It's become increasingly apparent that this nation has fallen behind the curve with respect to a type of warfare that could paralyze everything from banking and business transactions to nuclear defense capabilities.
Over the July 4th weekend and into the following week, a widespread cyber attack knocked out the websites of several governmental agencies. Coming, as it did, on the nation's birthday and just days after President Obama described Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin as having "one foot in the old ways of the Cold War," the attack was seen by some as a warning shot.
If so, it would not be the first. Early last year, the Pentagon admitted it had spent $100 million over the preceding six months to repair the damages from such attacks.
It is not certain, of course, that the Russian government is behind the mahem. There are other suspects, such as China, but if one looks back along the trail, the footprints of Russia are there.
Last November, a strike on key Defense Department sites was reported to have come from inside Russia. That attack caused the Pentagon to ban the use of flash drives, a move that made the sharing of information more difficult in the war theaters.
Furthermore, an electronic attack from Russia in 2007 shut down government computers in Estonia and last summer, western governments and the business world were stunned by the degree to which Georgia's communications capabilities were disrupted during its short war with Russia.
Two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Gates ordered the creation of a military command to oversee cyberspace both from a defensive and offensive standpoint. That was just 11 days before the latest attacks which brazenly even knocked out some of the new websites responsible for fighting such crimes.
Also disabled were the communications of the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department, as well as the websites of major South Korean government agencies and banks.
Hacking has advanced far beyond the illicit activities of young, gifted vandals. It has been reported that the potential economic damage from these high-level attacks could involve the widespread disruption of the nation's financial markets, banks, and supply chains, including food deliveries. And, the military consequences could shut down our communications, paralyze our ability to conduct operations, disable our capability to respond to an attack and even take command of our drones and stall our warplanes in flight.
Clearly the misuse of cyberspace potentially represents the most destructive weaponry outside of the nuclear arsenals.
The United States is apparently late to the dance, in this respect, but it is encouraging to know that the Obama administration is now extending a major effort to close the gap.
Dave McGill, News Correspondent
Dave's column, "The Contrarian," generally published every Friday, to Gather Essential News will sometimes present a contrary view to various aspects of the news, or an alternate take on the conventional wisdom of the day, and will often appear on other days of the week.
Dave has been a senior officer of an eastern insurance company, involved in economic projections and investment strategy, president of a Midwestern mortgage banking company, and a financial consultant in Southern California, serving clients in the field of commercial real estate development.
You can find all of Dave's "the contrarian" columns at: http://gather.com/thecontrarian. Keep up with Dave's other postings and Gather activity by joining his Gather network at: http://atadaskew.gather.com. You'll find Dave and other News correspondents, plus celebrity content and plenty of news experts at: news.gather.com
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Comments: 19
Actually we have lots of achilles' heels. Our current vulnerability to cyber attacks is due to many factors, most unnecessary.
While you are thinking about it perhaps you should back up your files.
Or, it's what we are being told, and there is a government move afoot to take greater control of the internet as a control issue against it's own citizens...
Nothing ever seems to be what it seems, these days, and one has to wonder.
Interesting point, Ron...The government's lack of control over the internet is an extremely sore point for those that have fashioned our otherwise absence of "free speech" (except for those legalized payoffs to our pols)...
"Clearly the misuse of cyberspace potentially represents the most destructive weaponry outside of the nuclear arsenals. "
I agree with Ron. A false flag attack on cyberspace would offer the best possible excuse to impose user controls and censorship. It also could be a first strike against net neutrality.
While the use of social networking sites to get real time news out of Iran was viewed by many citizens as a good thing, I imagine that there are many in government that view that development with horror.
I sounds to me as though it is just another attack on America from its own government. Similar to the Patriot Act ane the Homegrown Terrorist act.
Huh ??? What are you smoking tonight, Col. George?
Both of those acts were an attack on the Bill of Rights and the Constituton by our own government Randy. Is there anything to make you think they might be doing it again? They have been itching to control the internet for a long time.
