1st of all, I'd like to say that you are evidently more equipped with knowledge in this area. I don't know if you used to be in the armed forces, know people, work in the area, etc. I'm just in High-School, and a freshman at that xD But I have a decent degree of common sense.
What I'm saying is that I'll be able to discuss that, but not to the degree and detail that you can, because of a) lack of time and b) lack of knowledge. Anyway, continuing...
China is actually endangering itself, here. It still lacks the military might to adequately protect itself from a physical response to its cyber policies.
This is true. But in a World War, we don't know who nor what we will be up against. It may be a good time from now, where China and us are on good terms. Or we may be against China and others, while having allies our-self. It may be something as horrid as a UN split-up, or a rebellion of a few (which could still be disastrous). Maybe it will be an attack from those who aren't part of the UN. All I'm saying is that we don't know who we'll be up against whenever the next WORLD WAR begins. I personally don't think it will be China, because although we're at odds, for one to defeat the other is to severely injure itself. But only time can tell. And secondly, not only do we not know who we're going against, but not WHAT. The civilian population, heck, most anyone but the top 10, do not know what the USA's cutting edge technology is, cyber nor physical. And just the same, we don't know ALL the new developments made by other countries, ESPECIALLY those higher up in power. Also, don't forget, during times of conflict, inventions fly like eggs from a chicken. During the World War, who knows what may be developed.
The U.S. is horribly unprepared for cyber warfare. That said, most of the instances of "hacking" are actually examples of human failure of the system. There are a few instances where it was -all- done from computers in China... but the Human Intelligence aspect of information warfare has not changed, at all. In fact, it's gotten even more important. A disgruntled employee can be coaxed into compromising an isolated network by temporarily connecting it to the internet at large. A valid key for encryption can be used to rapidly speed up decryption efforts in the future, a 'thumb drive' can contain the entire publication manuals for several aircraft and all sub-components (something completely impractical decades ago).
Absolutely. Small mistakes (or as you stated, even bad moods) can lead to mass leaking of information. Such however is a weakness for all nations.
When the U.S. decapitated the CIA following the fall of the Soviet Union - it weakened our human intelligence resources and set the stage for an incredibly vulnerable information rich economy as technology magnified the damage a single individual can do.
Yes it did.
Anyone who thinks we are not in a cold war with China is naive.
OR ignorant of information, OR you're incorrect. <- Don't take that the wrong way. Likely, of the 3 options, I'm simply ignorant. MANY things I am ignorant of, and I dare say you as well. As is everyone on earth. Misconceptions are common among man. I'd say we aren't peaceful right now, per say, but we aren't at the point of a cold war with China. Approaching, maybe. But not there. What is done by or happens to a part of a population doesn't reflect the whole of the doers nor receivers.
The level of espionage we are dealing with surpasses the "spy wars" that were going on during the height of the Cold War. The thing is that China isn't acting as if we might nuke them at the drop of a hat, and we are pretending that if we ignore the issue, it will simply go away.
Just for the record, we have spies there to. I know, captain obvious. But what is done to us, in part is largely done to them as well. The fact is that it goes both ways, and now while maybe largely to them, to all countries for that matter. There are far more spies in the world than you think, and trust me when I say that. That's why we aren't going to nuke China (nor any oter countries for that matter) nor any us. No-one is that dumb- yet.
One of my friends worked at a company that does site hosting for a lot of local businesses. He oversaw much of their network - We'd have frequent conversations about the day's events (such as having to tweak the firewall because an intrusion attempt by some server in China was causing it to lock out too many ports). It was a constant theme that some source in China was trying to gain access it wasn't supposed to have. Usually, it was pretty basic, amateur stuff defeated by the default settings of most server software - but if he ever had a headache, it usually came from China.
Just saying, what some hackers in China do doesn't reflect the whole country. I doubt that the government was directly targeting your friend. And, I find it likely that we do the same. Not the government, but private groups for people who do that. China is just good at it, and if it ever escalated to a war-level, we'd be in trouble.
And they are a pretty small company that hosts businesses local to this section of Missouri. It's not like the schematics for the next iphone are stored there, or something.
