US Air Force wants "full control" of "any and all" computers
Over at the Wired defense technology blog "Danger Room," Noah Shachtman writes:
The Air Force wants a suite of hacker tools, to give it "access" to -- and "full control" of -- any kind of computer there is. And once the info warriors are in, the Air Force wants them to keep tabs on their "adversaries' information infrastructure completely undetected."Link to full post.The government is growing increasingly interested in waging war online. The Air Force recently put together a "Cyberspace Command," with a charter to rule networks the way its fighter jets rule the skies. The Department of Homeland Security, Darpa, and other agencies are teaming up for a five-year, $30 billion "national cybersecurity iniative." That includes an electronic test range, where federally-funded hackers can test out the latest electronic attacks. "You used to need an army to wage a war," a recent Air Force commercial notes. "Now, all you need is an Internet connection."
On Monday, the Air Force Research Laboratory introduced a two-year, $11 million effort to put together hardware and software tools for "Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement." "Of interest are any and all techniques to enable user and/or root level access," a request for proposals notes, "to both fixed (PC) or mobile computing platforms...
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On the face of it, online warfare seems preferable to the usual kind of warfare. You know, the kind where children get blown to bits.
It's a stupid waste of taxpayer dollars. Tell me, will the U.S. Air Force be able to stop spam?
Welcome to the new Cold War folks!
Time to take things off line.
Its such a waste of money.
They can build 'hacker tools' all they want -- but the hackers will still be a step ahead of them.
Someone brought up spam - such a good comparison. So many firms are pumping millions of dollars into anti-spam and CAPTCHA systems, only to have the spammers consistently work around these issues.
Tools aren't the issue - talent and strategy are.
If they really want to win the war on cybercrime, they need to find a way to impress/employ people with the hacker mentality and toolset.
Conveniently, their new slogan in German is "U.S. Luftwaffe: Über Alles."
@#4
time to take things offline... and back into the fields?
lol
Good luck to them, I run Linux.
Not that I'm naive enough to think that Linux is impermeable, but rather I think that the Linux hackers will be able to move quicker than Windows in countering their suite of tools. Double entendre intended.
@#5 - A person with the true hacker mentality will do great work for them, and then in his off hours will write code to bypass the system he helped them create during the day just to know he can. Hopefully, that code will be leaked back to us. (It usually is.)
@post: It's an entirely reasonable thing for the US government to want, though I'd expect the CIA to be more involved than the Air Force. Whether it's useful to the citizens of this great nation, well, probably not...
Getting access to just about any computer wouldn't be that hard, either. A recent paper suggested that they could put it in every new CPU for about 12,000 gates, which is trivial if they strongarm or bribe Intel. And that's to say nothing of basic software bugs.
@#5: Hackers will only adapt if they detect the attacks. Presumably the government would either use the attacks slowly and discreetly to gather intelligence, or unleash them suddenly at the beginning of a war.
@#8: So how 'bout them Debian SSH keys? I hear there are about two hundred thousand of them...
@Bitwiseshiftleft:
True, but it's fixed now, and it never made it into Debian stable (since the bug crept in in 2006).
My point was that once a problem is found, it is fixed pretty quickly (it was a very serious bug, but updates came down the tubes pronto once it was discovered).
Did anyone else notice the strange head bob of the guy in the video?
It was my favorite part of the video so I "used" it here just now in this quick "remix" with spoken word from Chögyam Trungpa.
I just uploaded it to YouTube now here:
► http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwFilRx6obA
It's very rough, quick and dirty but there it is...
[to clarify, old stable sarge not new stable etch]
I'm stuck editing iptables by hand via SSH and they get fancy touchscreens that protect the whole US by just sliding things around?! They get all the fun toys.
Since our main hacker rival these days is China, I'd think this blog would support this type of initiative. There is the danger of misuse against our civilians, but this is the 21st century Billy Mitchell. This is what would win us the next big war.
#15 posted by Belac , May 14, 2008 11:28 PM
Right, and the Russian Mob isn't chopped liver either. So, therefore, they better get full control of my Mom's computer. Er, what?
