Separating Cyber-Warfare Fact From Fantasy 111
smellsofbikes writes "This week's New Yorker magazine has an investigative essay by Seymour Hersh about the US and its part in cyber-warfare that makes for interesting reading. Hersh talks about the financial incentives behind many of the people currently pushing for increased US spending on supposed solutions to network vulnerabilities and the fine and largely ignored distinction between espionage and warfare. Two quotes in particular stood out: one interviewee said, 'Current Chinese officials have told me that [they're] not going to attack Wall street, because [they] basically own it,' and Whitfield Diffie, on encryption, 'I'm not convinced that lack of encryption is the primary problem [of vulnerability to network attack]. The problem with the Internet is that it's meant for communication among non-friends.' The article also has some interesting details on the Chinese disassembly and reverse-engineering of a Lockheed P-3 Orion filled with espionage and eavesdropping hardware that was forced to land in China after a midair collision."
Re:Ya well I'm going to have to file that as fanta (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't read the whole thing but the first 10 paragraphs or so strike me as nothing but a bunch of half-informed fear mongering from a journalist who doesn't know what they are talking about.
If you only read the first 10 paragraphs, then you haven't done the article justice. Hersh is renowned for his long-form journalism. It's old-school, I know, but he takes his time to investigate and analyse. He doesn't foist his conclusions on the reader; he presents his take on the available information and leaves the reader to think it through.
I'll be the first to admit that he's more patient -and more deliberately objective- than most of us. In fact, that's exactly what I wrote about him [imagicity.com] earlier today.
This is the same guy who broke the story of the My Lai Massacre [wikipedia.org] as well as many of the most important stories about the American military over the last few decades. His sources are impeccable, and his research is world class. Do yourself a favour: load the page onto your favourite e-book reader and take the time to follow his argument all the way to the end.
Re:Warfare? (Score:5, Informative)
If you read TFA all the way through, Hersh is clearly making the case that the entire body of 'cyberwar' rhetoric is little more than a power (and budget) grab. One of the more interesting quotes comes from a security analyst who says most of the electronic espionage we see these days comes from allied countries, and it's mostly economic in nature.
Re:"Warfare" falls under the Geneva Convention (Score:3, Informative)
It's not the military systems that are at risk with regards to "warfare" but rather the industrial systems that are public and supply things like water, electricity, and sanitation.