Friday, December 14, 2018

The White House Wants A More Aggressive Cyberspace Policy

Cyberwar games at the United States Military Academy.
(Photo: Michael Falco for The New York Times)

Justin Lynch, Fifth Domain: Behind the White House’s plan to be more aggressive in cyberspace

The warnings came from Donald Trump’s predecessor, top spies and Kim Jong Un himself.

So when the North Korean leader promised to tame Trump with “fire,” in September 2017, White House leaders considered how to slow the Asian country’s march to developing a nuclear weapon.

During a meeting in late 2017, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis presented a military strategy and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson presented a diplomatic answer. But when it came time to discuss intelligence and hacking options for the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, some on Trump’s team were frustrated with the answer. They argued the NSA couldn’t digitally deter Kim.

For nearly a year, White House leaders had debated the rules for how America should operate in cyberspace. After brazen hacks by the Chinese and Russian governments that targeted millions of Americans and the 2016 presidential election respectively, senior officials believed they needed to stop the raid on American bits and bytes.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: Russian hacking and cyber attacks have been effective because they have been able to obtain information from U.S. political operatives who wanted to keep their correspondence secret, and to then use social media platforms to post and publicize what they were able to steal. The emails of the Democratic Party and its efforts to ensure a Hillary Clinton victory in the primaries over Bernie Sanders comes immediately to my mind. I believe that this alone suppressed the Bernie Sanders vote in the general election that helped President Trump win, and it certainly distracted Hillary Clinton's message to attract voters. Chinese hacking and cyber attacks and efforts I find are completely different. They are focused on economic/military/intelligence theft, and to obtain personal and professional information on all Americans. I also believe the Chinese have succeeded beyond their own expectations in pursuing these goals, and now have in place the tools that they need to effectively monitor those Americans that are of value to them. So while the U.S. may want to be more aggressive in cyberspace, they still do not have a vision on how to counter and stop Russian/Chinese cyber efforts. The counter-measures that I propose are different from what many in the U.S. government want to do. Fight fire with fire. Both Russian and Chinese governments fear an environment where their citizens are free to communicate and share information that is independent from their control. If the U.S. government is serious about retaliating against Moscow and Beijing, develop platforms and the means that will prevent governments from controlling this free flow of information.Take it from one who knows. When the "control freak is no longer in control" .... the perception that they are no longer in control will scare the bejesus out of them.

On a side note, there is still a lot of truth in this .... This Sentence Sums Up What Cyber-Warfare Is Like (February 25, 2017).

2 comments:

Jac said...

WNU,
I agree 100%

James said...

Ideally your intended target spends their time and effort building the cyber jail. Where upon completion they enter by their own volition, lock themselves in, throw you the keys, and thank you.