Just Saying....
Posted on 02/06/2014 5:39:32 PM PST by LibWhacker
The increasingly wired nature of the world means cyberspace will likely be the world's next large battlefield (if it isn't already).
Israel, always at the forefront of military technology, is paying close attention to the way the wind is blowing.
Major General Aviv Kochavi, speaking at the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, went on record as saying "cyber, in my modest opinion, will soon be revealed to be the biggest revolution in warfare, more than gunpowder and the utilization of air power in the last century."
The general's embracing of cyber warfare is not really a surprise. As UPI writes:
Israel has been a major leader in cyber warfare for some time. It is widely believed to have sabotaged the core of Iran's contentious nuclear program, its uranium enrichment center, with the notorious Stuxnet virus in 2010 in collaboration with the United States.Israel is not the only country attempting to lead the cyber charge. In many ways, it is simply reacting to the times. Iran, for example, has also fast-tracked its own cyber warfare capabilities and is it is believed to be behind "kinetic" (destructive to real-world objects) cyber attacks on energy facilities in both Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well as distributed denial of service attacks on several American banks.
Israel, too, has suffered at the hands of cyber warfare. The Carmel Tunnels, a major traffic hub in northern Israel leading to Haifa, the Israeli navy's major base, were shut down through a cyberattack. Prior to that, there was another attempted cyberattack on Haifa's water system.
This constant threat of attack has led to the establishment of some of the best military intelligence organizations in the world. The best of the best being Unit 8200.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
1) If you’re not preparing for a grid-down scenario, then you are wrong. There are state-sponsored teams capable of making it happen. 2) We talk a lot about the physical, not enough cyber. There are very few ‘Patriot’ hackers. You young people who are interested in computers, and who support the Constitution and/or Liberty: be, know, do. Go learn about network attack and defense. I said it on this blog a couple years ago – there’s a future for you there! 3) More and more experts are saying that we’re exiting the Information Age and entering the Conceptual Age. I have no idea what that means yet, but I bet cyber plays a huge role in it. Knowing that alone should be good enough reason to study it.
“Cyber Is A Bigger Revolution In Warfare Than Gunpowder”
Well great. Then issue your soldiers smartphones instead of guns, laptops instead of tanks. If they complain when you send them onto be battlefield, just explain how revolutionary they will be against a foe with mere bullets and artillery.
Usually Israeli Generals aren’t this stupid. I guess one slipped through.
I’ll put my S&W .40 cal up against a super computer any day of the week.
A hacker with some clever human engineering could meltdown a nuke plant. Wiping out a state or two.
Today we can make war in the following ways:
Hey, look! Your country has no money. All of your banks lost their digital funds overnight!
Hey, look! Your electrical grid is down. No power, no heat, no running water for your cities. Enjoy the riots.
Hey, look! All of your airliners just fell out of the sky! And your trains have stopped too.
That's a totally different kind of warfare. That's revolutionary. And you wouldn't even know for sure who is attacking you. It would be a shame for a victimized country to lash out at the wrong superpower in retaliation. Now, on top of the first cyber attack, you just pissed off a country that wasn't even thinking of attacking you.
“That’s a totally different kind of warfare. That’s revolutionary.”
I disagree. I do not deny the utility of harming your enemy through cyber means, but it is not going to win a war.
A thousand years ago, you won a war when your footsoldiers moved unimpeded upon a foes territory, physically took their stuff, and destroyed the things they didn’t want.
Today, it is exactly the same. A billion hackers can’t take over anything. A thousand soldiers can (and have many times) made history.
Revolutionary indeed.
Israel has some of the most intelligent people on the face of this planet.
“A hacker with some clever human engineering could meltdown a nuke plant. Wiping out a state or two.”
Hyperbole. There is a non-zero chance what you say could happen, but it has a very very small chance of success.
A big enough bomb will work every time.
“Israel has some of the most intelligent people on the face of this planet.”
But this General is not one of them.
The US seems to wage war now through nation building. We invade countries and build schools and hospitals and we dig wells. This hasn't worked very well.
In the old days, armies would fight each other and when one army retreated, the land they left would be controlled by the advancing army. They would hold the ground and be that much further ahead. But today it seems to be a lot of guerrilla warfare. Can you hold ground? Can you really defeat the enemy combatants? Do you ever know if you've won? I think war in general has entered a very strange period. You try to takeover with boots on the ground, but it's not clear that this tactic really gets you anywhere.
On the other hand, you could stay at home and simply observe: "I notice your country has been crippled and that millions of your people have died. That's a shame." That's the magic of cyberwarfare.
You can't "takeover" land that way, but in a global marketplace, if one of your competitors is severely crippled, you can "takeover" other things in other ways. You come out ahead, but you don't get mud on your boots.
“but you don’t get mud on your boots. “
I fully appreciate what is possible with cyberwarfare. You, perhaps, will appreciate that cyber weapons can be made obsolete or impotent with a few keystrokes, or a hardware swap-out.
You ALWAYS have to get mud on your boots to accomplish anything worthwhile.
I won’t get into recent conflicts and nation building. It’s only now becoming clear how pointless the sacrifices of our best and brightest over the last decade have been allowed to become as we allow our enemy to flourish in places Americans sacrificed to capture. That is a different story than this one.
You will never be able to rely on cyberwarfare to do anything. Your capability and advantage is subject rapid decay. That’s not to say you don’t use it, but important targets will always require bombs on target.
It is revolutionary. If you can control your enemies
communications, you can blind him, misdirect him,
create havoc. It would be hell, having smart missles
that you were afraid to fire because they suddenly
had a bad habit of exploding on the launcher.
I don’t think most folks realize how cyber
the battlefield has become. Those little cameras
on their helmits aren’t for selfies. Blind the drones
and they are worthless.
“I’ll put my S&W .40 cal up against a super computer any day of the week.”
Wait.....I’ve just updated my software to be bulletproof. Sucker!
Just Saying....
Hacking nukes from the internet? Close to no chance.
But hacking with the unknowing help of someone on the inside is very possible.
I won’t go into further detail for obvious reasons
In regards to cyber sabotage, if cyber havoc was directed on a country, causing epic economy chaos, they might not even know where to send the soldiers. In a real bad scenario, they might not even be able to communicate with their troops let alone target the unknown attacker/attackers.
The cyber threat is quite real.
“But hacking with the unknowing help of someone on the inside is very possible.”
Which is why any real business or government/military organization doesn’t let people surf the internet with impunity.
“The cyber threat is quite real.”
It has utility.
The Stunex virus was called a "digital bomb" and estimated to have set back Iran's program up to 4 years .
Even way back in 1982 you had this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage`
But as the USA has much declared war on God, then its troubles have only begun.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.