Anyway, the military has been harvesting hackers to "GET CHINA" through all those "Anonymous" invasion chans they set up. Practicing on targets like Scientology, teen girls on MySpace, etc.
China is doomed.
teen girls on MySpace however will pwn you all.
As we broaden and dilute the definition of "our enemies", when do we get to recognize the diminishing returns and futility of playing technology catch-up and consider actual solutions like conflict resolution, fair dialogue, etc...?
"As we broaden and dilute the definition of "our enemies", when do we get to recognize the diminishing returns and futility of playing technology catch-up and consider actual solutions like conflict resolution, fair dialogue, etc...?"
Dude, that's crazy talk. What are you, a terrorist? Why do you hate America?
More seriously: I absolutely agree.
@18 and 19 Great points, and additionally I seriously wonder why the US doesn't engage in more international and environmental aid for national security's sake. You know, not making everyone hate us because then we don't have to worry about them killing us. Win-win. It takes about 30 seconds of thought to realize that people typically become terrorists because they have become desperate and have little left to live for. I've tried for years advocating charity for its own sake and it doesn't go very far. This way, we could do all the pre-emptive strikes we want, whenever we think someone might be a potential enemy down the road (which is everyone now), we can carpetbomb them in puppies, staple foods, and free green-tech.
I agree with No.20.
"Kill" your "enemies" with kindness, without thought of payback.
People respond well to kindness and respect. Not so well to cruelty and disrespect eg. subverting technological systems.
This Air Force "defense" looks indistinguishable from preparation for attack.
A new arms race, info/knowledge the first casualty. Truth taken out by a surprise sneak attack prior to the War being declared.
Oh wait Congress has delegated the Power to Start Wars to your Dictator. So no Declarations needed anymore...
What happens when the hacker tool that controls any computer meets the security system that keeps out any intrusion?
MrFitz:
A beautiful friendship, based on the respect of equals?
Someone bring a camera, Kodak moment...
@#1:
Right, Cyberwarfare can never ever cause an explosion that could injure people.
</sarcasm>
I always assumed they could already do that... disappointing really.
Christovir,
We give a lot of aid to places where people hate us (In Jordan, most USAID projects, which operate to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, often don't advertise as USAID because of the negative publicity).
While we definitely could do more, proposing that as an alternative to having an advanced military is shockingly naive.
@Belac Where did I say we should get rid of the military? I didn't. I said we should treat other national groups with more compassion and respect. Straw. Man.
And the problem with our interaction with other nations is not just whether we give them money or not, but the entire attitude we treat other national groups diplomatically, at our borders, through our domestic social policies and so on. Sure, we give a lot of brown people money -- but we also chronically disrespect them and their nations through our governmental actions. Treating ethnic and national groups like dirt is a national security risk, and should be realized as one.
The Air Force wants a suite of hacker tools, to give it "access" to -- and "full control" of -- any kind of computer there is. And once the info warriors are in, the Air Force wants them to keep tabs on their "adversaries' information infrastructure completely undetected."
Let the Air Force grind their own lvl 70's! Horde will PWN those Air Force noobs anyway.
I see this as retaliation to the booming Chinese gold-farmer industry.
Oh, wait… The Air Force isn’t a raiding guild? I thought they were interested in waging WOW online. Sorry… carry on.
They only way they're getting into my box is rubber-hose cryptanalysis.
Given that the Air Force Academy is overrun by fundies, I don't feel confident at all that their targets will be exclusively foreign.
so this is how Skynet gets its start..
Did anyone else notice that the battle room in that video looks ALOT like the War Room in "WARGAMES"?
Y'know, the 80's movie where an innocent teenager looking for video games almost starts global thermonuclear war when the unbeatable military computer goes on the blink?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames
Good model for our defense forces.
Anyone else looking into bunkers?
I predict this meddling will usher us to the new Steampunk age. Just sayin'
If this hadn't begun in the states, I'd think it was a joke or scare tactic. Viva liberty. Or not.
Christovr,
Sorry. I meant to reply to the posts immediately before and after you, and picked your name because it was in the middle.
christovir
"why the US doesn't engage in more international and environmental aid for national security's sake. You know, not making everyone hate us because then we don't have to worry about them killing us."
