Discussion on:

Will a hacker cause World War III?

If what you mean is a criminal act, the more accurate word to use really would be "criminal" being that Hacking is not inherently criminal and the majority of Hackers are infact ethical, law abiding DIY nerds.

What we're really talking about with this hole Hackers-are-bogiemen scare is "cyberwar" though isn't it. First, it's not warfare; there is no lethal component. At best, it's espianage; always was. Second, I really have to go with the description that "cyberwar" is having an army invade your country and stand infront of you in the line at starbucks. It's "cyberinconvenience" at best and has a really simple solution that doesn't reaquire all the political showmanship; stop accepting crappy products from vendors who make information security a second, third or fourth priority. If there was an impending cyberwaringhackerboggieman epidemic coming, it's only because we accept crappy products and security theater.

Cyberwar can have a lethal component, say, shutting down an air traffic control radar at the right moment, or turning off a power grid, not to mention hijacking said drone.

The logical method of a hacker causing a WWIII crisis would be via a man in the middle attack, sending false information to each side, causing them to escalate into physically attacking each other.

For a fictional example, see David Weber's Honor Harrington series.

C'mon, Honor stretches over close to a dozen volumes (and counting). Excellent though her story may be, nobody's gonna find your example.

For a real-world example, there are a lot of articles out there about the Stuxnet attack. It is more of a big deal in the Control Systems world, rather than the broader IT community, but it is clear that someone weaponized code to actually destroy equipment. Apparently the target was Iran's nuclear centrifuges, and there is lots of educated speculation as to who wrote it. While there is no evidence anyone was killed, I would not want to be standing next to an industrial centrifuge when its speed control goes haywire and breaks the motor.

Now, the big news is Duqu, Stuxnet's little spybot brother, which seems to be gathering information on facilities and control systems to gather the data (designs, code, passwords, etc.) necessary to launch another attack.

Cyberwar is already here. While I won't be wearing a tin-foil hat any time soon, I am concerned about securing our increasingly automated infrastructure. I really don't want someone to insert a virtual smart-bomb into our new "Smart" Grid.

Sure, shutting down ATC is going to be a problem at "just the right time". It's a magnificent movie plot and an obvious present danger to anyone who takes there security advice from hollywood screenwrites.

On the other hand: http://www.securitytube.net/video/1887
Mr Shneier's Keynote from Blackhat EU this year.

I fully expect a "cyber-inconvenience" component in future warfare; just not the overhyped theatrical representation being premoted by entertainment and political industries.

an act against ATC/flying public would be agression against a civilian population, therefore would fall under piratical acts. warfare is not permitted against civilians by Geneval conventions; if falling under war, it would necesarily be called a war crime, not war cyber.

Is the leading scare that a rogue-hacker could get into our MBA computers and NSA infrastructure networks. This is not necessarily the case anymore. Why? Detection has become more sophisticated in the sense that it can at least be alert to a tier level 4 or 5 attack. Working forms of intrusions and their many innate characteristics used to be rendered as a threat for large-scale servers and networks. But one advancement in Network Security has come into the light, and that is UPS programmable fail-safe intrusion detection systems (PFI-DS) is what it is called. This new technology is manually driven and cannot be over-rode by a script. It works like a charm, for Information Technologists and The Security Alliance Commissions abroad. On any sign of a non-authorized transmissions, also dependent upon sensitivity factors and tier levels of danger-level awareness, the UPS system shuts down all power to the module, and the secondary switch is rendered useless to the hacker.

It is this kind of thinking that is crucial and essential to outsmarting the enemy. Whether it be a purely physical, micro, or virtual concept, either of these ways can thwart the common 21st Century Hacktivist Extraordinaire. We as a society need to be more aware and ready for action in this day and age than any other time right now, because we are becoming a more cyber-oriented civilization. This form of life can only be protected by strengthening all of networks and remaining completely secure. Otherwise, we are prone to an attack and an array of negative outcomes for our entire network to stop flourishing. In my belief, we can do as much as possible on our own to encrypt our files, delete browser history, run anti-virus scans, and maintain our internals. Other than this we must also be 99.98% sure of what we are doing.

