iran had really wanted to blockade Kuwait then they should have declared war and blockaded Kuwait (it doesn't exactly have a wide coastline), instead of mining international waters. At least then they would have the moral high ground should the U.S. still have decided to intervene.

That's not 'hot war', that's all 'gunboat diplomacy'. If it is a war, it's still a cold war. Militarising coastal waters to apply pressure. If the US was in a 'hot war' with Iran, there would have been more than a planeload of civilians as casualties - a 'hot war' is one were there's been a declaration of war and there's an armed conflict going on.

People died all the time on the interface between the First and Second Worlds, yet it was still termed a 'cold war' for the decades it existed.

Enforcing maritime law isn't "militarising coastal waters." Trying to defend what the Iranians were doing as innocent is disingenuous.

And a hot war is one where bullets, missiles, shells are flying around. Just because there's no declaration of war doesn't mean it's not a war. Let's look at a little history here:

Korean War - Hmm, no declaration of war Vietnam War - Same Grenada - Same Panama - Same Desert Shield/Storm - hmm, no declaration here either OIF - Same OEF - Same

So the pattern is pretty clear, that declarations of war aren't worth the paper they're printed on. And try telling the combatants on both sides in the above conflicts that they weren't in a hot war.

Speaking of disingenuous, where did I defend what the Iranians did? Where did I say that gunboat diplomacy was only a US thing?

And a hot war is one where bullets, missiles, shells are flying around So the Cold War was a hot war then? You can't fix a poor definition with a poorer definition.

I'd like to point out that one of the main reasons the airplane got shot down is it's transponder had the same signal as Iranian Fighter jets since it passed one before take off on the tarmac. (Discovery's Mayday did an episode on this accident)

That criminal of a captain was sitting under a documented air route and threatened other planes. He knew perfectly well that plenty of airliners flew there. Like the great grandparent said - imaging if the Iranians did this to the US. There would be a large regional war at a minimum.

Apparently he got a medal upon exiting the service instead of the court martial he really deserved.

Everyone (yes, literally everyone) gets a medal at the end of their service if they are not removed for disciplinary reasons (due process is lovely). The CO was by all measures a giant douchebag even without having the shootdown of Iran Air 655 on his hands but you're essentially not going to get a court-martial conviction on a CO that shoots down a plane when his watchteam was also convinced of the threat.

What you want to look at with medals is the type of medal they get, as that is where you can tell how much esteem they possess (or don't).

That comment instills so little confidence in the US navy, kids with guns and all that.

KAL 007 was also shot down because it was in vicinity of a secret missile launch going on and a actual US AF spy plane was close by

Try to get a US politician to talk about anything that we do wrong with regard to foreign policy. Don't forget that we overthrew their democratically elected government too (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat).

Ron Paul is intellectually honest; I regret not voting for him now. It would have been mostly symbolic but you know he would be on the right side of this whole PRISM debacle.

Seems like the Pauls, father and son, have ideologies that are positive for the tech industry. I always wondered why the valley and other technologists pull the left-trigger at the polls. Is it that the right is so bad they are voting against it, or they actually think the left cares about their interests (as it is recently apparent that they are not)?

> Seems like the Pauls, father and son, have ideologies that are positive for the tech industry.

Aside from ways in which it is good for the wealthy generally, I don't see how it is good for the "tech industry".

> Is it that the right is so bad they are voting against it, or they actually think the left cares about their interests?

I don't think those are the only two options; I can easily believe, for example, that the policies a particular party is likely to pursue in office will, in fact, be better for my interests than any of the alternatives without thinking that the politicians in that party actually care about my interests.

Seems like the Pauls, father and son, have ideologies that are positive for the tech industry.

Maybe. As a "tech" kind of guy, I'm not quite ready to vote for a medical doctor who denies human evolution.

Whatever. Look at their voting records. The Pauls are often the only ones voting against the majority on a bill. Actions are more important than words, and that's what's so disappointing about President Obama.

A one-issue voter is bad enough, but an irrelevant non-issue voter really takes the cake. Who gives a flying fuck, are you afraid he'll outlaw evolving or something?

And what does being a medical doctor have to do with evolution? Evolution has no effect on medication at that level.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/medicine_01

Nice try. Now differentiate between a medical doctor and a medical researcher.

I don't see the difference. I don't trust either of them to do their jobs properly if their mental model of reality is based on religion.

If my doctor doesn't accept evolutionary theory, I have to wonder what else he doesn't accept. Can I trust him to advise on my childrens' vaccinations? Will he give me wife good advice on birth control? Did he just prescribe a homeopathic remedy for my high blood pressure?

