I hate how this has for some reason been big news the past few days. One mediocre article came out about it, now it keeps getting regurgitated through other news sites. This is nothing new, the US infrastructure has likely been compromised for quite some time. Many of the very critical plants that hold the keys to keeping the lights on, water flowing, water treated, etc are mostly running on systems built pre 2000 that weren't built with security in mind. Many of these systems can not have security integrated with them, and they can not be replaced. The most you can do is cover it with as many blankets as you can (firewalls, extensive logging, behavior analytics, etc). The biggest question is not whether or not these facilities are compromised, it's whether or not a bad actor is going to use it for malicious purpose. It's one thing to shut down a website for the lols, it's another thing to overload a nuclear reactor and contaminate an entire chunk of the US.
Notice how the article is based entirely on "what ifs".
>> "They got to the point where they could have thrown switches"
>> "where they could have caused blackouts"
At this point it is a waiting game. Who is going to be the fellow to push the enter key on their keyboard that then causes a 7 digit number of people to go without power, clean water, or even be exposed to radiation? It's understandable that countries feud and people just don't like each other, but actually shutting down key infrastructure like these scenarios suggest is an end game move that establishes the point of no return in global conflict.
It's more like, "The well is poisoned and Bob noticed last week, but we can't fix the problem because then people go without drinking water for 2 weeks"
Things like Stuxnet show us that regardless of how true this story is or who in fact sponsored it, infrastructure compromise is a global game. I suspect this is part of what Russians are talking about when asking to negotiate on cyberwarfare. If this is indeed them, they may see such compromise operations as necessary for reciprocity for the NSA's known systemic compromise of systems around the world, which surely makes them feel threatened. A reciprocal compromise would allow them to respond tit-for-tat if attacked, and give them negotiating room for diplomatic resolution.
So let's hope it's correctly attributed and not some criminals with nothing to lose.
“but actually shutting down key infrastructure like these scenarios suggest is an end game move that establishes the point of no return in global conflict.”
Sounds like you understand why then they’re reporting on this and regurgitating it over and over again. The public has the right to know if we’re on the brink of global conflict.
Nefarious actors are gaining privileged access to the power grid. Seems like a relevant thing to keep in the back of our minds in the event the power suddenly goes out.
> The biggest question is not whether or not these facilities are compromised, it's whether or not a bad actor is going to use it for malicious purpose.
> Notice how the article is based entirely on "what ifs".
Doing something about the compromise issue would make your biggest question correspondingly less speculative, which is a good reason for discussing the scope for compromise, no matter how much you hate it.
>The biggest question is not whether or not these facilities are compromised, it's whether or not a bad actor is going to use it for malicious purpose. It's one thing to shut down a website for the lols, it's another thing to overload a nuclear reactor and contaminate an entire chunk of the US.
This. Tons of stuff is compromised And if the Russians and Chinese are in our power plants we're in theirs too. Everyone can attack everyone else better than anyone can defend themselves. That's the nature of a highly asymmetrical form of warfare like that. Offense > defense (in the case of "cyber warfare").
>At this point it is a waiting game. Who is going to be the fellow to push the enter key on their keyboard that then causes a 7 digit number of people to go without power, clean water, or even be exposed to radiation?
Attribution is hard. Do you think the Israelis wouldn't attack us and make it look convincingly enough (for the talking heads and the general public) like Iran if it looked like our relations with Iran were about to thaw substantially in a way that was bad for them?
>It's understandable that countries feud and people just don't like each other, but actually shutting down key infrastructure like these scenarios suggest is an end game move that establishes the point of no return in global conflict.
Wars have started over a lot less. Nobody ever thinks what they're doing will be the final straw that starts the war.
I won't comment on the rest, but as a Ukrainian living in the US (and thus keenly aware of both countries' politics), I object to seeing Ukraine in this list.
I won't argue more about this point on Hacker News, of all places; however providing un-annotated links to videos (and making others figure out where in the videos any of your claims are supported) surely can't be seen as an acceptable way to reason around here.
Feeling is all I have in the end, sure it's backed up by what I have learned through the years but in the end the decisions I make are not only informed by my feelings but will also affect my feelings for the rest of my life.
I have a healthy distrust of my government (The US) and I know there have been travesties committed by just about all of the players. I want to be informed and am willing to do the research. I was pretty young during some of the conflicts you mentioned so I'm also brushing up on some of the history.
Which side do you align yourself with in the Kosovo war, it seems like it was a terrible ordeal for everyone involved?
I side with no one in the past Kosovo war. The conflict was complicated and some conflict still remains in the region.