Who said lethality was a required component of war? War is about depriving your enemy of the resources needed to defend itself. Lethal actions deprive the enemy of human soldiers, but depriving him of other resources can be just as effective or more. War is a tool of diplomacy; hopefully the last tool a government reaches for.

Most WWII bombing raids by the Allies weren't to kill people; they were flown to destroy Germany and it's allies of infrastructure - heavy manufacturing, oil and mineral refining, seaports, etc.

Ask those who fed Stuxnet to those Iranian reactors if they thought they were conducting an act of war or merely inflicting a 'cyberinconvenience'. Ask the Iraqi how they classified it, too. That wasn't bogiemen or criminals, that was the action of a national government (either the US or Israel, or both). While it lacked lethality, it certainly deprived the Iraqi government of a military resource.

noun
1.the process of military struggle between two nations or groups of nations; war.

2.armed conflict between two massed enemies, armies, or the like.

3.conflict, especially when vicious and unrelenting, between competitors, political rivals, etc.

As for my image, I think Neon is correct. However as the world connects...

Iraq? They had one bombed by Israel years ago, but I'm pretty certain Stuxnet compromised an Iranian reactor much more recently.

If Dr. Rid is to be considered an authority:

"
ABSTRACT: For almost two decades, experts and defense establishments the world over have been predicting that cyber war is coming. But is it? This article argues in three steps that cyber war has never happened in the past, that cyber war does not take place in the present, and that it is unlikely that cyber war will occur in the future. It first outlines what would constitute cyber war: a potentially lethal, instrumental, and political act of force conducted through malicious code.

The second part shows what cyber war is not, case-by-case. Not one single cyber offense on record constitutes an act of war on its own. The final part offers a more nuanced terminology to come to terms with cyber attacks. All politically motivated cyber attacks are merely sophisticated versions of three activities that are as old as warfare itself: sabotage, espionage, and subversion.
"
https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/17381-Cyber-War-Will-Not-Take-Place.html

"
Dr. Thomas Rid works on the political and military aspects of cyber security at the Department of War Studies at King???s College London.
"

His full paper; http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2011.608939

Sadly, I think it's more about people wanting to call something "cyberwar" for the benefit of using a sexy dramatic word or leveraging the fear-sell for whatever latest product/law they are trying to shove through.

When computer based soldiers step out of my computer screen and hold ground we can talk about the impending cyberwar; until then, it's just a blanket term used to confuse three seporate tactics.

I was starting to worry.

"...a potentially lethal,..."

I think 'potentially' is the key word.

That's about the only reason I can figure that the US drones and/or control systems are running Windows. Hey, I got an idea.. let's build this super secret military secure thingy.. and we'll run Windows on it just to be extra safe. You don't think these things should maybe have a real-time certified purpose built custom OS? Not really a job for QNX or something? Nah.. a retail shelf product with the largest malware liabrary available.. that's the ticket..

What planet are you on? WW3 already started in Egypt and it is spreading rapidly around the world. It is fueled by the Internet. Its coming the the USA now!

I heard the the military in Egypt took over during the popular rebellion. How is this WW3? Usually a world war involves multiple nations working together to fight other multinational forces. There is an international cold war going on right now but it's a far cry from WW3.

The Illuminati is controlling the population through a special mind control technique called "Human stupidity".

Sarcasm aside I can see how some believe that WW3 has started. If I look at the situation, in say 1936, and compare it I see similar actors. Don't ask me who I think are this times Nazi's it will just degenerate into a trollgasm.

Trollgasm.
Once is never enough!

and although War Games doesn't necessarily fit the bill anymore, some newer movies such as Eagle Eye, (actually there's one similar to Eagle Eye but it's called Echelon Conspiracy or something like that and I can't remember the name at the moment, but it was a better example than Eagle Eye) , Live Free or Die Hard) although way over the top, do highlight some possibilities of cybercrime that could indeed affect the government directly.

[Edited because I finally remembered the name of the movie!]

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THAT'S why I didn't want to encourage you!!!

But sheesh, this is an informal discussion, few, if any, of us are
getting paid for our "writing". Anyway, I'm not...wonder where the
line is for the paychecks?

NT

around here it's considered poor form to point that out. Doing so can give the impression you have no counter-position and are reduced to pointing out mechanical errors, although I assume that isn't what you intended.

