Iran's Hacking of US Navy 'Extensive,' Repairs Took $10M and 4 Months 147
cold fjord sends news that Iran's breach of a computer network belonging to the U.S. Navy was more serious than originally thought. According to a Wall Street Journal report (paywalled, but summarized at The Verge), it took the Navy four months to secure its network after the breach, and the repair cost was approximately $10 million. From the article:
"The hackers targeted the Navy Marine Corps Intranet, the unclassified network used by the Department of the Navy to host websites, store nonsensitive information and handle voice, video and data communications. The network has 800,000 users at 2,500 locations, according to the Navy. ... The intrusion into the Navy's system was the most recent in a series of Iranian cyberoffensives that have taken U.S. military and intelligence officials by surprise. In early 2012, top intelligence officials held the view that Iran wanted to execute a cyberattack but had little capability. Not long after, Iranian hackers began a series of major "denial-of-service" attacks on a growing number of U.S. bank websites, and they launched a virus on a Saudi oil company that immobilized 30,000 computers. ... Defense officials were surprised at the skills of the Iranian hackers. Previously, their tactics had been far cruder, usually involving so-called denial of service attacks that disrupt network operations but usually don't involve a penetration of network security."
Asymetrical warfare (Score:5, Insightful)
Missiles, ships, planes, tanks, and large groups of soldiers all cost a lot of money. As long as you have them you are on a perpetual upgrade cycle if you don't want to be outclassed. A geek with a computer is pretty cheap, can do a lot of things, and cause a lot of really inconvenient problems. If there is one thing Iran probably isn't short of it is smart people that like to play with computers. It isn't 1988 anymore, and the world has heard about the internet.
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Asymmetrical? Heard of a little thing called Stuxnet [slashdot.org]? Centrifuges, uranium, and control systems aren't exactly cheap either.
Re:Asymetrical warfare (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of what you say I agree with but:
> A good bit of the code is actually somewhat amateurish
Citation needed. Or, to put it less politely, are you out of your fucking mind ? Stuxnet is the most advanced piece of malware ever discovered, and it worked. I don't believe you have access to the original source code so, can you justify this comment in any way ?
You don't understand his point. (Score:1)
His point is that the USA also engages in the same "asymmetrical warfare", therefore it IS NOT "asymmetrical". The only asymmetry is the USA's defence spend being more than the next 25 biggest spenders on defence put together.
This in no way stops them using the same methods (and to great expense to the victim) making the petulant whine from the USA about how much it cost patently ridiculous like a bully complaining to teacher about how some kid punched him and made his nose bleed...
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Actually, more than the rest of the planet combined. [motherjones.com]
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You're spot on! Most of these organizations blow things massively out of proportion to attain more funding for their so-called 'research'. Even a relatively harmless virus in the POS computer of a staff knick-knack shop would be reported as a 'possible avenue for compromising the high-value intelligence networks'. That goes on to trigger an agency-wide investigation, which ends up in the request for funds to conduct the said study. The studies are then sourced to organizations with ties to the IT heads of t
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Even a relatively harmless virus in the POS computer of a staff knick-knack shop would be reported as a 'possible avenue for compromising the high-value intelligence networks'.
And yet thousands of compromised POS systems (Target, Nieman-Marcus, et al) aren't sufficient to switch to a more secure payment system.
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Don't forget the cost to replace equipment. When a virus is detected, then all equipment that virus may have affected has to be quarantine, removed, and destroyed. That includes computers, monitors, even keyboards and mice. It all has to be put in the crusher and totally destroyed, in order to deal properly with the virus.
If you're thinking this is a ridiculous waste of money, then you haven't been around the US government.
Re:Asymetrical warfare (Score:5, Insightful)
This is very true, but from the POV of the US, it is also a great argument for continuing to invest in offensive cyber capabilities.
In the end, it costs way less to attack a network than to secure it properly. And unfortunately, this asymmetrical situation could remain true for a long time.
This also can lead to a cult of the offensive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_offensive
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Jeez, I've joked plenty of times about Slashdot turning into a sounding board for Zionist NeoCon warmongering, but like every trolls' joke Slashdot refuses to admit is true (like my satirical but correct prediction of Slashdot announcing that they will try to more frequently divert readers to Beta etc.). I'd much rather be friends with an Iranian Family than a Saudi or Jewish family. Lift those goddamn sanctions completely and stop fucking with them -- America's real enemies in the Middle-East are Saudi Ara
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I just learned it was, maybe not all that surprising, western nations (GB and France) who made those nations/borders in the first place..