I prefer dealing with professionals who use the best available evidence to make decisions in both their professional and personal lives. That way I don't have to wonder who he/she answers to at the end of the day. And that rules out MDs who don't accept the basic tenets of modern biology.

The difference is doing research and applying research. As long as they base their treatment on effectiveness rather than prayer, I don't care that they pray. If it makes them a happier and more peaceful person, it might do good. Unhappy people make for shitty doctors.

I don't see the difference. I don't trust either of them to do their jobs properly if their mental model of reality is based on religion.

And you consider that rational? Do I care if my car mechanic believes in ghosts? Why would it matter? Because it might mean he could have other strange ideas as well? How about I cross that bridge when I get to it and first meet the person, and maybe start caring about their beliefs once they actually do fuck up, instead of plastering my beliefs about their beliefs, and how it influences their work, all over it and calling it a day? At any rate, I would sooner look out for their office being littered with gifts from pharma salesmen and ads, if you catch my drift, and you can worry about bogeymen in the meantime.

And you consider that rational?

Obviously I do, since I'm the one who said it.

Do I care if my car mechanic believes in ghosts?

Do you care if your electrician believes in Ohm's Law? Because that's what it means to deny evolution, for anyone whose job is even remotely connected to biological science. Your car mechanic analogy is irrelevant, because car mechanics don't confront decisions in their professional life that may bring them into conflict with their religion.

A better way to phrase your question might be, "Do you care if your car mechanic believes in phlogiston?" That would be "Yes."

>Because that's what it means to deny evolution, for anyone whose job is even remotely connected to biological science.

That's absolutely not true. Do you somehow not realize that the process that evolution describes takes millions of years to work? There is no possible way that disbelieving evolution can effect the effectiveness as a doctor.

That's like saying you can't develop a PHP app unless you understand Turing theory. The bulk of the internet proves such an assertion wrong.

Sorry, but it sounds like you're poorly-informed on the subject, or otherwise biased. We're unlikely to reach agreement.

And good luck with those Turing-denying programmers you hired. Let us know how they work out in the long run. There's a difference between someone who doesn't completely understand a given theory but accepts the process that led to it, and someone who actively denies the theory and, in doing so, rejects the entire epistemological framework it rests on.

>Sorry, but it sounds like you're poorly-informed on the subject, or otherwise biased.

I'm still waiting for you to give a concrete example where not knowing or believing evolution will cause a doctor to make a wrong choice. At is typical, people like yourself rely on hand wavy "you just don't understand" nonsense.

>And good luck with those Turing-denying programmers you hired. Let us know how they work out in the long run.

What I'm telling you is that most of the PHP sites on the web are made by people with little or no understanding of the fundamentals of the technology they use. And they make a living just fine. Honestly, I suspect Zuckerberg would be in this group as well. Fundamental understanding is never required to get results, no matter how much we may wish it so.

Antibiotic resistance? Genetic diseases? The evolution of various viruses? I for one do not let any doctor near me that doesn't think that evolution is a real thing.

If the doctor learned his material properly, what difference would his belief that you evolved from some base mammal vs. belief that humans were created by God a few thousand years ago make? So long as he's following current understanding of what medicines and procedures work, the why doesn't matter all that much and what humans were like a million years ago has literally zero bearing on anything your local doctor will ever do for you.

If a doctor learned his material properly, he would know that humans evolved from a type of ape. The fact that he believes otherwise immediately puts in to doubt whether he has or not learned his material.

As to whether or not someone can just learn what has to be done in a specific situation or not, let me ask you this: do you prefer working with developer colleagues that work with Cargo Cult mentality or because they understand the underlying technology that they use? And which of those two developers produces better work? Yeah, I choose doctors that understand evolution.

If the developer were the best I could hope for I wouldn't take someone worse because of his sad, but ultimately irrelevant beliefs. I would hope I could build on his work enough to get someone better later. I would certainly never shoot myself in the foot by picking someone (or allowing someone to be picked) who had more solid beliefs but was dangerous to the project.

And we were always at war with EastAsia.

In this particular case, the beliefs are not irrelevant - doctors need to correctly understand evolution to correctly carry out their duties. Also, I fail to see how someone that understands their job could be considered more dangerous in doing that job than someone that is cluelessly copying something they've been told. To be clear, I can imagine a competent psychopath being more dangerous than an incompetent normal person, but psycopathy is orthogonal to the discussion here, I hope you agree.