Incidentally, those using IE don't have a spell checker. The browser still hasn't incorporated one.

"in 2005 the U.S. military killed between 6 and 7 people using UAV drones in Pakistan alone".

So they killed 6 people, and half of another? That might have scanned better if you wrote "6 or 7".

and seven on the right. Drones killed those unfortunate enough to be seated between them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the military uses that same logic in their public statements.

Could World War III be caused by a rogue hacker? No, I dont think so at least not in the way thats shown in the movies but if things keep going the way they are, how could this not be the end result? Money and power is often the driving force of people all around the world, and if a target is left wide open for abuse, you know its just a matter of time before someone hits the button.

Ok, I will shorten this down: "Could it? No. But how could it not?" - What the hell?
And the last part is just plain "mysterious" : Money and power is a driving force, so it's just a matter of time before someone ... what? Launches nuclear missiles? Power is in being capable of launching them... that power is gone the moment you actually launch them. Money potentially could be garnered by threatening to launch missiles... and perhaps we can even stretch our imagination to the perp launching one missile to make their threat believable. But one missile is not WWIII, and again, the power disappears as soon as you do a massive launch. Nobody's paying you after that.

And the people likely to actually cause WW3, the populistic no-brain politicians currently in such strong favor, are certainly not hackers. So no, no hacker will cause WW3. And, probably not a criminal systems intruder either.

that all hackers are friendly, and would not use their talent to cause harm to another country, or perhaps society as a whole. Is it impossible that a hacker who happens to be a member of an anti-Semitic group might not learn how to disable the defenses of Israel and allow that group to successfully attack, provoking a pro-Israeli nation to perform retaliatory strike? Could that not escalate to a world - encompassing conflict?

It seems to me the danger is present and should not be discounted so easily.

That's less likely than being able to "disable" the defenses of the USA over the internet.
And the Israelis would just break out their nuke. They have it, they've just agreed not to announce it. I guess they figure it will announce itself if needed.

Mussad.

!

I can't see any nation using a nuke in response to a non-nuclear attack. To do so invites those other nations with nuclear capabilities to gang up on he who threw the first radioactive stone. Better to respond with an overwhelming conventional force.

let's just say that if they ever think they're on the verge of being "driven into the sea", I think YHWH will send a bright light from on high... with a little help from the IDF.

What are 'YHWH' and 'IDF'?

I had my first-ever comment 'removed' between yesterday and today (from YHWH's 'prophetic international thriller') describing a single nuclear exchange: a huge 'angel' whose legs were described as 'pillars of fire' (one on the land somewhere, one by the sea). Israel is described therein as having become by then 'a cup of suffering among the nations'.

YHWH is a multi-lingual acronym for (W)ho the Masons call 'the Great Architect', at the risk of having a second comment flagged.

The hebrew alphabet doesn't have vowel markers, so it's spelled yhwh (that's the famous tetragrammaton, i.e. the original "four letter word").

IDF is short for Israeli Defense Force, and covers all of Israel's military; land, air and sea forces.

to your 'pillars of fire' post.

I was attempting to post a reply to it, but accidentally hit 'Take Offline' instead. Since I abhor the 'Offline' utility, I flagged my 'Offline' post and requested deletion. Apparently your originating post went along for the one-way ride.

...theistic-comment 'policy' I'd unwittingly violated by quoting my betters. I hope you'll repost your original reply; the topic's no less timely today......

@AnsuG: 'Jehovah' is just the kind of word you get by adding vowels to someone else's script. It used to be claimed as the 'unpronounceable name', if I'm not mistaken.

how if you say that "four letter word", some people might respond "Don't blaspheme!"

Laying down nukes unequally provoked just leads to a bad places. Especially with all the squares around the city icon now having that orange/yellow thing going on.

I don't think it could be disabled, no.

But a nuke hit would be stabbing in the dark (the "glow" would a little too late) against a cyberattack. It's hard to hit an enemy if you don't know where he is, that's the chief advantage of a guerrilla war.

A cyberinconvenience attack can be stopped simply by pulling the plug or rerouting comms.
They wouldn't bother with hitting the intruder, they'd hit the ones trying to take advantage of the weakened state of defenses.