The Cyberpolitics Of Cyberbellicosity Cyberpushing Cybersecurity To Cyberprevent Cyberwar
from the cyber-cyber-cyber dept
Let's kick this off with an obligatory link to WillUsingThePrefixCyberMakeMeLookLikeAnIdiot.com. As Senator Harry Reid has declared that the Senate absolutely will vote on a cybersecurity bill soon, despite significant questions about the bills under consideration and about whether such a bill is really needed at all, Jim Harper points out the politics behind all of this (while also pointing out the ridiculousness of the overuse of the prefix "cyber" by coining "cyberbellicosity.")First off, there's the fact that, for all the vague talks of "threats," the only real evidence of "cyberattacks" to date all seem to point to the US. So, if we're worried about attacks directed back at us, perhaps we shouldn't have kicked off the effort by showing the rest of the world how it's done. And, no, Senator Feinstein, the problem isn't the leak, but the action. As Harper points out:
The likelihood of attacks having extraordinary consequences is low. This talk of “cyberwar” and “cyberterror” is the ugly poetry of budget-building in Washington, D.C. But watch out for U.S. cyberbellicosity coming home to roost. The threat environment is developing in response to U.S. aggression.Of course, the "urgency" that we keep hearing about is almost certainly political. Should some attack actually happen, no politician wants to give his or her opponents the opportunity to point to their failure to pass "do something!" cybersecurity legislation during a campaign. As Harper points out, the real fear from politicians isn't a cyberattack, it's a political attack:This parallels the United States’ use of nuclear weapons, which made “the bomb” (Dmitri) an essential tool of world power. Rightly or wrongly, the United States’ use of the bomb spurred the nuclear arms race and triggered nuclear proliferation challenges that continue today. (To repeat: Cyberattacks can have nothing like the consequence of nuclear weapons.)
Senator Reid has gone hook, line, and sinker for the “cyber-9/11″ idea, of course. Like all politicians, his primary job is not to set appropriate cybersecurity policies but to re-elect himself and members of his party. The tiniest risk of a cyberattack making headlines to use against his party justifies expending taxpayer dollars, privacy, and digital liberties. This it not to prevent “cyber” attack. It is to prevent political attack.He then goes on to highlight a bunch of former government officials who sent a letter to Senate leaders urging them to pass cybersecurity legislation "as soon as possible" since it's "critically necessary to protect our national and economic security." Of course, what the signatories of that letter really mean is that they want to protect their own "economic security." Every one of them has moved to the private sector and is in a position to profit greatly from a freakout over cybersecurity...
And yes, in answer to the URL I mentioned at the beginning, using cyber does, in fact, make you look like an idiot in most cases. But for the amount of profit and spying power at stake? It doesn't seem like many in DC care that much.
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Filed Under: cybersecurity, cyberwar, harry reid
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Tell it like it is
He isn't an idiot, for sure.
He's a cyberidiot.
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Cyber-9/11 will be an inside job!
Quick, someone register cyber911truth.org!
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A huge threat
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Re: A huge threat
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Cyberattacks
Yes, the US was behind Stuxnet, but I'm quite certain the US is not behind ongoing Chinese attacks on and infiltration into American government and corporate networks...
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Uncountably infinite
Think of all the possible values that variable can contain. I'll start:
cyberattacks
cyberbullying
terrorists
pedophiles
drivers talking on their phones
drivers texting
obesity
people drinking soda
drugs
alcohol
second-hand smoke
speeders
Saddam Hussein
Al Qeada
$ThingThatCausesCancer
baseball players taking steroids
copyright infringement
Now let's think of all the things that don't show up on that list:
due process
privacy rights
freedom of speech
Given this, I'm not terribly surprised we're moving in the direction we are.
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Re: Cyberattacks
If spies are getting into sensitive government networks then perhaps it's time those networks had better security.
The same applies to corporations between their forays into spying on other companies.
To date what you're referring to is classic espionage with newer tools. Not as sexy as James Bond but a whole lot cheaper!!!
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Re: Re: Cyberattacks
The average smart-phone owner today carries around a bundle of sensors in their pocket which would have been amazingly hi-tech spy gear just 25 years ago.
Without doubt, soon enough spying on everybody, everywhere, all the time will be very cheap and easy.
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Mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together...
Ah, yes. We have arrived at the point in time where fear-mongering over cyber-armageddon is being relentlessly flogged 24x7 in an attempt to line the pockets of the pigs at the trough and their pet lobbyists. Yes, yes, of course yes, a bill MUST be passed, it simply must, otherwise the 3Q P&L statements will suffer. So trample the rights of the citizens, ignore the real problems in favor of imagined ones, and let's, by all means, ram through legislation written by clueless fucksticks like Dutch "computers run on X's and O's" Ruppersberger.
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Cyberrecursion
In cybershort, cyberthink of the cyberchildren! Please, Cyber-I cyberbeg cyber-you!
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Cyber not the only silly
But tactical gets misused I relly like the tactical bra and thong.
Organic also gets misused. My favorites so far are: firewood, windshield washer fluid and vodka (in the US vodka is neutral grain spirits it can't contain any thing but water and ethanol;unless its flavored.
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