
Meet the Spy Chief Leading Us Into Cyberwar - clicks
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/
======
mquander
Do any of the representatives passing these inflated budgets have any idea
what their five billion dollars is buying? I have to imagine that all of our
elected officials hear about our "cybertroops" supplying "cyber-fire support"
enacting "cyber-kinetic attacks" and they might as well be hearing about
stealth bombers without knowing what radar, explosions, or airplanes are.

Are there some kind of Congressional training sessions where basic information
about computers is disseminated and explained, or is it all really just a
bunch of hand-waving for all the individuals involved? I assume the latter,
but I'd love to be pleasantly surprised.

~~~
asperous
From watching the C-SPAN video that was on the front page of HN, I take from
it that different senators and congressman have different levels of
understanding. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty
much no idea what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room
surrounding the coke bottle." (paraphrasing).

While Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) had a better idea of what was going on "How did
we get from the reasonable grounds, relevant authorized investigations,
statement of facts, to all phone records, all locations, all the time." (@
time 1:22:05)

~~~
u2328
> Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Lousiana), for example, had pretty much no idea
> what was going on ".gov is a coke bottle" ".com is the room surrounding the
> coke bottle." (paraphrasing).

I saw that too. She was completely dumbfounded, and apparently just defaulted
to the attitude, "well, I don't understand what the hell is going on, and I
trust you guys are doing a good job, so... good job!"

It's terrifying. We need more computer-literate people in Congress, because
the current crop are dinosaurs.

~~~
tripzilch
> We need more computer-literate people in Congress, because the current crop
> are dinosaurs.

In NL, one of the most important things Bits of Freedom (Dutch equiv of the
EFF) does, is writing reports and summaries explaining just what all this
computer stuff means, what the consequences are, that politicians can use and
read to be informed. Afaik, they word them in a decidedly non-partisan manner,
so they can be used by left and right, conservative and progressive all the
same.

Now you might have seen the posts about surveillance in NL being at least as
bad or worse, they're all true, but I've also seen politicians change their
minds about things because of these reports. And not just the leftist or
progressive ones, either.

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iharris
I love the Threat Level articles that Wired produces, but if I see the word
"cyber" one more time, I am going to go nuts.

~~~
tripzilch
cybernuts?

------
mikegioia
I just don't understand how the NSA can even have the technical capacity to
store all of this data. If their total operating budget is a few billion
dollars, that doesn't even really come close to buying enough disk to store
what some claim they are storing (all network traffic, social data, images,
emails, voice, etc).

~~~
b6
Where are you getting that budget? Supposedly, the new Bluffdale facility
alone will cost at least $2B. Do we have any way of knowing what their real
budget is?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center)

~~~
mpyne
That money will likely be split over multiple years, if I'm remembering my
Federal Acquisition Rules training correctly.

------
hooo
He probably has so much dirt on the politicians that they have to do his
bidding.

~~~
adventured
Spy kings at the point of large inflections in power and technology always do.
See: J Edgar Hoover.

------
cup
I had this strange thought occur half way through the article.

The US government is storing, analysing and recording all internal electronic
transmissions so that US civilians can be protected from external aggressors.
Doesn't that then provide a hypothetical aggressor a simplified target. If
they can access these data hubs then havent they hit the motherload?

I wonder how secure the governments facilities are in retrospect.

Furthermore, doesn't this make the task of detecting or hunting non-state
aggressors that much harder now that they know all electronic transmissions
are recorded (and thus forcing them into an electronic darkness where they
can't be spied upon).

I think PRISM and all these internal external spying facilities are inevitable
but the ramifications of their public knowledge are going to be interesting.

Edit: Im also surprised by the complete lack of interest by the general US
population. Maybe because HN readers are educated and technical they
understand the implications but you would think there would be some kind of
public uproar over this, especially considering the myths that Americans are
brought up upon (freedom from tyranny etc.)

~~~
discostrings
>Furthermore, doesn't this make the task of detecting or hunting non-state
aggressors that much harder now that they know all electronic transmissions
are recorded (and thus forcing them into an electronic darkness where they
can't be spied upon). >I think PRISM and all these internal external spying
facilities are inevitable but the ramifications of their public knowledge are
going to be interesting.

I think an adversary with any chance of succeeding already assumed this sort
of program was in place. I don't think this revelation will force any
adversaries into electronic darkness--I imagine any actual capable adversaries
were already there. That's one of the most ridiculous parts of these programs
to me.

>Im also surprised by the complete lack of interest by the general US
population.

I think there will be some major objection and noise from Americans about
this. I just don't think there's a full realization of what's going on yet.
Many people are just a single debunking of "nothing to hide, nothing to worry
about" away from being upset about this. And a lot of people are passionately
doing just that.

~~~
mpyne
There is a certain beauty to the PRISM idea though. You're right that a
capable adversary will already have been avoiding U.S. nets for obvious
reasons.

But if you're going to recruit new soldiers, bomb-makers, suicide bombers,
etc., you eventually have to go to where the people themselves are. So
_someone_ in the terrorist group will have to dip their toes into those
dangerous waters.

If a cell is smart that one person will be the only one who does so, but that
is still one link into the overall terrorist network, if the NSA can find it,
and that can help lead to IP tracking, which can lead to drone surveillance,
which can lead to a boots-on-ground raid to grab the computer (and maybe even
the recruiter), and go from there.

Obviously the hypothetical "capable adversary" can be resistant to a lot of
tracking techniques, but that doesn't mean you give up. They may very well
make a mistake eventually and then you've got them.

The NSA's precursor once even cracked part of a one-time pad because the
Soviets reused individual pages from their one-time pad codebooks. Breaking
the parts of the code they did took lots of time but by 1946 revealed the
existence of Soviet spies in many high-level organizations, including the
Manhattan Project, which was a pretty significant coup of its own for U.S.
counter-intel.

And all that by pursuing an enemy using theoretically unbreakable crypto...

~~~
discostrings
That's true--the Prism program really could have the positive effect of making
recruiting harder. That's definitely the most sensible argument I've heard for
it.

It's interesting that the program being useful in that way doesn't require the
program to be secret...

~~~
mpyne
Well, secrecy had its uses too. People might have assumed about Facebook and
Google being susceptible to FISA warrants (not to mention PRISM), but I'd
never even _heard_ of PalTalk until this.

Either way though the cat is out of the bag so there can be no further
national security interest from a lack of transparency around that program.

------
MortenK
Fear mongering at its best. "Cyber-kinetic attacks", give me a break

~~~
wavefunction
We'll get them with "mind bullets" (that's telekinesis, Kyle!)

------
adventured
I think it's every bit as likely that the NSA will be responsible for
instigating and elevating (arms race) the very cyber war they claim the
private sector won't be able to defend itself against (eg Stuxnet, and I'd
hate to know what they've been up to since). Self-fulfilling prophecy.

~~~
marshray
It really sounds a lot like the run-up to World War I. Kings and militaries
running around gearing up and thumping their chests, polarizing their
populations, with only the dimmest understanding of the utter hell which they
were about to unleash upon themselves.

Thankfully, we people are awake now and can put a limit on the foolishness
before it gets too late. But this is why a free and open internet is so
important.

