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NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

nytimes.com

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Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#51

Post by _Understated_ »

en-us wrote: post #37
_Understated_ wrote: post #9

I've often thought about what the next "Great War" would look like. Not researched it or anything but mulled it over. I honestly think the enemy will take out our power stations via malicious code that may already be sitting there waiting to go off right now. A few days after that, when people are still in total darkness and the supermarket shelves are empty then we will turn on ourselves and our "leaders" because we…

Yes, the power will go out and in a matter of just a few days we will be overthrowing our leadership. Lol.

Haha, now that I read it back it looks like we'll be marching on Parliament after a few days :)

I meant that we'll turn to them to get things back up and running and they won't be able to. It will only be a matter of time before people start turning on them... not necessarily shooting them but in terms of trust etc.

I still believe we'll be killing each other long before that though: Once the food starts to run out then neighbours will turn on each other to feed their kids.

Maybe I've read too many comic books and sci-fi as a kid :)

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#52

Post by bilbo0s »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #21

That states like China and Russia can recruit the best cybersecurity talent in their respective countries, and force them to work for the government, while the United States can't, is a problem. If I were the president, I would focus on talent recruitment and retention. Google is paying its top cyberstaff 700k? Offer them 1M. Also get rid of archaic hiring practices like drug tests, and streamline the process to obta…

Sounds like an interesting plan.

Where is the money going to come from? We cutting something else? Like outdated military infrastructure since we should be ramping up for the cyber future? Or are we instead going to ramp up the deficit spending more to cover the extra expenses?

Have you actually thought your proposed solution through? Have you considered the larger picture?

We're already deficit spending at a level approaching USD1.5T. How do we handle the financial implications of such a shift?

Most of the "best and brightest" in America, are not, in fact, American. How do we get them the necessary security clearances? Should we be giving them that level of clearance?

I won't even go into the fact that the private sector would still be making all of the best tech as they gobbled up intellectual capital from around the globe, and we only have the US to snap people up from. Sure France, Germany, Russia, China etc can only snap people up from their nations too, but they have much better educational systems.

This problem requires more considered thought, and very likely a little bit of creativity, to work through.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#53

Post by antpls »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #11

> There are four key implications of this revolution that policymakers in the national security sector will need to address: > The first is that the unprecedented scale and pace of technological change will outstrip our ability to effectively adapt to it. Second, we will be in a world of ceaseless and pervasive cyberinsecurity and cyberconflict against nation-states, businesses and individuals. Third, the flood of da…

(I live in EU)

For the 3rd and 4th points, we could rather envision a massive decentralization of power, which would be effectively a change in the model, but not necessarily in a bad way.

Telecom, batteries and local energy production will allow much more flexible forms of local auto-organisations and decision-making.

Parts of centralized institutions will be obsolete or further decentralized to better fit local specificities.

The only irreplaceable aspect of the biggest countries is their military army, but we could also imagine a federation of each state's armies through common interests (which would be something like EU : cooperation of local armies toward a common goal). We could imagine that more autonomous regions with more autonomous armies means less single points of (global) failure.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#54

Post by missosoup »

reubeniv wrote: post #41
_Understated_ wrote: post #9

I've often thought about what the next "Great War" would look like. Not researched it or anything but mulled it over. I honestly think the enemy will take out our power stations via malicious code that may already be sitting there waiting to go off right now. A few days after that, when people are still in total darkness and the supermarket shelves are empty then we will turn on ourselves and our "leaders" because we…

It's quite a scary one, drone swarms that outmatch humans by a huge degree might cause the losing side to surrender before a human life is lost, but they could also massacre the losing sides, satellites and communications of all sides are also likely go, then of course there's still nuclear armageddon

Drone swarms are casually countered with directed energy weapons of the variety that navy army and airforce are starting to field today.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#55

Post by nradov »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #21

That states like China and Russia can recruit the best cybersecurity talent in their respective countries, and force them to work for the government, while the United States can't, is a problem. If I were the president, I would focus on talent recruitment and retention. Google is paying its top cyberstaff 700k? Offer them 1M. Also get rid of archaic hiring practices like drug tests, and streamline the process to obta…

The security clearance investigation process can already be expedited for urgent cases. However we absolutely should never lower clearance standards. Penetration by foreign agents could be far more damaging than a lack of top cyber security personnel.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#56

Post by 14 »

Such a bleak picture of the future where the only solution is for all of us to give up our privacy and allow the government to watch us so they can keep us safe. There are so many rants I could go off on this article I would not even know where to start but I will say this. What about the option of peace building? Why not put 1/3 of your insane military budget towards a new mission of going into the places you have the worst reputation, the places you have wronged the most and start building up their infrastructure like water plants and schools? The only options this article gave was to give up all our freedoms so the government can keep us safe which to any person with half a brain (hint even my kids know this and their vote is coming one day) this only stops the average citizen from remain anonymous.