Unfortunately that isn't why "they", Islamic fundamentalists, hate us enough to fly planes into buildings. It's really the collision of a very tribal 11th century Islam with 20th century modernity.
Back on topic, I seem to remember the NSA recently going apeshit over concerns that China had engineered a backdoor into their chips. Sounds like a legitimate concern to me.
Personally I think the proper response to such never ending paranoia over secrecy is less secrecy and more openness. Seems to work in human relationships, ought to work between nations as well.
And since the line between foreign and domestic enemies is now gone, what will stop an American regime from using this wonderful war technology on dissidents?
An important point, never made unless by yours truly: the internet was never intended to replace critical national infrastructure. Banking, news services, all those governmental and business users that glommed onto the net as a cheap and easy replacement for so many formerly analog tasks, chose poorly. TCP/IP over public networks is inherently vulnerable, and now their response, as in so many other things, is to increase surveillance and police powers (now even military powers) to the utmost, laying another line of bricks in the wall they are building to seal us into the total surveillance state. If you insist on building a house on sand, you will never be able to drive enough piles under the foundation to make yourself safe.
@Noen:
No one in the Islamic world cared enough about us to think about attacking us for centuries. A critical mass of those willing to think about such a thing formed when we overthrew government after government to steal oil. For 60 years, the match has been our frankly nutso insistence on maintaining the state of Israel on occupied land. We reap what we have sown; objectively, we have barely been scratched for all the hundreds of thousands of insults we've tossed at their nations and their persons. Summing up: we messed with them, and boy did we mess with them. Now we get a little tasty of what we gave, and we go bug*k insane and turn the world into a giant prison to keep us "safe". Wanna be safe? Stop bombing and shooting them. They might actually heal and get over the past. But we never *stop*. And we don't even grant them the courtesy of remember that we shot and bombed them. they rightly adjudge that we don't think them worth remembering. Shooting a man is one thing; killing for land and power is old and understandable. But refusing to grant them even the courtesy of remembering what we did? That will make any culture rage.
I think what's happening is the Air Force waking up to the power of the botnets. There's not a damn thing the US military can do about this threat at present, and while the worst it's used for now is spam and the occasional DOS attack, there's not a damn thing stopping them from going after governments. They already did once, in Estonia I believe. The baddies will sell access to the botnets to anyone at all, including nuclear terrorists. As they grow none of us are safe, and if all the banks and and all the businesses and all the utilities suddenly go down, and there's no food, no gas, no money, and no government, we have a problem.
I worry about the botnets as much as I worry about loose plutonium.
I will now await the chorus of tough guys bragging that they can live off the grid indefinitely and wrassle Russian mobsters with their bare optical mice.
Good thing our 'enemies' don't use Macs... (rolleyes)
catbeller
Israel is a colonial intrusion of western civilization into the middle east. There were plenty of Jews living there before we stepped in and created Israel by fiat. They lived together just fine before that. Like I said, the primary conflict is between civilizations, Western vs Islam.
"Wanna be safe? Stop bombing and shooting them."
No, sorry, won't work. As I said the conflict is more primary than that. It would certainly help to have a sane foreign policy but that won't stop people becoming terrorists. The typical terrorist is not some half starved goat herder whose brother was killed by one of our bombs. Terrorists are middle class and college educated.
Sayyid Qutb is the father of modern terrorist movements.
The Power of Nightmares
It is a mistake to think we can end terrorism through negotiation.
#40,
Is that the rollseyes at the fact that a few of our enemies may actually use Macs,
or the rollseyes at the fact that some Apple fanboys actually think that Macs are impenetrable,
or the rollseyes that they're not really our enemies, or what? I didn't get the memo.
Oh Lord!
Way to conflate a thousand kinds of Muslims with each other, Noen. Most Muslims don't give a rat's ass about Qutb, nor are they interested in living in the 11th century. Most TERRORISTS aren't motivated by Qutb's ideas (or necessarily Muslim ones).
Are the Tamil Tigers beholden to bin Laden? FARC in Colombia? The Chechnyens? Separatists in the Phillippines or Indonesia or Malaysia? Were the Weathermen? The IRA? The UFF? The Palestinians (and remember there are several flavors of them who hate each other almost as much as they hate the Jews) don't give a shit about Qutb and never have.