>doctors need to correctly understand evolution to correctly carry out their duties.

Be concrete. In what way would not knowing anything about evolution affect the duties of a doctor?

> Also, I fail to see how someone that understands their job could be considered more dangerous in doing that job than someone that is cluelessly copying something they've been told.

Well, you were making a comparison to a developer who understands what they work with vs. one who doesn't. For this comparison to work, the one with understanding would have to be evil or dangerous. In that case, I would pick the one with lack of understanding provided they at least can get the work done that I need.

>I can imagine a competent psychopath being more dangerous than an incompetent normal person, but psycopathy is orthogonal to the discussion here, I hope you agree.

That I agree with a competent psychopath is more dangerous than an incompetent person? I would agree with that. I don't necessarily agree that psychopathy is orthogonal to the discussion tough, it's a key part of the reason why I'd vote for someone like Paul. :)

I personally see no reason someone couldn't understand the process of natural selection and all the phenomena you refer to without compromising a belief that God created man and the world. I especially don't see a reason why that one difference would be the primary reason to not vote someone in for office if you have no bigger disagreement with their politics.

(Shrug) If someone's thinking is that broken, I don't want them to have power over me.

When had Ron Paul publicly denied evolution? I don't really follow everything he says, but I can't ever remember him denying evolution.

I know of a few occasions when he has said it's only a theory and that our propensity for war does not bode well for how evolved we are. Although it's apparent he doesn't agree with the majority of scientists, you can't really argue with that :) He certainly doesn't vote like a typical pulpit-thumper though. His politics are typically very neutral, despite his own personal beliefs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JyvkjSKMLw

I respect Ron Paul's honesty. I think he sincerely believes in what he says, and too few politicians are willing to stand for their principles these days, especially when those principles contradict the status quo. I even agree with most of what i've read of his views.

I just wish some of what else he appears to believe didn't seem so batshit crazy to me, otherwise I would decamp from the Democrats in a heartbeat. He seems to want to turn us into 50 semi-autonomous laissez-faire oligarchies. I don't actually hate the entire government and I do believe certain things like the FDA, Federal Reserve, Department of Labor, and FEMA serve a valuable purpose.

Both of those would be the proper thing to do. I don't know why Bush 41 refused to apologize so vehemently, but I believe it's a political issue (especially after Bush 43 included Iran on his "Axis of Evil"). Obama was pilloried by his Republican opponents for so much as saying he'd have talks and discussions with Iran.

The U.S. has at least paid reparations. Perhaps on the eve of the election of the new Iranian president it might be possible for Obama to make that apology.

I'd hate to see that linger on for years like the way Japan still refuses to accept ownership of some of the country's actions in WWII.

"I will never apologize for the United States; I don't care what the facts are."

- George H.W. Bush

The idiocy of the "they hate our freedoms" statement has been weighing on me lately.

It isn't perfectly accurate, but there might be a kernel of reality there. Remember a little while back when extremists were mad at the US for a video somebody made in their basement? I heard someone explain in regards to that issue that for someone whose government regulates such things, to them it must have looked like the US was endorsing the video simply by allowing it to exist.

The "protests" on that one seemed a bit ginned-up, possibly to coincide with some other event. I mean, the video still exists, but all the goat enthusiasts are satisfied now that the dude's parole was revoked? That seems... unlikely.

An effective and unattributable false flag op trumps all DIS, DHS, and inflated budget and corrupt `security clearance' high salary revolving door critics. If another Edward Snowden bombshell is released with massive public outrage, "Expect U.S." not Anonymous.

Of course, it was actually called the Department of War until 1947.

Calling it defense is just semantics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_War...

At least it isn't called the Department of Peace.

Our government wasn't using _Nineteen Eighty Four_ as a guidebook back then....

I guess now we know what our kids will call it.

Easier to type out "minipax" on a smartphone, btw.

Funny sideline on this:

The War Department existed from 1789 until September 18, 1947, [...], renamed the United States Department of Defense in 1949

War ministries have become all but extinct.

Edit: Oops, grecy beat me on this one.

The force restructuring wasn't simply to rename the Dept. of War. At the time the Navy was an entirely separate entity headed by its own Cabinet-level Secretary.

With the introduction of the USAF as a separate service it was decided that instead of having 3 Cabinet-level secretaries all relating to the military, that there would instead be a single military department led by a single Cabinet-level secretary. Each military service would have their own Secretary who reported to this new Secretary of Defense.