The enemy of peace and stability have likely often been western military powers interfering and destabilizing regions.
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I just learned it was, maybe not all that surprising, western nations (GB and France) who made those nations/borders in the first place..
The enemy of peace and stability have likely often been western military powers interfering and destabilizing regions.
Thats a very bold accusation, coming from someone who admits to being one article away from complete ignorance on the subject.
The British and French were trustees of those lands after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. They had promised independence to the Arabs, for supporting them in WWI. What were they supposed to do? Leave the Arabs to sort out a diplomatic solution amongst themselves?
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"What were they supposed to do? Leave the Arabs to sort out a diplomatic solution amongst themselves?"
You broke my sarcasm-o-meter.
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Who the fuck modded this "troll"? That idiot should at least check Wiki. Those borders were drawn by Great Britain and France with complete disregard of who lived where and what they wanted.
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Christ, mnoderations get worse and worse here. Look, guys, ethanol-fueled is a troll and nothing but a troll. He posts anon so he'll start at 0 rather than -1, as he would logged in because his karma is so low. Hell, though, the way moderation has been lately he might as well log in, hios troll comments might get his karma back since idiots are modding him up.
Re: Asymetrical warfare (Score:1)
The first democratically elected leader in iran was not friendly to the US, or, more importantly at the time, Britain.
Cue a CIA led coup, the Shah of iran's dictatorship (or as you say 'friendly to the west while his people suffer'), a few decades of suffering, leading to people seeking to overthrow him, and voila, militant islamists in power.
Where have we seen this before? Germany in the 1920s and the rise of the nazis.
Where do we see this now? greece and its right wing parties.
How about we stop meddling i
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the revolutionary guard in Iran is much more an enemy of the Iranian people than the US.
Pakistan for example on the other hand is an american ally. ...with an out of control population in large areas and it's questionable what the motives of the government are as well. but hey, it's an ally! who cares if their backyard(or rather a back room of their house) is used for all kinds of shady shit used for direct attacks on US troops!
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Pakistan is an US 'ally' which sends all the data on US military hardware they get their hands on to China.
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Vive le Maréchal Foch!
"My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking." -- General Ferdinand Foch [wikipedia.org]
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This also can lead to a cult of the offensive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
lol, also true in RTS games.
So you think those towers/turrets with catapults/missile launchers/.. behind them will save you and win the war? Think again.
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The "Bloodstream" is just some official talking out of his ass about something he doesnt understand, un
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Are other nations looking, sure - but they don't get caught in low end events and usually have 'locals' to guide them in and
Re:Asymetrical warfare (Score:5, Interesting)
My first question would be ... how are we sure that Iran did this?
The second question would be how did whomever do it? We've heard about how the NSA/CIA/etc are stockpiling zero-day exploits. Stockpiling them instead of helping the vendors fix them. So were our systems cracked by an enemy using an exploit that we knew of?
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Stockpiling them instead of helping the vendors fix them. So were our systems cracked by an enemy using an exploit that we knew of?
This is an interesting question; it's still not enough. Experience in OpenBSD's audit process [openbsd.org] shows that a single vulnerability is an entry to finding other bugs. If you fix all of the similar bugs in your code then you very likely fix vulnerabilities you will never realise you had. The NSA (and the GCHQs) should be using it's government purchasing power to
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My first question would be ... how are we sure that Iran did this?
Because we have always been at war with Iran.
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It would be more accurate to say that Iran has always been at war with the US after the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah.
"it would be more accurate to say that Iran has al (Score:1)
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Both the Shah and Iran were friendly to the US until the revolutionary Islamist government took power and declared the US to be its enemy. That also extended to another Iranian ally, Israel. The problem in relations between Iran and Israel is Iran's doing.
As to the coup, if you look into the history you will see that democracy was gone. The legislature had been dissolved, an election faked, and the PM was ruling by decree and ignored the usual checks and balances in a constitutional monarchy of the monar
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In short I'm correct, just not "politically correct."