^Why I suspect that it wasn't a government attack or anything. Likely, if we approached China like that, they could honestly say they didn't know what we were talking about.
In terms of actual network attacks - it's China's chief export.
That 1st and foremost, also their manpower. Agreed.
...
That's not really all that plausible, realistically.
I disagree. To an extent, it likely could be done now, and certainly in the future, absolutely during a war where inventions heighten.
About as close as you could get would be to try and 'hack' a wireless internet provider. Physics poses a lot of challenges to this idea, however... first - the receivers are designed to utilize nominal FM bands as well as to utilize the side-lobes/bands to increase data throughput. The Earth's ionosphere and atmosphere play hell with these communications. Further, they are designed to transmit and receive low-angle over land.
You don't have to hack into that, just into other satellites, or other satellite controlled objects.
A satelite could potentially be sensitive enough to 'listen in' on these networks, but would likely have to utilize an indirect method (which would be very, very iffy). But actually transmitting to one of these receivers would be difficult. Theoretically, you could locate a nearby building with a predictable resonane and induce it into being a sort of local antenna or have someone establish reflector dishes.... but you're talking about putting some seriously powerful communications gear in orbit with a -lot- of real-time processing of wide-band microwave transmissions.
Okay, true, it would be difficult; but certainly not, no, far from impossible. This war isn't happening tomorrow, but in the future.
Basically - the only things that would be even remotely practical for them to hack into using satellites would be stations set up to utilize satellite communications, as-is. Satellite relay networks would be among the first things to be hardened against cyber-warfare efforts. Not that they are all that vulnerable to being hacked, as-is.
That's what I'm saying. For one, missiles are sometimes satellite operated. Some internet/phones are too. Information is stored there. One can listen in and see things. I'm not talking about "hacking" per say, a better word would've been "tapping into" already existing satellite connections, either via hacking the satellite, or tapping into the connection already existing.
A few would get shot down - but, honestly, I'd rather utilize a lot of the more localized communications methods/protocols for a force than satellites. JTIDS is an excellent example:
You must be registered for see links
and MIDS:
You must be registered for see links
-no comment-
Using certain functions of those systems, it is theoretically possible for an F-18 to designate targets for a harpoon fired from a B-52, or for the AEGIS radars aboard a Ticonderoga to designate an aggressor behind the F-18 as the target for an Aim-9X (which would still terminal guide using IR).
You good sir, know more than me, and I am rather unfamiliar with these terms. But I think we're on the same page here. Don't forget, new things will be developed though.
About the best China could do in terms of EW and satellites is to launch a satellite in orbit that would simply bombard areas with a MASER tuned to frequently used communications bands. That obnoxious thing would be shot down post-haste.
Already revised to tapping into already existing connections. that's what I meant all along, I just didn't articulate it correctly.
This will be somewhat true. The U.S. is behind the ball in terms of a strategic network security model/plan. Everyone is kind of doing their own thing and, to my knowledge, there's only loose ideas on how to go about hardening the internet against foreign intrusion in ways that would not, also, cripple our own network enjoyment.
Yup.
I would be curious if there's been much done by Infragard on this idea:
You must be registered for see links
-no comment-
The original idea of Infragard was to serve as a means of hardening our infrastructure against terrorist attacks. One does not need to apply much imagination to see where problems arise with little effort to secure reservoirs used for supplying the public with potable water, power sub-stations (imagine if the unibomber or other such individuals simply went around to the largely unmonitored power sub-stations and started blowing them up), key public transportation lines (bridges), etc.
Okay, interesting, but reality =/= ideals. Something of that sort would likely be run be the government, and even then who knows how effective.
But the idea can be expanded to cyber security, and even "cyber infrastructure."
Could, yes, I agree. It just has to be done ^_^
This is, exactly, why the CIA needs a huge shot in the arm and have its human intelligence department expanded, massively.
Agreed, our human intelligence system is behind in comparison to other countries (but let us recognize there is much you and I don't know in this area).
World War II was won largely because of the Allies' domination of the information warfare and intelligence efforts put forth. We need to get back on the ball and have a much better network within China than we do.
Exactly, agreed.