Since they were restructuring anyways the name change was easy to throw on in the process. Honestly, the name change conformed more to the existing thought of what the military was. Many military actions had been authorized outside of a formal war status since 1798, so the military services were clearly not only about the prosecution of war. That particular change was in fact long overdue.

> I've long suspected 90% of the budgets and bills they are trying to pass is to help them offensively against other countries. And yet, 100% of their arguments in public were that they are needed for defense

Offense and defense are pretty muddied concepts for a superpower, when most activities it'll be doing could be categorized as "force projection", or something akin. Imposing the fear of retaliatory action is a valid method of defense.

... And a great way to create enemies and foster hatred.

Not when you're the biggest guy on the block. It's the little dogs that need to "force project".

The US as a whole is not a little dog. However, those people in it who use the political and economical process for their petty nefarious purposes, well, I guess those consist of 70% water and 30% fear. Being caught in webs of lies has a tendency to make people rather active, since not having full control of the narrative and happenings is potentially lethal for them. So here's hoping.

Um, the "War Department" was renamed the "Defense Department" in 1949. Did the US get less belligerent?

Some facts about Bruce Schneier http://www.schneierfacts.com

Incredible. Bruce has been put on a pedestal by the security community for far too long, these dirty secrets definitely need to be aired.

I laughed for far too long at this picture: http://www.schneierfacts.com/images/bruce-schneier-4.jpg

Corporations are people, assassin drones make war, the military has stockpiled cyber weapons… when did the real world turn into Shadowrun? And can we please get dragons and elves out the deal?

Does the world need a Geneva convention on cyber warfare? I'm beginning to believe so. Unfortunately we (humanity) might need something catastrophic to occur first.

In theory the Convention and the laws of war should apply - there is a big debate if attacking a coutrys power grid is allowed or not.

I would not have said this is news certainly the Foreign secretary implied that SIS has done this.

I am not sure that reconnaissance is an act of war which is the articles thesis - certainly most hackers would consider reconisance legal or do you think a nmap scan should be a criminal offence?

The police woudl not be able to get a conviction against a bank robbery crew if all they had was them looking at where the security cameras where.

This is a reasonable thesis (and it seems the hits just keep on coming from Snowden), but parts of the exposition ring a bit false. If these people are really capable of total observation of all traffic through a random router in Beijing, how is it that they've missed all the APT stuff? We've been told that we had to basically throw out some components of the new stealth planes and start the design over because Chinese hacking. This seems like an adversary that would be vulnerable to the capabilities described here.

If they simply didn't think stealth fighter designs were worth protecting, then yes I think Schneier is correct that they need to think a bit more defensively.

"We've been told..." Yes. Yes, we have.

I'm not entirely sure that this is what has me worried. The government should be using the same tools I could rent from Russian botnet owners and a geolocation service.

What has me scared is that the people directing this don't actually understand it all. They don't understand Big Data analysis and why that requires all the phone records. They don't understand how boring a concept geolocation is, or in fact how boring a database of possible attack vectors is.

It's all magic - magic they can control if they just pass another law abolishing some silly, antiquated civil rights that only pertained in the age of musketry.

Related blog post from awhile back: http://freedom-or-safety.com/blog/when-will-the-first-hacker...

This is tricky business. It is not so clear where the boundaries are.

Sidebar: anybody who writes a lot will understand the feeling you get when, after writing an article, you suddenly understand a topic in a way that you did not before putting your thoughts together. One of the things I got from my article that I didn't expect was that, whatever else they are, computers are weapons.

Weird concept.

You know the earliest digital computers were developed for the purpose of doing ballistics calculations during WW2, right?

Of course, that doesn't make them weapons, any more than math is a weapon or maps are a weapon, despite their long utility in military contexts.

I think you're generalizing a bit much.

Yes, computers were originally used for ballistic calculations, code-breaking, even.

What's different now is that virtually every computer is connected to a world-wide network which is connected to physical things. That means you're no longer having a special-purpose computer assisting a specialized weapon. Instead you've opened up all sorts of mayhem and damage to anybody with a smartphone.

An axe is also a weapon, but it's also the best thing we have to cut wood. Computers are moving into a similar role: things that have practical value which can also be very deadly. And any computer, with the right program/operator can inflict far more damage than an axe.

Dude, everything is a weapon. Your brain is a weapon. Water is a weapon.

Weaponness is not in the thing; it's in the intent of the wielder.

A quote from the leaked document:

"Malicious Cyber Activity: Activities, other than those authorized by or in accordance with U.S. law, that seek to compromise or impair..."

It's a nice way to render the U.S. incapable of being malicious.

