Politically Motivated Cyber Attacks 78
Orome1 writes "According to a new report, 53 percent of critical infrastructure providers report that their networks have experienced what they perceived as politically motivated cyber attacks. Participants of the Symantec survey claimed to have experienced such an attack on an average of 10 times in the past five years, incurring an average cost of $850,000 during a period of five years to their businesses. Participants from the energy industry reported that they were best prepared for such an attack, while participants from the communications industry reported that they were the least prepared."
No conflict of interest at all (Score:5, Funny)
I don't see any problems when a company that sells "security" releases data about the bad terrible things that can happen to you if you don't have the appropriate "security".
And when Merck says Vioxx is safe, we must trust them.
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There's a difference between observation, criticism, and DDoS. Concerted efforts to stifle information-- no matter what the information is-- are onerous attacks on everyone who wants the same right to voice their own.
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Yes and even if it were true in concept one can be sure that they do the accounting in the most generous fashion. Still one can probably assume the relative ranking of various industries is useful.
Here is something I wonder about. Why do any employers connect their emplyees to the internet? Would it not be a much better idea to have nearly all computers connect to a private intra-net. That way the business functions can all get done. No personal e-mails or outside web paged pretty much means no trojans
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I don't see any problems when a company that sells "security" releases data about the bad terrible things that can happen to you if you don't have the appropriate "security".
-1 Offtopic.
We're not talking about the US Government here.
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Continuing with the offtopicness:
I'm in the US as well...true, you do see ads that focus on only one or two areas of a politician's "accomplishments", but as a whole, politicians tend to talk smack about their opponent more than they talk about themselves. Or at least, that's how it seems to me.
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Politicians have no real power. (Score:3, Insightful)
Politicians have the illusion of power by signature. The real power are the intelligence agencies that bribe and blackmail politicians into doing their bidding. The real power are the corporations funding the lobbyists who do the bribery, or in some cases the journalists and private investigators who do the blackmail, so lets face it every politician basically reads their script and is like a celebrity.
They go on TV and read a teleprompter. They sign what they are told to sign. Their controllers write their
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No...if my only choices were "a guy who beat his wife" and "a guy who talks about another guy that beat his wife", I just wouldn't vote.
We have the freedom to CHOOSE to vote in America, not just the freedom TO vote. Not voting is a freedom some people in this world do not have, just as voting is a freedom some people in this world do not have.
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No...if my only choices were "a guy who beat his wife" and "a guy who talks about another guy that beat his wife", I just wouldn't vote.
We have the freedom to CHOOSE to vote in America, not just the freedom TO vote. Not voting is a freedom some people in this world do not have, just as voting is a freedom some people in this world do not have.
If the vote isn't counted, and doesn't matter, what difference does it make?
Or if the vote is counted but lobbyists write and push through all the laws, what difference does it make?
And since there wont be any tougher laws on lobbyists what can you expect?
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Real democracy will only come when we apply the principles of free software [metagovernment.org] to government.
You don't live somewhere with a Home Owners Association, do you? Getting people to participate is nearly impossible even when it results in there being a lot of money levied on them. People would rather do other things. They hardly get out to vote.
And you actually think something like Metagovernment will work?!? Talk about a pipe dream!
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Real democracy will only come when we apply the principles of free software [metagovernment.org] to government.
You don't live somewhere with a Home Owners Association, do you? Getting people to participate is nearly impossible even when it results in there being a lot of money levied on them. People would rather do other things. They hardly get out to vote.
And you actually think something like Metagovernment will work?!? Talk about a pipe dream!
What good is voting if the machine runs windows XP and is hacked in such a way that your vote wont be counted?
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People would rather do other things. They hardly get out to vote.
You've bought into the myth that peope stay away from the polls because they're lazy and apathetic. The real reason they stay home isn't apathy, it's disillusionment. Both major parties vote against their interests, the minor parties can't get elected, why vote? I had one person in a bar just the other night tell me they were staying away from the polls "as a protest". I tried to convince him it would be seen as apathy and not protest, and he
Re:Terrorism is a result of failed democracy (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact about humans is that you can never please all of the people all of the time. No matter how reasonable a given consensus is, there will always be a minority that feels otherwise, and because there are always a few people playing without a full deck, an even smaller subset of a given minority may be emotional enough to think it's worth killing over. That's not a 'failure of democracy', that's life. Deal with it.
