Director Of National Intelligence Admits That There's Little Risk Of A 'Cyber Pearl Harbor'
from the so-why-are-we-rushing? dept
We've been pointing out for years that all the talk about "cyberattacks" and "cybersecurity" appear to be FUD, mostly designed to scare up money for "defense" contractors looking for a new digital angle. And yet, we keep seeing fear-mongering report after fear mongering report insisting that we're facing imminent threats of such a dire nature that multiple people keep referring to this ridiculous concept of the "cyber Pearl Harbor" which is going to happen any day now if we don't pass vaguely worded bills that will surely ramp up huge contracts. And yet, every time we'd hear these cinematic scare stories, we'd point out that no one has yet died from a "cyber attack" and ask: where was the actual evidence of real harm? Yes, we've seen hack attacks that are disruptive or really about espionage. But that "big threat" coming down to get us all? There's been nothing to support it.And perhaps that's because it doesn't exist. Amazingly, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, actually admitted in a Senate hearing that there's little risk of any "cyber Pearl Harbor" in the foreseeable future:
“We judge that there is a remote chance of a major cyber attack against U.S. critical infrastructure systems during the next two years that would result in long-term, wide-scale disruption of services, such as a regional power outage,” Clapper said in his statement to the committee. “The level of technical expertise and operational sophistication required for such an attack — including the ability to create physical damage or overcome mitigation factors like manual overrides — will be out of reach for most actors during this time frame. Advanced cyber actors — such as Russia and China — are unlikely to launch such a devastating attack against the United States outside of a military conflict or crisis that they believe threatens their vital interests.”He later admitted that some others -- who weren't as knowledgeable -- might be able to sneak in some attacks here or there, but that the impact would likely be minimal:
“These less advanced but highly motivated actors could access some poorly protected US networks that control core functions, such as power generation, during the next two years, although their ability to leverage that access to cause high-impact, systemic disruptions will probably be limited. At the same time, there is a risk that unsophisticated attacks would have significant outcomes due to unexpected system configurations and mistakes, or that vulnerability at one node might spill over and contaminate other parts of a networked system,” he said.Of course, at the very same hearing, the NSA's General Keith Alexander kept up the propaganda about threats. Alexander has been among those who have been spreading FUD about the "threats" -- including ridiculous claims about Anonymous shutting down the power grid -- so sticking to that line is hardly much of a surprise. This time around he focused on an increasing rate of attacks on Wall Street banks.
He also pulled out the old "the Chinese are stealing our business secrets!" claim. That always sounds good for Congress, but it is unclear how much real impact it has had.
But the Cyber Command chief stressed that the U.S. needs to clamp down on this intellectual property theft, warning it will ultimately "hurt our nation significantly."It doesn't appear he has any real basis for saying that. There are all sorts of ways to compete and to innovate, and falling back on relying intellectual property laws may be the least useful and least efficient manner for doing so.
"For the nation as a whole, this is our future. This intellectual property, from an economic perspective, represents future wealth and we're losing that," Alexander said.
It would be nice if we could stop all the blatant fear mongering and focus on any actual problems, such as highlighting what important information isn't being shared today, since we keep getting told that it's our lack of information sharing that will lead to a cyber pearl harbor. Now that we know the threat isn't imminent, can we sit back and look at the actual evidence, understand what the real problem is, and see if there's a way to solve it that doesn't involve giving up everyone's privacy rights?
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Filed Under: cispa, cybersecurity, digital pearl harbor, dni, james clapper, keith alexander, nsa
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Well, they flat out screwed up everyone, crashed the entire economy and used taxpayers money from the bail outs to pay themselves fat bonuses. If I could I'd do as much damage as I could to such morons.
There are all sorts of ways to compete and to innovate, and falling back on relying intellectual property laws may be the least useful and least efficient manner for doing so.
Offering quality products is a good start. The quality of Chinese stuff is usually very poor.
I read all these 'cybersecurity' scare stories as a single thing: "We, in the US, are utterly incompetent and cannot secure our vital systems thus we need to scare ourselves silly and run around screaming like loons while doing nothing that will actually address any real security breach"
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They aren't saying they can't secure the systems. They are saying give us more money to give to corporations and pass more laws that take away the rights and privacy of our citizens.
It's not about incompetence,if anything, it's about greed and control.
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I know it's about greed and control but the image they pass is that of incompetence.
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Excuse me I need some more tin foil.
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He makes it sound like that's a bad thing.
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You know.... kind of like having our fleet of ships parked in a shallow harbor assuming their is no way it could be attacked there.
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Looks like if one excuse for controlling the Internet is wearing a bit thin, switch to one that will get more support.
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Follow the Money
The NSA is basically saying, look at all the Bad stuff that can happen, Give us more money and it wont.
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"That's a nice thing youz got there. Shame if something were to happen to it..."
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It's possible for someone to die from a cyber attack. If someone does a DDOS attack the right way all that traffic may overload the computer systems of the target routers and computers causing them to overheat and start a fire and fires are dangerous and could kill people. So laws must be passed to prevent this OK. Don't you get it Mike. This is dangerous stuff here
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Just doing his job
It's just like the Air Force Chief will tell you how desperately important it is that we defend our skies. It would be extremely surprising to see someone in this kind of position say "actually, it's probably better to spend money elsewhere".
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My Flak Cannon and the pile of gibs in the corner disagree with your assessment.
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When you have a cabinet level justice officer claiming that big banks are too big to be held responsible for their misdeeds it raises eyebrows. Lets not even talk about all the wrong claims for foreclosure on innocents that weren't behind in their loans...if they had one. No one is making these banks pay up for their mistakes or for the third parties doing their bidding.
There's lots of ill will out there on Main Street that no one seems to get a rats ass about in Washington. I wonder why there are so many doing things that the powers that be don't like?
I couldn't hack my way out of a wet paper bag. But I do see civil unrest building by the lack of action in Washington to deal with the real criminals and hold them accountable.
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Re: "lack of action in Washington to deal with the real criminals"
Problem is that there's NO longer ANY separation between the political and corporate realms. It's even worse than politicians being paid off: nowadays people move freely between political or appointed offices and corporate or media positions. It's total fascism, just short of openly announced on front page of the New York Times. Difficult to believe anyone hasn't noticed it, so I suppose that you just hold on to a faint hope it's not so bad as looks.
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I agree. My sense is that private industry will get exactly what it wants from the government in terms of security.
It will get defense contracts.
It will call on the government to clean up security whenever private industry wants help.
It will protest government surveillance whenever it wants to collect its own data on citizens, and then it will turn around and sell it to the government
As I read about all the back and forth on security and privacy I don't see much difference between what government does and what private industry does and I think private industry calls the shots because it can buy the government it needs. The rest of the debate is just a sideshow.
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Tracking Employees With Productivity Sensors - Business Insider
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lETS SEE..
So, we arnt sending out IP to other nations so they can Build them Cheap, and send them back 'for sale' to US??
Hmm, sounds weird..
Do we send letters and NDA agreements to those companies in OTHER countries, AND ASK them not to share our DATA on products we WANT them to make??
Then 'as the company' why not just copy and send it to a Alternate, to make the product themselves...CHEAPER.
HOw many APPLE clones are there in China and the middle east..>? TONS. Why arent they HERE?? we have ANTI-COMPETITION LAWS/CONTRACTS..
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Scary bedtime stories
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