I regret that I have but one upvote to give.
This is definitely one of the best submissions I've seen on HN.
I don't think it helps with the ranking, but you can still favorite the thread.
Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
91–100 of 286 posts
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#92I cannot agree more with the author’s point of view. As an illustration, many people want to use GPS for the safe positioning of trains in the European Train Control Systems. This makes the space sector happy because it justifies the expenditures incurred for putting things like Galileo in orbit. However, in a pre-war check exercise, one immediately come to the conclusion that all European trains would crawl to a sto…
Not sure I entirely agree? #1 > Or disable a hospital. The entire Ascension Healthcare system of hospitals (142 hospitals, 2600 total facilities) in on divert since 8 May because they had to switch back to paper records. Change Healthcare has lost $872M since it was attacked in February. Maybe it's more like the pandemic: seems like nothing, unless it affects you . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(healthcare_…
> but there are a lot of disasters where the cables are fine
We are talking about war-like situations, and where one state actor has incentive to cause maximum harm to another. Exposing your infrastructure like this is unlike damage that can come from natural disaster. For example, disrupting the communications exactly before the attack. Similar issues (though through lower tech hacking) happened in 7th of October during the Hamas attack in Israel, where the over-reliance on advanced, complicated technology became a liability.
The stuff you describe make sense in normal, peaceful situations, where the cost of securing certain infrastructure can be higher than the cost of a power cut once. That has nothing to do with what the article really says, which is basically that infrastructure is currently not as secure from a potential hostile state attack. Also, in that case, a hostile state actor can combine attacks that together cause more damage than the sum of the attacks independently.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#93Very interesting article. I think the author makes a compelling point about the vulnerability of infrastructure. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised that in an actual unlimited war, between two major developed nations nothing will actually continue to function. None of the systems have ever been actually tested and still make assumptions about the rest of the infrastructure. I also don't believe that simplicity can…
Well, every major city being eliminated by a nuke would also hamper these systems in a total war between developed countries.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Picking on Ukraine, the US not having a policy of signing new people up to the anti-Russia military alliance every few years [0] seems like low hanging fruit. Or not working to integrate their intelligence with the CIA [1] for the last decade. I don't speak German but apparently Merkle said that we weren't negotiating in good faith to keep the peace either [2]. These are the sort of thing I suspect Russia would see a…
It is not an anti-Russia alliance, we Romania enter NATO to survive teh eventual Ruzzian invasion, as you can see from Ukraine war our politicians, even the communist regime was sure that a Ruzzian invasion is unavoidable (yeah, makes your mind segfault when you find out that communist Romania had better relations with USA and was preparing to resist a USSR invasion). You need to talk with Russians to understend thei…
Everything you outlined applies to US politics too :DD
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can convert coal to gas and petrol, and China has a lot of coal. So it can be reduced to an industrial scaling problem which China is very good at.
China imports coal from the United States.
They have huge amounts, but want slightly more. They're the biggest coal producer, producing half the world's coal, and then consuming it too, along with importing an extra 10% which is coking coal for steel making. They have lots of lignite and bituminous coal, which is fine for heat and electricity, and would be fine for turning into gas and liquid hydrocarbon fuel if that was useful.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not an anti-Russia alliance, we Romania enter NATO to survive teh eventual Ruzzian invasion, as you can see from Ukraine war our politicians, even the communist regime was sure that a Ruzzian invasion is unavoidable (yeah, makes your mind segfault when you find out that communist Romania had better relations with USA and was preparing to resist a USSR invasion). You need to talk with Russians to understend thei…
Everything you outlined applies to US politics too :DD
>Everything you outlined applies to US politics too :DD
What? that Canada made an alliance with soem other neighbors so the evil USA would not invade them ?
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#97>Why did it happen? Non-technical people have made choices and have optimized for stuff being cheap. Yes and amplified by: + Cybersecurity 'bad actors' are decentralized and distributed. They innovate at speed, with no barriers, and share their innovation. Cybersecurity 'good actors' are centralized, proprietary and bounded. + Software and service providers traditionally couldn't build secure networking into their pr…
Non-technical people should be stopped.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Well US is not dependent on anyone for her Energy needs. China's strength is they have the means of production (and maintenance) of everyone today, including the US. All the energy in the world means jack squat when all the means of using that energy rely on China. Could the west regain our own means of production? Certainly, but it's going to take far too long at the point China starts pursuing Bigger Gun Diplomacy…
China makes consumer crap not our guns and bombs. In a wartime situation maybe people can’t get iphone cases from temu, big whoop. Not the first time the american population rationed consumer products in wartime. We will still have power and air, sea, and space superiority which is what really matters.
China also makes a huge amount of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, electronic components, and parts for capital equipment. Decoupling from them would be very painful.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
DME (distance measuring equipment) is much simpler than LORAN. However, navigation computers can use multiple VOR / DME signals to compute position similar to LORAN or GPS. The problem is that DME / VOR are typically limited to 50-200nm (and even lower at lower altitudes) which requires extensive network to make it comparable to GPS / LORAN.
I appreciate the reply. Are there any canonical reference sources you would recommend to learn more about this implementation? Edit: sources provided are helpful, thank you lsh123 and Animats!
Not sure what exactly are you looking for. Bunch of info is on FAA website, for example:
https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html... https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/acf/medi...
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do have other ways to navigate. Like land-based beacons (VORs). Unfortunately these are being used less and less and even deprecated in favour of GPS waypoints. Even when they are still around the pilots have less experience with them because they no longer use them every day.
The good news here is that the fine folks at the FAA have spent a lot of time thinking about how to keep aviation secure in a GPS denied environment, which is their basis for the build out of the VOR MON. https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/at...
> FAA have spent a lot of time thinking about how to keep aviation secure in a GPS denied environment, which is their basis for the *build out* of the VOR MON
That’s an interesting characterization, given that the MON is a list of VORs they are not planning to take down.