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Terrorism is stupid. (Score:2)
1. It doesn't work.
2. It's a declaration of war against the US military establishment.
Now that these facts are clear, we can ask ourselves some serious questions. Why would a government need to fork? If you look at the system you'll see the problem with government is that the US government has too many enemies. Basically the entire world against the US government. Because of this there are foreign spy agencies seeking to control the US government by controlling congress. These foreign spy agencies now have
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Stop making excuses. (Score:2)
"Terrorism" does work sometimes. It got the Soviets out of Afghanistan and the French out of Algeria, to name but two. In fact many if not most revolutions contain a 'terrorist' component, but that label just happens to vanish if the revolution succeeds and consequently rewrites the history books making the deaths of innocents into political martyrs (which in Algeria especially was really the case, as the French orchestrated false flag terrorist attacks to undermine popular support for the local insurgency).
As for the rest, your post is tin foil hat nonsense. The President does not normally write laws (and any which he might would still have to be sponsored from committee to floor by a congressman), that's what executive orders are for. Further, congressmen, The President, cabinet members, etc. are all too busy to read most laws. That's not a secret. That's why they have a staff. Their staff researches proposed legislation, writes it, reads it, rewrites it, re-researches it, etc. and only briefs their superiors on key points. It's not a grand conspiracy, it's a simple adaptation to circumstances. There are too many bills which are too long for every congressman to read every one. Hell, many of the never make it out of committee, let alone pass a floor vote or actually get signed.
Oh but of course it's the evil, evil corporations who control everything! That's why the government was so unsuccessful at breaking up AT&T in the 80s... oh wait, it wasn't. Corporate interests are no less valid than the interests of an other institutions or individuals. They are a significant part of the economy and consequently the politics of that economy. I'm sick of all the anti-corporatism for anti-corporatism's sake. Everybody wants to ride the wagon and spit at it too.
We are tired of your excuses. You always have excuses fo why congress does not read or write it's own laws. You'll have excuses for why so many lobbyists like AIPAC are writing laws and influencing government. You'll have excuses for why corporations should be able to spend obscene amounts of money bribing and corrupting the political process.
And of course you say the voting machines being hacked is tin foil. You wont provide any solutions either because you don't want the situation to be solved.
How much ar
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'Our reasons are legitimate, their reasons are excuses, Boo them!'
If you are going to trot out this old argument, at least try to spice it up with some logical arguments as to why their reasons are less valid than yours.
Anything less makes you look like a whiner to anyone who does not already agree with you, and that hardly does anything with regards to convincing others that your side is in the right.
Personally I believe that the reason all of our legislators get paid for what they do is so that they *can*
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Does it suck? Yes, but the only way to fix it is to impose a limit on the number of bills that can be introduced, which would naturally have a dramatic impact on how responsive
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~10000 bills are introduced in Congress every year. Do you think a human being can read 10000 bills back to front in less than a year? Especially now when some bills are more than a thousand pages long? While at the same time drafting their own bills, listening to constituents, meeting with colleagues, staff, committees? Ludicrous.
Does it suck? Yes, but the only way to fix it is to impose a limit on the number of bills that can be introduced, which would naturally have a dramatic impact on how responsive the legislature could be (and it's already slow). That would necessitate a more powerful executive to take up the slack. Is that what you want? A paralyzed legislative branch and a tyrant?
I don't like it anymore than the next guy, but I'm not so simple minded that I think you can hand wave it away as "they're just not doing their jobs".
Then maybe they shouldn't be introducing 1000 bills 1000 pages each that they didn't write.
If you don't believe in Democracy just say so.
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Foreign money is speech. (Score:2)
Because the money comes from and is owned by the foreigners and foreign nationals.
So they write the policies, they write the laws, they basically run DC with AIPAC and other lobbyist groups like them. Don't be surprised when China, Isreal, Russia and many other powerful nations actually use their money as speech to determine our future.
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So you're saying the Constitution doesn't apply to foreigners eh? Glad we can agree that illegal immigrants have no right to due process. Cool.