Another interesting theory, Colonel...
It could easily be from both quarters Dave. I don't believe Russia is much of a threat any more.
A strange thing happened. Right after I read this post I went to an article telling about how 2 amendments to the Audit the Fed bill passed thanks to 8 Democrats who voted for them. I tried to log in to several of their links but was told Explorer could not display the link.
I tried to log onto a link from Restore the Republic about a ammunition restriction bill and got the same message.
Fortunately I have 2 computers and kept trying. I finally read both articles and am proud to say Both Democratic Senators from MT voted for the amendments.
We are going to have to watch that bill on ammunition. It was moved out of committee and is now to be voted on by the Senate.
I have just finished reading an exhaustive report by Catherine Austin Fitts on patterns of real estate foreclosures overlaid with patterns of drug use and drug busts with property confiscations. It's beyond sobering.
The behaviors of our own government don't leave much room for harm from abroad. Do they want higher rates of cancer from endocrine disruption? Sheesh, if I were Putin, I wouldn't even want to come here. He appears to want to be macho. He probably knows what happens to male animals exposed to a typical U.S. chemical load.
The world knows about Monsanto and its connection to our government. They know about our infamous incarceration rates. They know about poor U.S. behavior from what they see of our homesick people stationed in off-shore bases.
Our robber classes have impoverished the U.S. to a point where there are no longer any legitimate excuses for the U.S. to have off-shore military bases, not that we can much longer afford to provide them with the fuel they've become accustomed to.
The latest information I saw today indicates those bonds taken from two Japanese nationals in Italy were real.
While the U.S. still has beautiful places, we also have incredible pollution, visible for all to see on Google Earth. Who wants to live near a Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO)?
The fusion between corporations and government puts individuals who want to talk about how they eat on TV in serious danger of being confined in a private prison, owned by guess-whom?
The costs of bossing and confining are getting so out of hand that some states are just letting people loose.
Neighborhoods are going to have to help each other out. Maybe we will have to re-learn how to talk face-to-face to people we live near.
If and when our government begins to respect the Bill of Rights, maybe then they could scare us with off-shore worries. Until then, they've just worn that trash talk out.
Do you suppose any of those problems result from people trying to get more money? ... I think so too. Isn't it odd that we use a money which encourages such behavior?
Hi Mary, you might resonate with the movie "Food Inc" which just came out, talks about CAFOs, Monsanto ...
We have all been partying and working and in general not paying attention to what is happening in this world at the grand level, and as we collectively start to look up I think we are all going to see that last second realization before we fly off the cliff.
There are just so many people and the systems we use to keep them all alive and still reproducing are growing so fast that they have no time to see or react to the strains that are produced by the ignored externalities.
This is happening simultaneously with almost every system we have established in the planet ... because they are not really systems, they are just unsustainable exploitation.
In an obvious CYA move, today, the government is spinning this to be inconsequential, however it is anything but. We have been caught flatfooted with respect to this technology and while we will likely be able to avoid any serious problems, the fact is our national security is currently uncomfortably vulnerable...
And now all of a sudden the Swine Flu is in the spotlight again. Juat another diversion possibly created by our Government and hyped up by the press to divert our attention from the issues mentioned by several posters in this thread.
I have seen Food Inc., and I recommend it for those with strong stomachs. The situation with agriculture is what has sent so many to plant nurseries to buy seeds and plants this year. If you grow it yourself, you know what went on it, and you are used to the microbes around your own place. Not so, for most, with the E. coli that cows carry if they are fed corn (which they are not designed to eat). Cows are designed to eat grass, and have complicated digestive systems to digest the cellulose in grass. One of the key people in the movie lost a child to E. Coli.
Much of this has been a worry since the 90s when the Zoomies created their Space Command and all services started to drill cyber security issues into peoples heads as we gained this new technology.
That nations haev used such against us in the past is not news either sadly and another sign that we do not seem to have much of a learning curve.
Thanks for the info David!