The Darkening Web

[humble3d]

The Darkening Web

Misinformation is the strongest cyberweapon

China watches what its own people say, Russia spreads its own version of events and the US brags.

A new book shows that cyber-conflict is largely a war of words

IN LATE June, I was leaving for a flight from Kiev’s Boryspil Airport as news broke that Ukraine was the victim of another massive cyberattack.

ATMs, gas pumps and supermarket checkouts were frozen.

Government computers appeared to be seized by ransomware. Chernobyl’s radiation monitoring system was affected.

 There were reports that the attack had grounded planes at the airport. Not that I could get there: I couldn’t seem to catch a cab on a single ride-sharing app.

The attack spread with frightening speed, but I eventually made it to Boryspil, where everything seemed to be functioning normally.

Frankly, though, the thought of hurtling through the air in a metal tube guided by computers during a global cyberattack did give me pause.

It’s this type of worldwide cyber-chaos – the type that could down airplanes, turn off respirators and plunge millions into darkness – that Alexander Klimburg warns of in The Darkening Web. And it’s much closer to crippling our societies than world leaders would like to believe.

Deadly ignorance

Klimburg, a strategic analyst in this field, compares cyberwarfare to the threat posed by nuclear weapons. But there is one critical difference: while “the horror of the nuclear mushroom cloud [has been] burned into the minds of a generation of decision makers”, there is little understanding within government, never mind outside it, of the consequences of all-out cyberwar.

Without such a basic understanding, along with a more transparent policy, we risk being plunged into total cyber-conflict.

 

Having put the fear of God in us, Klimburg tells the story of the internet: how it was built and how it is governed – as a way of asserting US dominance, according to a few nations.

 

He also talks about hackers, who are not the “400-pound guys” of President Trump’s imagination, but complex beings who just as often work for governments as against them.

 

We find out how they exploit the internet’s vulnerabilities.

 

One of the key vulnerabilities in US cyber-policy, Klimburg says, is “cyber-innuendo”.

 

If governments were teenage boys, Washington would be the kid boasting about his latest escapades with the prettiest girl in class.

His embellishments on a kernel of truth are meant to inspire shock and awe, but succeed in egging other boys on to sharing or pursuing even fiercer strategies of their own.

Information about US cyber-dominance is established through strategic leaks, but these only serve to encourage actors like Russia and China to beef up their own capabilities and train their sights on the US and, increasingly, on their own people.

 

In China, for example, the Great Firewall “protects” citizens from problematic content, and political discussions are deflected by government contractors. Citizens’ behaviour on social media is meticulously monitored and may soon be assigned a government “social credit score”.

The Russian cyberthreat is, by contrast, meant “not to compete with the United States and the West, but somehow to catastrophically weaken them”.

Klimburg does a fine job explaining the various structures within Russia’s security services that handle cyberwarfare.

 

His definition encompasses not only the hacking to which the West has now grown accustomed, but also the widespread information warfare equally capable of influencing policy and populations.

 

Despite being well aware of the dangers of Russian information war, Klimburg falls victim to it, referring to the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine as an “insurgency… and resulting civil war”.

 

This is exactly the narrative that Russia peddled after it invaded Ukraine’s sovereign territory, sending troops, weapons and money to so-called separatists in the Donbas for three years, at a cost of 10,000 lives.

 

With his knowledge of Russia, Klimburg should know better than to buy into this lexicon.

 

Klimburg’s warnings regarding Russian cyber-aspirations, however, are on the money.

 

He does not think the US election was turned around solely by Russia’s campaigns and incursions.

 

Still, his recommendations might have helped the Obama administration retaliate while evading charges of partisanship. Klimburg argues that governments should be clear and transparent about what types of cyberattacks they face and what “deterrence by cyber-means” should entail.

 

“In China, behaviour on social media may soon be assigned a government ‘social credit score’”

 

Time treats books in strange ways.

 

Seven months into the Trump administration, which is actively working to unravel the freedom of the internet and aiding the spread of disinformation from the Oval Office itself, The Darkening Web feels less like a work of advocacy, more like a cry for help. If only we had known, perhaps we could have staged an intervention.