Israel is a colonial intrusion of western civilization into the middle east.
I view the situation the same way. I've long believed that the conflict wasn't between Jews and Arabs or Jews and Muslims, but between Europeans and Middle-Easterners. Even Sabras (middle-eastern Jews) were treated very shabbily by the European colonialists.
I do think that the only way to end this conflict is for us to stand down. We exacerbate the situation at every turn.
Antinous,
Similarly, even Mizrahim were treated shabbily by Ashkenazim, up to the present day. My strictly held belief is to never have an argument about Israel on the internet, however. You want to see Godwin's law like you never saw it before? There's just too much bad blood to talk about it with people you don't know intimately.
I will say Power of nightmares is a brilliant documentary, though.
Considering how much of the world economy is reliant on computers and the internet, do we really want the US Armed Forces having power over "all computers"?
Not that I think they could actually amass "power over all computers", anymore than we can make a vaccine for all types of common cold; every year new germs (and newer, faster computers and programs) come out, staying a step ahead is like pouring water into a sieve.
While it's preposterous for the military even to begin to entertain ideas of being able to own any box in the world, there are (at least) two serious problems here:
1) American citizens are paying for them to ram their heads against this brick wall. That's $30 billion being lost to stupidity.
2) The US government seems to think of individuals' computers increasingly as convenient repositories of information for them to crawl through. A computer is more an extension of its user's mind than a piece of property. It's time for the US government to start treating them as such.
@ #48 Pieps: While the idea that one's computer is an extension of one's mind is one that likely wouldn't hold up in court (though I've said for some time I keep my short term memory online), the more constitutional matter is that one's computer is one's PROPERTY, and thus must be handled in the same way as one's house or car ought to be (nevermind whether the government actually respects those rights). Ergo, the ability of the fed to switch on or off someone's computer or otherwise remotely control it must always be subordinate to due process. If evidence obtained from a remote search is to be presented in a criminal trial, there had better be a warrant signed by a judge preceding the time of the search. The argument could be made that by hooking up to a public network one forfeits the sovereignty of that property, but in light of firewalls, passwords and other gatekeeping measures that's a tough case to make to anyone even casually familiar with the online world. I'm not so naive as to think they are not capable of going in undetected already, so this is likely more of a public relations move than anything else, but the brazenness of this announcement in defiance of law is very troubling.
Am I the only one who kept hearing Sylar when the narrator was saying Cyber? I was getting scared!
Ummm, is there a company called Cyberdyne Systems involved here? This can't be a good thing.
Catbeller's right, the US Military is a threat to the US populace's f Liberty. Just as the Legions and Guards were, in the end, the greatest threat to Roman Liberty.
The Military doesn't need to attack to cause damage - just change the tenor of Society so that Public Affairs are all about them, all the time, with no tax money left (or time or space to discuss) to care for sick Zoomers in retirement or single working mothers' kids, and a truly awful style of political discussion. (Everything becomes War).
With the Fantastic advances in Automation and Productivity, why should people need to bust their balls every generation? Why not "equalize" the distribution of Wealth, through progressive taxation and redistribution through public spending on public Goods ie hospitals,schools,energy infrastructure? Or do we gotta talk about "threats" instead?
Why did the USA never gear down the War Machine after WWII? Why all those conflicts that ended up being pointless? Why fight deflation using Iraqi corpses?
On topic, I guess that the Air Force has to do something with their practically unlimited resources. It's not like every dollar the Gov spends on the War Department could have gone to butter instead..oh wait...
Oh and there's no defense against the phantoms of your own mind, or the Fear that comes in the Night, except Right Living. increasing military spending won't do, as the US is practically invulnerable to conventional attack, and it's tough to see why or how you could increase your already ridiculously large military budget.
Too bad the USA isn't as invulnerable to political machination. You guys have the Wealth to live in a Golden Age, but some seem to think you need to suffer so as to get to the foot of the Cross...like those young capable very well funded Air Force Fundamentalist-Cadets.
"Why did the USA never gear down the War Machine after WWII?"
Because we heard the call of empire.
Digital Fortress, anyone?