Errr...you're telling me no one is doing this on our side yet??
...an Air Force colonel is suggesting the U.S. military build its own “botnet,” or network of remotely controlled computers, to be ready to attack the computer networks of foreign enemies. The proposal Col. Charles Williamson III outlined in the May edition of the Armed Forces Journal highlights the creative cyberwarfare strategies being hashed out by the military as hackers abroad step up their attacks on U.S. government computer networks and others around the world.I would have thought this would have been going on since about, you know, 1964.
Comments
Chris Taylor - May 15, 2008 2:24 pm
One small problem though -- nobody had an internet in 1964. Twenty-odd years ago the Soviets used to try to trawl milnets for data, but not strike to try and take them down. The net was a much smaller beast back then, and culpability much more easily determined.
These days PLA attacks come from Chinese ISPs and they are maintaining constant pressure on US milnets and other potential targets. And that Russia-Estonia thing last year really rung some bells; the whole country basically went through a denial of service for several days.
Then there's the political angle. If an adversary takes out your buildings via missile strike that's an act of war. If they can achieve the same effects with no loss of life via a botnet, is it still a warlike act? And because these things originate from commercial ISPs it's very easy for the OPFOR to deny any involvement. Oh, it was a bunch of stupid users who got their PCs infected with some kind of malware. Sorry. Prove it was otherwise.
To be blunt: What if somebody (say China) is achieving warlike web effects every single day? Does that demand a military response?
There's a good article in the January '08 <I>Air Force</i> magazine, titled "The Dogs of Web War". Gives a brief overview of the issues and what one of the service branches is trying to do about it.
Alan - May 15, 2008 2:43 pm
But remember there was the internet of 1945 as well as pre-internet telephone networks (not to mention mail by pheumatic tubes!) which have each demanded their own risk assessments as well as assessments for strategic opportunities.<p>What I really meant - but you say more clearly - is I assume China is achieving ends through internet hacking and I also assume that the US is doing the same thing and has been for some time. It's all just listening posts and counter espionage but with the cubicle farm instead of forced marches.