
Pentagon Puts Cyberwarriors on the Offensive - SeanBoocock
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/us/politics/cyber-command-trump.html
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Covzire
I have a hard time believing this is anything new.

"Another complicating factor is that taking action against an adversary often
requires surreptitiously operating in the networks of an ally, like Germany —
a problem that often gave the Obama administration pause."

In the light of the previous administration specifically targeting our ally
Germany[0], including Merkel herself, what is that sentence even supposed to
mean?

[0] [https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/03/politics/germany-media-
spying...](https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/03/politics/germany-media-spying-obama-
administration/index.html)

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Arubis
I have a kneejerk reaction to dislike virtually anything associated with the
current administration, coupled with an understanding that escalation of
actions associated with war rarely leads to _less_ war.

Yet, knowing that actually defending against a sufficiently determined,
skillful, and (crucially) patient network adversary is virtually impossible,
I'm unconvinced that this move is a bad one. In fact, it strikes me as the
only realistic form of defense short of using actual physical force.

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mr__y
Well, the problem with cyber offensive is that while even a minor disruption
in network infrastructure in western countries will have a huge impact on both
economy and society and could cause significant losses. Whereas even if you
completely destroy networks of Islamic state I doubt it will hurt them a lot.
Cyber warfare escalation is not really a smart move when your economy really
needs IT infrastructure and your opponent does not (or does but to a
significantly lesser degree)

~~~
varjag
That assumes your enemy was holding back their efforts due to some bizarre
case of chivalry.

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forapurpose
Very important context is that this policy is fits an openly stated shift by
the current administration (no matter what you think of them) away from the
post-WWII international order, based on the rule of law (the 'rules-based
order') and to pre-WWII interstate geopolitical competition. IIRC the quote
from Kelly or McMaster, 'Geopolitics is back with a vengence' (they embraced
that idea), and I think most people are familiar with the America First
policy. Early in the Trump administration, two top officials (McMaster and
Mattis?) wrote an op-ed in the WSJ where they said, 'there is no community of
nations'; it's everyone for themselves.

The postwar order was built by the victors of WWII, including Churchill,
Roosevelt and Stalin, because they believed that nationalism and geopolitical
competition led to wars - remember they had seen WWI, WWII, and the centuries
of wars before that, which they saw as the worst scourge of humanity (I'm not
sure of Stalin's thinking there). They also thought that, due to the
technology of 1945, the next major war could devastate civilization, even
without nuclear weapons - look at the devastation in Europe, as an example,
from WWII. And IIRC 1/3 of European men (or British men?) died in WWI. Imagine
what could be done with today's technology. Would civilization survive? ~200
people million died in WWII; how many would die today?

One effect of acting in this way (i.e., as described in the article) outside
the postwar rules-based order is that, especially as the U.S. was the
foundation of that order, it actively destroys the order and makes it
difficult to return to it in the next administration. It creates anarchy,
which undermines the authority of law. The success of that order was
overwhelming; the greatest period of peace, liberty, and prosperity in history
by orders of magnitude. One thing I don't understand is, who would want to
dismantle it? For what ends? The only answer I've seen is that it's the
Culture Wars taken too far - they've forgotten what they are fighting for.

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hiram112
Are you asserting that Snowden was explicitly working as a Russian agent in
order to weaken / embarrass the US intelligence agencies?

While I believe he probably caused more harm to the US than help, I really
don't believe he is / was a Russian agent.

Seems like Russia simply ended up with him due to travel restrictions, and
since they have absolutely no reason to turn him over to the US as that might
discourage future and actual collaborators, they allowed him to remain. A

~~~
deepfriedbits
The beauty (curse?) of his case is that it will likely be a long time until we
know for sure.

If he’s half as smart as a lot of people give him credit for being, it will
take even longer to get to the answer.

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LUmBULtERA
I have a hard time believing the U.S. "cyberwarriors" were ever truly
interested in defense. It seemed as though the U.S. government was interested
in _weakening_ encryption standards and encouraging backdoors that spies, law
enforcement, and criminals could all exploit.

edit: didn't the NSA intentionally withheld zerodays to exploit them itself,
putting everyone at risk?

~~~
weber111
Having two objectives (eg, offense and defense) doesn't preclude sometimes
making decisions that trade a setback in one of the objectives for an advance
in the other.

~~~
travmatt
so they’re equal, it’s just that one is more equal than the other?

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mtgx
Shocker. The Department of Defense is actually primarily interested in
"offense".

