Anonymous attacks (Catch All)

[JMA]

Minor clarification...

Certainly nobody's going to fire off missiles in retaliation for cyber espionage, any more than they would in retaliation for conventional espionage. Of course the US is doing the same thing to China, but the Chinese don't howl to the press when they find out about it.

Everybody spies on everybody else, with whatever tools are available. This is nothing new.

Of course you, I and the Chinese know that there is no chance of US military retaliation in response to a cyber attack.

Now all that remains is to make sure that these idiot "spokesmen" keep their damn mouths closed.

[Dayuhan]

Of course you, I and the Chinese know that there is no chance of US military retaliation in response to a cyber attack.

Now all that remains is to make sure that these idiot "spokesmen" keep their damn mouths closed.

I don't know what the US response to a cyber attack that "causes the equivalent loss of life or damage to infrastructure as a conventional military attack" would be. I'm not even sure that a cyber attack can do that kind of damage, outside the realm of theory. I also doubt that we'll have a chance to find out, as there'd be little advantage to anyone in such an attack.

[JMA]

I don't know what the US response to a cyber attack that "causes the equivalent loss of life or damage to infrastructure as a conventional military attack" would be. I'm not even sure that a cyber attack can do that kind of damage, outside the realm of theory. I also doubt that we'll have a chance to find out, as there'd be little advantage to anyone in such an attack.

Yes that is wide enough a description with enough wriggle room to never have to react militarily. Phew.

[AdamG]

I don't know what the US response to a cyber attack that "causes the equivalent loss of life or damage to infrastructure as a conventional military attack" would be. 1) I'm not even sure that a cyber attack can do that kind of damage, outside the realm of theory. 2) I also doubt that we'll have a chance to find out, as there'd be little advantage to anyone in such an attack.

1. Then you're not being very imaginative : combined or alone - shut down a nuclear power plant's cooling process, turn off the electrical grid during a blizzard, open sluice gates on dams during a flood, etc, ad naseum.

eg, from Pg 15
http://www.nps.edu/Academics/Centers...t_dynamics.pdf

By the hacker’s own assessment, the disagreement over tactics was in part based on a different approach to conceptualizing problems. When the group was discussing attacking oil pipelines, everyone, including the hacker, talked about bombing it. But the hacker moved from this approach to discussing the pipeline as an information system (cf. pp. 58 and 59). It could be shutdown, he proposed, by attacking its control system. This suggestion was not taken up by the other practitioners, evidence to the hacker that they did not see that the world was really composed of systems and networks and that understanding these was essential.18

This is from 2004 -

Figure 3: Historical examples of successful cyber attacks
In the open source realm, documented accounts of cyber attacks have been plentiful in light of
the security danger such reports pose. There have been many serious instances of cyber attacks
causing SCADA499 systems and other computer networks to malfunction as a result of accidental
or targeted and malicious intent. The summary below, presented by category, details incidents of
recent attacks against and disruptions of critical infrastructure and sensitive computer networks.
Air and Ground Transportation
In January of 2003, Continental Airlines based in Newark, NJ was forced to ground flights due to
system inoperability caused by the SQL “Slammer” virus.500
Banking Systems
In January of 2003, Bank of America had 13,000 ATM machines rendered inoperable due to the
SQL “Slammer” virus.501
Dams and Waterways
A well-documented and oft-quoted incident refers to a known case in 1998 when a 12-year old
hacker broke into the computer system controlling Arizona’s Roosevelt Dam’s floodgates.
According to sources, the hacker had complete control of the command SCADA system for the
dam and could have flooded the city of Phoenix.502
Another well documented incident refers to the April 23, 2000 arrest of Vitek Boden, a man who
successfully intruded into a Queensland, Australia wastewater management system 46 times. For
two months, the attacks were a mystery to investigators as Boden dumped hundreds of thousands
of gallons of waste into parks, rivers, and commercial properties.

http://www.ists.dartmouth.edu/docs/cyberwarfare.pdf
2. Little advantage to an active opponent of the United States, other than the whole point of causing mass casualties to an enemy.