Link to neat video explaining how to easily encrypt a message on a piece of paper. "Bear in mind if we are talking about banning encryption, we are talking about banning mathematics". I love that line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRa_zzQOEe8

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#57

Post by _Understated_ »

reubeniv wrote: post #41
_Understated_ wrote: post #9

I've often thought about what the next "Great War" would look like. Not researched it or anything but mulled it over. I honestly think the enemy will take out our power stations via malicious code that may already be sitting there waiting to go off right now. A few days after that, when people are still in total darkness and the supermarket shelves are empty then we will turn on ourselves and our "leaders" because we…

It's quite a scary one, drone swarms that outmatch humans by a huge degree might cause the losing side to surrender before a human life is lost, but they could also massacre the losing sides, satellites and communications of all sides are also likely go, then of course there's still nuclear armageddon

I'm not convinced that nuclear weapons will be fired en-mass in anger as it means total annihilation for everyone whether involved directly or not.

Imagine China fired all her nukes at the US and the US retaliated while the Chinese ones were in the air... there would be nothing left of either country within a couple of hours (or however long it takes to reach across the globe).

Anything left would be uninhabitable forever.

I dunno... nukes are messy.

E-warfare is "clean" and costs practically nothing to do.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#58

Post by bilbo0s »

ajay-d wrote: post #50
HenryKissinger wrote: post #21

That states like China and Russia can recruit the best cybersecurity talent in their respective countries, and force them to work for the government, while the United States can't, is a problem. If I were the president, I would focus on talent recruitment and retention. Google is paying its top cyberstaff 700k? Offer them 1M. Also get rid of archaic hiring practices like drug tests, and streamline the process to obta…

Russia also recruits cyber criminals, offering reduced sentences if they work for the government[1] "The cellmate said that people incarcerated for cybercrimes could get out before trial, in exchange for working for the government. Another inmate had already taken a deal, he said. “It was an offer to cooperate,” Mr. Artimovich said. “Why else would you work for the government?” he added. “The salaries are tiny. But i…

Yeah, but we are almost certainly doing this already as well. So there's no advantage to be gained there. If a cyber criminal is valuable enough, ie-not a script kiddie, we're already making the offers.

We need ideas that are somewhat out of the box. Something that isn't already being done that we can start doing to bolster our capabilities.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#59

Post by ses1984 »

umvi wrote: post #42
HenryKissinger wrote: post #21

That states like China and Russia can recruit the best cybersecurity talent in their respective countries, and force them to work for the government, while the United States can't, is a problem. If I were the president, I would focus on talent recruitment and retention. Google is paying its top cyberstaff 700k? Offer them 1M. Also get rid of archaic hiring practices like drug tests, and streamline the process to obta…

Well, NSA used to have the best and brightest until Snowden. Now NSA can't get the best and brightest because they are conscientious objectors.

There were plenty of objectors before Snowden and also a huge group of folks who would choose to work for the nsa anyway. The impact isn't that great.

Re: NSA Official: We Need to Prepare for the Future of War

#60

Post by Angostura »

_ooqq wrote: post #35
pluma wrote: post #3

Maybe the US would do well to obsess a little less about wars? After spending 90%+ of its time existing on being at war, it sure would seem like a good time to take a break and stop attacking other countries maybe.

I don't get why Trump gets slammed by the media for talking to Kim Yong and walking back on Iran, or even trying to set up meetings with Taliban this month. Just because he's negociating doesn't mean negociating in itself is wrong, so I find that peculiar.

On the Iran side, he was slammed because there was already a deal, which according to independent observers was working reasonably well.

In terms of North Korea, it might have been a reasonable strategy if there was any evidence of a lasting deal. As it is, it looked like a PR dance by both leaders. Who knows what was going on with the Taliban.

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