This reads like the backstory to a Terminator movie.

I've often wondered how technical advancements might have evolved differently if the content of our entertainment were to have provided a different prospective roadmap.

I'd argue that China started the war, and the US is going to escalate it. At least a decade before the US had an organized plan for fighting a digital war, China had organized, very large, and very effective hacking efforts underway targeting the US government and US companies.

They've probably not started a war. I honestly believe it takes a bit more than that. (Admittedly, they should not be doing stuff in the category of "might start a war" without the knowledge/consent of the general public.)

However, this whole "foreign entity" business did just start them a domestic war - with the entire US internet industry, which they have just entirely thrown under the bus with regards to their foreign customers (which, it is worth pointing out, outnumber their US customers by a sizable multiple).

If so, then the US has fired the first shot and hit...its foot.

Started? Not so much (I think)...rather made some stupid decisions so that it went public.

To me the real question is: Who is fighting (nationalities, companies, individuals)? AND: Are the combatants attacking who they think are their targets or just some enemy so that we are entering a circle where informational warfare is simply being carried out for the sake of being able to do it?

I can imagine one party going for another when indeed they have the same goals...

In the embedded video, I quite enjoy the barely-masked contempt in Greenwald's face when he answers the interviewer's last question.

Is all this secrecy just "security through obscurity" which is well know to be unreliable. In other words, would we be better off just letting everyone (citizens and enemies) know exactly what you are doing (e.g. tapping phones or not)?

The benefits are certain but the costs are uncertain.

It's MAD 2.0

Unless we start spending less than 1% of our GDP or so on Pentagon Inc, I don't mind this. What's the point of having a $12 Billion aircraft carrier if a Chinese hacker can hack it? Or having a $700 Billion a year military if a kid with telnet can hack your power grid? I mean to say that war has been shifted to computer networks and we need to be ready.

I just think it can be done without tracing all the phone calls my aunt makes.

I think that's part of Schneier's point though. This spending seems to be primarily on cyber "weapons", not cyber "shields". We DO need to spend money on making our networks more secure and redundant. But instead of that, we seem to just be taking more of a MAD-style first strike approach to things. Glass cannons, essentially.

Cold War 2.0

My thoughts exactly while reading the article.

I also wondered if allegations against Huawei were falsified (assuming they were) not because they posed a security threat from the Chinese government, but because they would make it more difficult for U.S. surveillance programs.

Distinctly preferable to Hot War 3.0 if you ask me.

If you're forced to choose between a bullet in the head and one in the foot, you'll choose the foot almost every time. But why are those the only two choices?

Because we don't get to unilaterally choose, is why.

Who is "we" in this case? HN? The US? The UN? Humanity? If we don't get to choose for ourselves (for any definition of "ourselves"), who's making the choice for us, and why are hot war and cyber war the only choices?

The US fascination with war is kind of mind blowing when you first visit. The number of servicemen/women, the number of military related things (ships, planes etc), the papers, the news. Its much less militaristic down here on our tiny island - New Zealand.

"We" is humanity.

The fact that you don't get to make the choice about what others do to you is one of the very big reasons we have the 2nd Amendment at all, as I recall.

But countries can choose what they do to others, and sometimes those choices have blowback. I remain unconvinced that those who decide such things for us are acting in our interests, or that the problems they claim exist can only be solved the way they claim to solve them.

The fact that countries can choose what to do to others also means the other countries can choose what to do to us.

By all means come up with better solutions and better leaders, but don't act like other countries don't get to make their own choice in what they do.

But we're not talking about other countries, are we? The title of the article is "Has the US Started an Internet War?" Why is the only choice between the US starting a cyber war and a hot war?

That's not the only choice, but to defend against a war started against you, you need to have people trained in that before the war starts. In other words, you need to identify the need to form up those forces before a war starts, even if you don't intend to ever start one yourself.

> we seem to just be taking more of a MAD-style first strike approach to things

But that actually worked during the cold war. I mean MAD prevented it turning hot. Sure, it wasn't the most pleasant or elegant solution but it worked.

Big difference is detection. When somebody launches an ICBM at you, you know it, and can react appropriately (which makes them tend not to launch ICBMs at you). When somebody hacks your computer, if they're good at it, there are often no fingerprints, and so the parties involved can continue conducting offensive warfare with no threat of retaliation.

As Schneier says in the article, MAD was applied in the Cold War with only two players of comparable strength. The potential conflict we are now discussing has far more players of widely varying capabilities, so the principles of MAD don't necessarily apply.

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