I wasn't talking about illegal immigrants. Nice try.
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[...] nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
14th Amendment, weasel out of that one douchebag.
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You can't have it both ways, either the Constitution applies to foreigners and they get freedom of speech and due process, or it doesn't and they don't get freedom of speech or due process. That's the whole point of 'equal protection':
[...] nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
14th Amendment, weasel out of that one douchebag.
Foreigners don't get to vote and shouldn't.
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It is clear by your ignorant, flat wrong
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They're not voting, they are speaking. The Constitution is clear: anybody can speak, regardless of citizenship. There were no Constitutional considerations about voting before the Civil War, it was up to the states to decide for themselves who could vote. Outside of the overarching conditions set out in the 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments the states still decide who can vote and who can't, and in some localities it is possible [wikipedia.org] by law for non-citizens to vote.
It is clear by your ignorant, flat wrong assertions that you have neither the learning nor desire to learn that makes the furtherance of this exchange worth my time. If you would like a civics lesson I recommend you pay for it from an institution designed to render such services. In the meantime try to see that your insufficient grasp of US law, politics, and history do not unduly impede the work of the informed.
I never said it was illegal. I never said it wasn't a pattern through history. I said I disagreed with the path we are on. And I don't think foreign money can be considered equal speech when it's speech is worth more than my speech.
With voting every vote is of equal worth, with money not every amount of equal. Even you can figure something like this out.
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I never said it was illegal.
Liar. "Foreigners don't get to vote" is an assertion of fact, and the only systemic mechanism for denial is a legal one. It's bad enough that you were ignorant and wrong, trying to lie your way out of it is pathetic.
I could give you a huge analogy about how political spending impacts the electorate, but you're not worth the time at this point. You are clearly a die hard enemy of free speech, as you want to censor any speech you think isn't "equal" because of how much it costs. Take your lies and ignorance
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Of course, some of us see a problem in laws being voted on w
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The only way to 'fix' the federal government would be to either fundamentally change it, say by imposing limits on the number of bills that could be written/sponsored in a sessio
Size is not efficiency. (Score:2)
The simple fact is that the US government is too big because the US itself is too big. If you want an efficient government you want a sovereign polis. Aristotle knew it, Machiavelli knew it, but the economic and military concerns have overridden any concern for a pure abstract efficient state. The state does not exist in a vacuum.
The only way to 'fix' the federal government would be to either fundamentally change it, say by imposing limits on the number of bills that could be written/sponsored in a session, or by completely dissolving it and letting the states become sovereign again (which are microcosms of the federal problem so that only partially ameliorates).
The problem is not that the US government is too big, the problem is the US government is neither efficient or effective. To be effective would mean foreign influence would be kept out of the democratic process. Do we really want foreigners writing the laws that govern us as Americans?
To be effective would also mean limiting the influence of corporations on government while increasing the influence of unions. This would give the worker(citizen) a voice, even if it's limited by the corrupt union boss it's st
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Alternatively, we fall back on that Constitutional Separation of Powers thing, and leave the State Legislatures to handle State things, while restricting the Federal legisla
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(My wife, who incidentally is black, thinks that the Civil War provided a social catharsis that was potentially worth bot
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All of those things are covered by that Constitutional thing. See, we have this process that we like to refer to as "the amendment process". We can change the Constitution if needed. As was done to deal with Slavery.
Note, by the way, that both poll taxes and "literacy tests" were never actually allowed by the Constitution. And there was a Constitutional solution to both anyway - if you disenfranchise so
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Note, by the way, that both poll taxes and "literacy tests" were never actually allowed by the Constitution.
You have a basic ignorance of how US law works
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Separate reply, since the subjects were so unrelated.
I'm not black. Some of my ancestors were slave-owners. No doubt at all, I've seen some old Wills.