 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23531410-700-in-the-darkening-web-misinformation-is-the-most-powerful-cyber-weapon/?

 

[steven36]

Like people even have a say in what the government does if they dont like the way things  are elect congress out in the mid terms and Trump out in 4 years . Sounds kind of libtard  too me  concertinaing that most spy programs we know of were already in place and Obama  was using them  against us the whole time and the bad thing was whistleblowers exposed him at it. Whoever wrote this  have no proof   Trump is  trying do this and even if he is there is nothing you can do . 

 

This is how much good protesting do 0%

FCC makes net neutrality complaints public, but too late to stop repeal

13,000 pages of net neutrality complaints released, but comment deadline passed.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/fcc-makes-net-neutrality-complaints-public-but-too-late-to-stop-repeal/

13,000s pages  and still there going repeal  it  and that was at the FCC site alone and still pages of complaints going on other sites

Only thing you can do is stop using the internet for things unless you have too if you want more privacy .

[jtmulc]

9 hours ago, humble3d said:

Chernobyl’s radiation monitoring system was affected

 

NOT cool.  There are some things even people seeking to destabilize governments should not touch.

[straycat19]

There will never be an international cyberwar that includes the US.  Within 30 minutes a national firewall could be activated that would block all internet communication from outside the continental US.  It would not affect anything within the borders but nothing would be allowed in or out.  Notwithstanding the data communications collection points the NSA, CIA, and FBI may have outside the borders that would still be collecting data for analysis at those locations.  Models have shown that if the US blocked all internet traffic that the rest of the world would be reduced to speeds less than that of a 56k modem. You did keep a modem for just such emergencies, didn't you?

[Ha91]

I mostly agree with what you write however, you are clearly dis-illusioned when it comes to what you say about the drop in modem speeds. 

 

There are various ships and submarine cables, which are indepedent from any U.S. broadband infrastructure.

 

The credit is due to the U.S for having created the internet, but it does not mean that we die without the former - even theoretically,

 

Peace out, brother. 

53 minutes ago, straycat19 said:

There will never be an international cyberwar that includes the US.  Within 30 minutes a national firewall could be activated that would block all internet communication from outside the continental US.  It would not affect anything within the borders but nothing would be allowed in or out.  Notwithstanding the data communications collection points the NSA, CIA, and FBI may have outside the borders that would still be collecting data for analysis at those locations.  Models have shown that if the US blocked all internet traffic that the rest of the world would be reduced to speeds less than that of a 56k modem. You did keep a modem for just such emergencies, didn't you?

 

[steven36]

1 hour ago, Ha91 said:

I mostly agree with what you write however, you are clearly dis-illusioned when it comes to what you say about the drop in modem speeds. 

 

There are various ships and submarine cables, which are indepedent from any U.S. broadband infrastructure.

 

The credit is due to the U.S for having created the internet, but it does not mean that we die without the former - even theoretically,

 

Peace out, brother. 

 

Yes  you're right  there is no way  any country can turn off the internet world wide ..Trump had this crazy idea  he was going  shut the internet down too stop the terrorist  before here is what was said about it.

Quote

 

First obstacle: the internet itself

For one thing, the U.S. doesn’t control the internet. No one does.

Because the internet is a global web of networks that are all owned by different governments, companies or individuals, no single entity has the ability to turn it off in parts of the world that it doesn’t control. The only recourse is to destroy the electric grid and other infrastructure in that region — but that’s extreme, and it still might not work with the availability of power generators and such.

Even within the U.S., ferreting out extremist groups and kicking them off the internet isn’t realistic, given how rapidly the internet grows and changes.

And people have a long history of finding their way around internet restrictions, whether it’s democracy activists in China or Iran, or tweens looking to circumvent their school’s firewall.

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/ap-fact-check-trump-cant-shut-internet/

 There is even internet via satellite  that is  much faster than dailup . There is a way the USA  can stop hackers,  but it would ruin the internet  by blocking ip ranges  from  other countries  if they ever done this it will be like China  with the Great firewall of the USA . It may happen one day  if things get bad enough .

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23531383-300-we-can-stop-hacking-and-trolls-but-it-would-ruin-the-internet/