"Both the Shah and Iran were friendly to the US un (Score:1)
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Your history is a bit scrambled. Ayatollah Khomeini declared the US to be "The Great Satan" nearly a year before Iraq attacked Iran.
I know that Iraq used chemical weapons, as did Iran. I don't think that they used biological weapons at all.
A counter-coup is still a coup, but it is in reaction to another.
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AFAIK Iraq only started doing chemical-biological warfare after they started losing the war.
"Your history is a bit scrambled. Ayatollah Khomei (Score:1)
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Iran - Chemical Weapons [fas.org]
"US expansionism" had nothing to do with the Iran-Iraq war, and nothing to do with Iran's manufacture and use of chemical weapons. I don't recall that the US has added any territory to itself since WWII. It has vacated many military bases around the world since then.
"Your history is a bit scrambled. Ayatollah Khomei (Score:1)
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The main current issue with Iran is its nuclear weapons program that is piggybacking on the cover of a nuclear power program. To that you can add concern over Iran's repeated threats to choke off the world's oil supply, and involvement supporting terrorism around the world, and various other actions. Just because it doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean that it isn't an actual issue.
Re: "Your history is a bit scrabled." (Score:1)
Third question (Score:3)
And if they spent $10 million, no doubt about 75% of that was wasted, poured down the maws of corpulent military contractors (cui bono).
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I don't know about you but I don't want the government "classifying" screwups or incompetence to spare themselves the embarrassment... unfortunately that does happen.
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First question should be: Why is is being printed for everyone in America to see? "Hey! Look how incompetent we are! Allow us more moneys!
Not really a good tactic if the source material is true.
For everyone in America to see?
The attackers already know it worked.
Re:Asymetrical warfare - Not (Score:5, Interesting)
We're not at war with Iran, and no sane person in the U.S. or in Iran wants a shooting war. IMHO, what we have here is more of a cold-war style cat and mouse game where each side tries to provoke the other and see how far they can go. Examples being Iran supplying arms to Shiite militias in Iraq, Iran being involved in proxy wars in Syria and Lebanon, taking Americans hostage, and developing a nuclear weapons capability. The U.S. responded with Stuxnet and probably a few other things that we don't know about. In the end it's really about gaining some sort of political bargaining advantage and to have a stronger bargaining position when the time for deal making comes.
Iran is also the regional heavy weight, and they're not a bunch of modern-day spearchuckers as the parent somehow implies. They do have a professional conventional military with semi-modern weapons systems. They also have the ability to maintain, develop and upgrade their weapons systems. The main difference between Iran and the U.S. is that Iran lacks the global logistical capabilities that America brings to the battle field, and the depth that the U.S. has in any fight. The Iranians would lose a conventional battle with the U.S. and both sides know this. Defeating the U.S. in a conventional battle probably isn't a factor in Iran's military planning. They're more focused on regional domination, especially if and when the U.S. pulls out of the middle east. Without the U.S. backing of the Gulf states, Iran would probably be able to defeat any of their neighbors in a conventional war, at least in theory. Without the U.S., the only country in the region that might defeat Iran would be India.
If somehow forced into a conventional fight with the U.S., Iran could, with the right leadership, inflict heavy damage before being defeated. But Iran is a very old country. IMHO, they're playing for time and will poke us at any chance they get. As Sun Tzu once said, "If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by." In more modern terms that is called, "strategic patience."
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Both Pakistan and Israel have far better trained troops, better equipment, and nuclear weapons to bomb Iran into the stone age,
And people wonder why Iran wants the bomb.
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Missiles, ships, planes, tanks, and large groups of soldiers all cost a lot of money....A geek with a computer is pretty cheap, can do a lot of things, and cause a lot of really inconvenient problems.
I bet that's why the hackers used the compromised machines to play "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" instead of "Thunderstruck". [dailymail.co.uk]
Re: Asymetrical warfare (Score:5, Insightful)
That's ok, we attacked their infrastructure with damaging programs first. If the CIA is gonna play with hackers, they'd better make sure the rest of the military is ready to play ball too.
It's not lie the navy had a few years of notice after Stuxxnet that the Iranians were going to take a shot back. If the navy can't hang with the big kids, they better stay out of hacking OTHER countries, eh.
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In the case of Iran's nuclear program, the hacking was apparently an attempt to avert a future war. That seems to have failed. Since so many here hate that idea, I guess war it is. The only question is, how long will the countdown be, and what will be the price?