That said, I agree with your wife, mor
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Wow buddy you have your head straight up your ass don't you? Ok, so let's say we take all the geeks, fighters, number crunchers and thinkers nation wide, train them and deploy them in some fashion. Who are you going to fight? If all of the politicians are corrupt who is going to know on a world scale who is bad and who is good? Bomb everybody? That hasn't worked out well for anybody before, hack everybody? They'll just hack back. Start a war with the middle east? All the politicians now want to screw with them and if they are apparently not on the side of their own country then you are just serving "the spy". So where do you propose this great militia should go, who should they kill? Maybe with all of this propaganda going around you feel you need to kill someone but in reality you don't need to. As far as we know the whole 9/11 thing could have been a result of one diplomat making fun of anothers wifes dress. How much do you hear when they talk face to face? Maybe they golf and laugh about all this shit behind closed doors. But somehow you want one group of people to attack another group of people because of politicians who are talking shit in the ears of both sides?
If you want your freedom you have to be willing to fight for it.
Enjoy being ruled by foreign corporations, it's the position you deserve.
There is a choice (Score:2)
If you want the USA to be free and have a valid democratic process uncorrupted by foreign influence then you'd have to get all the best minds in the country to fight or challenge the best minds from other countries. If the best minds in our country only think about making money, and the best minds in China, Russia, Iran and other countries are all focused on taking over the USA in clandestine fashion, the result is going to be that the best minds in the USA are going to be corrupted by foreign nationals, fo
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Note that not as many people as you might think agree with you (or with anyone else in particular) in their definition of "reasonable".
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And here I thought that when someone suggests that not everyone would go along with a consensus "No matter how reasonable a given consensus is" that he was suggesting that "there will always be a minority that feels otherwise" sort of implied that it made sense to use "reasonable" as an absolute.
As in, "I think this is reasonable, and anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot." Which you hear in lot of political discussions, when it comes right down to it.
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Terrorism is what the Directorat uses to keep the people in line after the French revolution.
I'll post the obvious.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Critical infrastructure providers represent industries that are of such importance either to a nation’s economy or society that if their cyber networks were successfully attacked and damaged, the result would threaten national security.
WTF are "critical infrastructure providers" doing by connecting their critical systems to the internet?
If they need to connect plants or other things, leased lines aren't an option?
Only "obvious" in a perfect world (Score:1)
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There is the fallacy of "this isn't a 100% solution, so why bother?"
If it were up to me, I'd probably implement a solution that went into one place I worked at. They had a private network (only accessible to the dedicated machines, and the corporate network. To bridge the two, they had one machine on the private network which grabbed data from the controllers, then turned it into XML, and pushed it through a serial connection that physically only allowed Tx (Rx was cut) to another machine. The machine on
Cyber War... (Score:2)
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And the Russians, and Iran, and possibly Al Qaeda and a lot of "domestic terrorist" groups like the ALF. Homeland security produced a report which was leaked on Wikileaks detailing who the targets are.
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Tell that to the Dept of homeland security.
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Are you calling the DHS a bunch of pussies?
Predicted Future news: (Score:4, Insightful)
Politically motivated cyber attack reports are spun into support for new laws bringing the US up to speed with the most draconian technology laws in the world - provide your password or go to jail forever, prove that the drawing is of an adult, and even prove that you have never interacted with anyone who has committed these cyber-crimes or go to jail by association!
Laws aren't what is needed. Use spy agencies. (Score:2)
If somebody is a politically motivated cyber terrorists, the law isn't going to make a difference as they aren't the kind of person who would respect the law to begin with.
So those laws would mainly affect us and leave them free to hack us and do anything to us basically. The only real solution is for spy agencies and military to train it's own group of cyber warriors or whatever we want to call these people to conduct cyber warfare. This combined with the current laws should be enough.
The law usually creat
Objective (Score:2)
How come there's no mention of the objective of these attacks? What could it be, why would you take out energy or communication companies?
Cyber Terrorism = Cyber Warfare. (Score:3)
It's a war. This is not new. Just look at whats going on with Cryptome being hacked in the name of Bradley Manning. I would say ideology is a strong motivator for hacking.
DDOS attacks as protests? (Score:1, Interesting)
DOSS attacks could be the new form of protests. They could have the same protections as regular protests. They would have to be announced and could last for a limited number of hours per day.
Regular protest cause financial loss anyway, so there's no difference there. But unlike the regular protests people from around the world could participate easily. The media would cover the protest just like any other, so you'd get attention to the issue as well.
It's what anonymous already does in a way - they announce
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Bet BT/Transocean/Haliburton blames.... (Score:2)
Stuxnet for sinking their battleship!