Some years ago, when I found out about the extent of propaganda and lies and often ignorance or lack of normal morality of the politicians and the media, I was shocked and angry.
After much time reading various sources and comment sections, one learns what to expect from the usual factions and actors and what is most likely true and what is story.
I appreciate your candor, it seems like you transitioned from indignation to resignation in the course of a few comments. I bet that happens often.
I consider myself lucky to be a citizen of the US, but I recognize the propaganda and lies. It seems like the media in the US switched sometime in the late 80s to the early 90s from, perhaps slanted, but factual news coverage to sensationalist entertainment and we started down a very devisive path. Now my country is split into two main factions along with a few outliers. It's sad.
I don't trust Russia at all, but that might be simply because I'm a child of the cold war. That being said I don't feel trust when I think of Russia. Syria is another story, I wish I could travel back in time before this crisis happened and talk with people, but they would probably be distrustful towards me rather than candid.
I don't think that there is any real solution to the worlds problems in general, and even individual conflicts seem to have too many sides for any outsider to have any meaningful opinion.
I wish I was more upbeat, but there are things happening in my country which are so concerning that I don't sleep more than a few hours per night.
Actually I was surprised that someone made the effort to check the links and write a reply instead of a down vote. I still spend some of time in forums in the hope to learn something new and to make it easy for other persons to learn something new.
Do not lose your sleep over political, military or economic decisions like e.g. the trade war. I am not sarcastic here.
Is there something particular that makes you so concerned as US citizen ?
Regarding the USA in the past and meddling in the affairs of other states:
IMO the political distinction between Democrats and Republicans is rather small. But Trump and his staff is different. IMO the election of Trump might be a good sign: US citizens want a different government.
At least the USA got rid of Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator. A corrupt (IMO insane) climate change denier should have no place in politics and certainly not in the EPA. I was happy that both Democrats and Republicans wanted Pruitt out of office. Local politicians have still power in the USA. The US president might matter more for other states (war victims) than for US citizens. SolarCity, Tesla and SpaceX are famous US companies benefitting from US subsidies. This is a good thing that has already changed the world for the better. Even DARPA does very useful work regarding AI, medicin, neurotechnology, prosthetics and other domains. https://www.youtube.com/user/DARPAtv/videos
I do not know much about the Russian media but RT offers a lot of good information. E.g. information about the UK Skripal case. Maybe even Hillary Clinton would agree in secret: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6sYB5d1Bu4&t=35
So, had to re-read that article just in case there was new information, but even if all the speculation is true (probably) this does not support the claim that USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UK and France are the most aggressive cyber-combatants. Stuxnet was a targeted attack which accomplished a defensive goal. It is also unlikely that Saudi Arabia, the UK nor France had anything to do with this attack nor are there any claims of NATO support for the development of Stuxnet.
Meanwhile Russia is actively targeting political systems worldwide through social media and misinformation while also stockpiling latent backdoors and probably more.
>actively targeting political systems worldwide through X
Sounds like what every big player is doing for centuries.
>while also stockpiling latent backdoors and probably more
Sounds like what every big player is doing for at least a couple decades, except for the US which does this since early 90s while having much wider reach (a lot of the infrastructure and most software/hardware companies with irreplaceable products are within US jurisdiction).
>Stuxnet was a targeted attack which accomplished a defensive goal
Stuxnet was deployed outside the US or Israel (where it was created) to destroy the foreign infrastructure. If you're going to call that defensive or preemptive, any attack on the US or Israel infrastructure can be justified as such by the attacker as well.
> actively targeting political systems worldwide through X >> Sounds like what every big player is doing for centuries.
This is traditionally an internal matter.
> Sounds like what every big player is doing
Perhaps, but I need citations before I can argue the case
>> any attack on the US or Israel infrastructure can be justified as such by the attacker as well.
Not really, this was to stall the Iranian nuclear program, Israel and the US is already a nuclear power. Any attack on our infrastructure would be solely to cause harm to noncombatants.
Can you please provide the sources for the claim that this compromise has been widely known before?
I've had the gut feeling too, that utility control rooms have been compromised for a long time, but my gut feeling isn't the same as knowing and it isn't newsworthy either.
Notice how the article is based entirely on "what ifs". >> "They got to the point where they could have thrown switches" >> "where they could have caused blackouts"
At this point it is a waiting game. Who is going to be the fellow to push the enter key on their keyboard that then causes a 7 digit number of people to go without power, clean water, or even be exposed to radiation? It's understandable that countries feud and people just don't like each other, but actually shutting down key infrastructure like these scenarios suggest is an end game move that establishes the point of no return in global conflict.