THE CYBER WAR: It's Here and Now

There’s a world wide war going on – and YOU, yes, YOU, dear cyber reader, who are reading this on a screen, are involved, whether you like it or not.

Think of the One World Internet which has so revolutionized our lives: allowed us to communicate with just about anyone anywhere; buy and sell goods and services worldwide; perform world-wide financial trading; understand world politics; watch revolutions (like the Arab Spring) in real time; and even organize world-wide political and social movements. THAT Internet is under increasing attack.

BUT..your Norton or McAfee antivirus and firewall software, or whatever kind of “protection” you are running on your home or office computers, can’t protect you, your government, or your most sensitive business and personal secrets, from cyber enemies who want to know EVERYTHING about you, about us. Everything. And the battle to protect the United States Government’s most critical secrets, its businesses, and its citizens, against Internet enemies, is ongoing, dangerous, and getting increasingly combative. Think World War Three combative (whoever thinks World War Three is going to be like all previous wars is, well, behind the curve.) If you were hopeful for One World peace and understanding, there’s some really bad new news out there for you.

The best investigative reporting I’ve seen on this subject is in the September issue of Conde Nast’s VANITY FAIR in the in-depth article by Michael Gross, INSIDE THE CYBER DRAGON. It’s a 12 page read. And every paragraph will spook you. The article’s sub head is:

“Hackers have attacked America’s defense establishment, as well as companies from Google to Morgan Stanley to security giant RSA, and fingers point to China as the culprit. The author gets an exclusive look at the raging cyber-war—Operation Aurora! Operation Shady rat!—and learns why Washington has been slow to fight back.”

This investigation by Michael Gross is an absolute must read. Let me just quote the last paragraph in part:

“Rather, so long as executives and politicians are guided by short-term self-interest, they will continue to play the fool to the country that would be king. ‘You need to consider: What are the subconscious assumptions that companies bring to the issue of foreign cyber-attacks on their networks?,’ a senior Senate staffer who works on cyber-issues asked me. “They assume that if something bad happens government will take care of the losses. They act like they don’t really believe that a bank could get completely taken out, or that a tech giant could get its whole lunch eaten, because it sounds as fictional as 9/11 would have sounded before it happened. But terrorism is not the best analogy here. Who could have imagined that people would have flown airplanes into buildings? The difference with cyber is there are people trying to fly planes into buildings every day now. And everybody just looks the other way.”

This is truly scary. And it makes other depressing Internet stories seem relatively insignificant in comparison. Like an in-depth Wall Street Journal column by Evgeny Morozov noting that authoritarian states are watching closely after politicians in Norway and Britain called for more online controls (to identify and stop potential future Norwegian mass murderers, and London riots).  The subhead to this article: “Tools intended to maintain order at home are certain to be exported to China and the Middle East – in the service of repression.”  Those tools, for example, would allow governments, like Norway, to keep track of the online musings of every potential crazed mass murderer, or, in the case of Britain, social network communications that could inspire the next “flash mob” of rioters.

In comparison to the state of cyber hacking and political cyber stalking in 2011, it is a walk down memory lane to read the autobiography by the USA’s first computer criminal, Kevin Mitnick, Ghost in the Wires.

You can read an excerpt from the Mitnick book in the Wall Street Journal with the headline “Protecting Your Data from People Like Me”  – and a review in the New York Times Book Review, A Hacker Tells All

Mitnick’s book harks back to a wildly innocent era – remember Windows 95? Mitnick pleaded guilty in 1999 to seven counts including wire fraud, computer fraud, and interception of wire communications. His techniques seem primitive compared with today’s government sponsored hackers. Mitnick did what he did, he says, for “entertainment.”

Today, serious cyber hacking is done by governments (and for governments, sadly, you must read China). The aims and techniques amount to flat out cyber war. We used to go to war when a battleship was blown up by an enemy, a Pearl Harbor was bombed, or a World Trade Center was attacked.

If you don’t believe those were the “good old days,” again, reread that Michael Gross Vanity Fair article. And ask yourself: how will a cyber war be fought, and how will that affect our country, and world society in general?

And now, excuse me, my e-mail account is being flooded by phishing messages and outraged fellow U.S. citizens protesting they’ve accidentally wound up on a G-Mail hacking list. How did I start getting these messages? I have no idea. And so I am doing the only thing I know how to do: tapping my delete button. What good will that do? Again, I haven’t the foggiest idea.