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"Apparently", eh? Will your Fascist Merit Badge be revoked if you get within 20 feet of the truth, or something? Even the head of the motherfucking IDF admitts [antiwar.com] Iran has no nuclear weapons program.
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That is utterly ridiculous. Military spending for the US is only about 4-5% of GDP, and is trending downward. Healthcare is 3-4X that. You've got some bad info from somewhere.
Re:That is utterly ridiculous. (Score:1)
China, Russia, UK, Japan, France, Saudi Ariabia, and a lot more COMBINED.
It has 39% of world share! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures)
That's $682,000,000,000.00 per year; or roughly $2 billion per day!
So yes, US companies make money; and it is oldest business model yet; well maybe after prostitution there; but it's way old, like from the stone ages.
Think otherwise means naive/blind by pride.
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Afghanistan and Iraq will be massive failures, just as Viet Nam was.
No.
Vietnam was a success. The right side won, Vietnam is now an increasinly prosperous trading partner of the US.
There is no way Afghanistan or Iraq will ever become success stories like Vietnam.
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Still it would have been cheaper not to have gotten involved in that war to begin with. One big mistake done back then was to consider all communist nations to be allied with each other when in fact the Sino-Soviet split had already happened.
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Still it would have been cheaper not to have gotten involved in that war to begin with. One big mistake done back then was to consider all communist nations to be allied with each other when in fact the Sino-Soviet split had already happened.
And Vietnam was on the soviet side, not the Chinese side.
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Really? Fox news told you that? Or are you just pulling shit out of your ass?
Link the source otherwise. STFU.
Re:False flag? (Score:5, Informative)
The Marine Corp's budget is $29B per year. An extra $10M would be an increase of 0.03%. The Department of Defense budget, minus the money spent on individual military branches, is $190B. $10M is 0.005% of that.
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The Marine Corp's budget is $29B per year. An extra $10M would be an increase of 0.03%. The Department of Defense budget, minus the money spent on individual military branches, is $190B. $10M is 0.005% of that.
Another figure to put in in perspective: 5% of the cost of a single F-35 or F-22.
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That's not how budgets work.
Maybe they learned (Score:4, Interesting)
By studying Stuxnet.
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They probably both learned about the technology, and to take it seriously.
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Far more likely the US congress running around all the time threatening to kill millions of Iranians to keep Israeli campaign donors happy has motivated a lot of high order Iranian thinkers to work together to thumb their noses at the US dogs of war.
Real reason why the failure, US computer security services were far too busy attacking everyone else, purposefully leaving holes in the system and in some super crazily deranged false flag attack creating new ones for others to exploit which is OK so long as
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Is there anything that this site can't blame on the Jews?
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Is there anything that this site can't blame on the Jews?
You cannot seriously discuss US middle-eastern policy without mentioning the Jewish/Israeli lobby. Or if you don't, its the elephant in the room.
The same applies to oil. Middle-east wars would be about as interesting as the latest conflict in the Congo if they had no oil and no Israel.
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What about the Hebrew doctrine of invading a country and committing genocide upon the native population to take their land, which predates Islam by millennia?
Idiots.
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Dude. Stuxnet was allegedly written by them and/or the US. So...
There is no concrete proof of it of course. Just some pathnames.
Maybe they watched Iron Eagle... (Score:3)
latest propaganda from Cold Fucktard (Score:1, Insightful)
Practicing the classic 'government officials say' rhetoric without mentioning Stuxnet, or what the U.S. would do if it was Iran sabotaging American nuclear facilities.
Let's hope... (Score:3)
...the Navy saved taxpayers at least that much by not having tighter security.
Well, it was a nice thought.
Reading between the lines (Score:1, Insightful)
cold fjord sends news ...
So, you had to edit out the anit-Islam panic from his original post.
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Please go to the trouble of actually reading what I write. I don't engage in "anti-Islam panic." I am against violent extremists, aren't you? Certainly many ordinary Muslims are against the extremists and just want to live in peace.
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I am against violent extremists, aren't you? Certainly many ordinary Muslims are against the extremists and just want to live in peace.
I think the Palestinians have been saying this for ages, but Israel's armed forces don't seem to be listening.
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Hamas isn't saying that. They are still committed to the destruction of Israel, and they control Gaza. Fatah is willing to say that in English when speaking to the West or where the West can hear, but when speaking in Arabic to their own they aren't so peaceful either.
Israel may pay for tolerance it shows to killers [heraldsun.com.au]
The Palestinians Want Peace — Just Not With a Jewish State [dennisprager.com]
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You mean they want their stolen property back, no different than Jews [huffingtonpost.com] demanding the return of property stolen from them. And your talking point died when Carter visited Hamas and talked them into accepting Israel as party of a peace deal, just by actually talking to them.
Other parts left out of your storyline (cuz that's what you do), Israel created Hamas to undermine Fatah. And while you guys like to whine about the Hamas chart
Hmmm who put that there? (Score:1)
If I was the yavn and wanted to host a honeypot what would it look like?
Tit for tat (Score:4, Insightful)
They seem to learn fast, also they have a lot of good engineers. We should expect some kind of response to Stuxnet and I guess we have established by Stuxnet that electronic warfare is OK for countries to do against each other.
It is going to be much harder to stomach the day some Air-force guy is taken out by a drone attach in Virginia with a missile to his car as he is delivering his children to Kindergarten.
Subcontractors (Score:2)
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Probably. But they aren't as dumb as you think. I have met them on occasion in conferences and they seem to have a pretty good grasp at maths theory, physics, etc. Many of their diaspora are top notch research staff in North America. So dumb they are not. Their problem is they are too isolated by sanctions and can't easily access modern machine tools and other things required to actually build stuff.
Poor practices already have massive consequences (Score:2, Informative)
It's not just the military or Iran. We choose to twittle our thumbs and write it off as a rarity. Most companies don't even realize the drastic damage its doing. When your competition in China has all your secrets and make identical clones of your products for a fraction of the price how do you expect to stay in business. Iran's impact is probably insignificant in the scheme of things. It's industrial espionage and 'theft' of proprietary information that's the major problem. Iran's just an exemplary example
I know how to use HMI/SCADA to detonate things (Score:2)
this was clearly explained to me by the principal author of the HMI/SCADA program that I'd just been hired to work on. I later resigned in protest.
It's been long enough I figure they've fixed their security holes by now.
Despite their taking industrial safety very seriously, to company owner thought it was quite fucking funny that his product was totally shot through with security holes.
HMI/SCADA: Human-Machine Interface / Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. That's the proper name for what most would
The US Navy has lots of windows boxen (Score:5, Informative)
I know this because a client I once consulted for, sold 400,000 licenses for their Windows product to the Navy.
Windows isn't so bad if it's properly locked down, but it's not really possible to do that unless all of your application are Windows Logo-compliant, for example they don't store end-user documents in the Program Files folder. I expect the military has a lot of homebrew software they absolutely need to use, that prevents Program Files from being locked down.
Also everyone who actually administrates a windows box, has to actually know how to lock it down.
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Old news. They have learned a little bit since then.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/the-navys-newest-warship-is-powered-by-linux/
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USS Yorktown Dead In Water After Divide By Zero
Its been decades since we lost any military assets to a Zero [wikipedia.org].
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One must ask, "Who started the Cycle?" (Score:2)
So, we unleashed stuxnet. Among other things, it came back and bit us on the ass, and now those against whom we sinned, have returned the favor.
"What a Shock!"
At mait lefitgam dekharev, at khai lefitgam dekharev.
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You should probably look a little further back in history. Besides that, would you prefer open war to Stuxnet?
Hacking of US Navy repairs took $10M and 4 Months (Score:1)
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How did it take $10M and 4 Months to re-image a Windows desktop ?
It was Windows 7 on 5 1/4" floppies.
uhm (Score:1)
10 print $enemy perpetrated $act_of_war against us implying that we should $form_of_retaliation
20 $enemy = rand ($enemies)
30 goto 10
Almost perfect, but left out the key step (Score:1)
20 $message = $enemy perpetrated $act_of_war against us implying that we should $form_of_retaliation
30 send(CONGRESS, $message)
40 ???
50 profit!!!
60 goto 10
Always a Bad Assumption (Score:2)
To assume that a populous, rapidly developing, third world country does not have first class hackers.
All it takes is brain power, time, and an Internet connection.
Evolution.... (Score:1)
Re (Score:1)