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Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

nytimes.com

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Re: Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

#71

Post by fowlerpower »

scrollaway wrote: post #60
fowlerpower wrote: post #46

Why? Let them invade another country, let them hack our infrastructure next such as our water supply? You think letting it go or doing nothing is the answer? This guy Putin is no different than Hitler, let him do this sort of thing and you will have much bigger problems in a couple of years.

Boy am I glad you're not in charge of foreign relations, for the sake of nearly every country in the world. "War? Whatever, so be it!". Right? A complaint often surfaces from those that have actually lived through wars: How disconnected people are from war. Your country (I'm assuming) has been at war with various bits of the middle east for over a decade and you are not suffering the consequences. It's all remote for…

Your making a lot of assumptions about me. I am an immigrant from a country that has had suffered very severely from war.

The point is not to let these guys do whatever they want. Go into Ukraine, kill UN volunteers in Syria. Let them become emboldened by different types of attacks and tomorrow we will have the type of war your talking about.

Handle these problems now that they are small.

Edit: I wanted to add that it is very often the ones who have seen what terrible tragedies happen when you let terrible people like Putin do what they want that are the biggest "warmongers". It is why you see the Israelis become so eager to defend themselves because they have seen what will happen if you don't take care of bad people like Putin when they are small.

Re: Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

#72

Post by duaneb »

fowlerpower wrote: post #63
palunon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy Putin has nukes. Lots of them.

That's a mute point. We do too. Do you not think Hitler scared the whole world? If you let this guy scare you into inaction then he's already won.

At the same time, declaring unilateral war against hitler would have been stupid.

Re: Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

#73

Post by whybroke »

fowlerpower wrote: post #50
carbocation wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am saying there should be military action and if that leads to war then so be it I don't think that war with any nation, much less Russia, should ever be such a casual consideration. Measured in human suffering, military conflict is inestimably more awful than brief internet downtime.

Of course I agree with you but it's not about the internet downtime. It's about messing with or elections it's about the invasions. You let it all go on long enough and you will have much bigger problems in a few years time.

Your point is completely accurate and critical to follow up on in a considered way. In the real world anyway.

But unfortunately, since Thiel has invited HN to go full /pol/ the answer you're gonna get is that it's a 400lb guy on a couch saving us from the devil.

Re: Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

#74

Post by throw2016 »

This seems so out of the blue, the last attack was targeting krebs for exposing extortionists. Who is being attacked this time and why?

There is a lot of talk of iot botnets but little to no evidence. This seems too vague and up in the air.

If all it takes is script kiddies and random extortionists to generate such large 1 Tbps scale attacks then we appear to be reliant on an unbelievably fragile base.

There is a growing realization of the need for more decentralization of services but these kind of attacks is going to drive more centralization if only Google scale companies can manage to stay up. I think this is drop everything and fix time for the IT profession.

Re: Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

#75

Post by drvdevd »

laurentdc wrote: post #35
msane wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The energy spent for TCP/IP stack usage is negligible at best. Not true, especially en masse. Even less true for wirelessly connected devices.

Hm, in my experience the difference between idle and 100% CPU usage on a modern ARM processor (e.g. Allwinner H3) is around 1 Watt. That's more or less what an LCD monitor in standby draws. I wouldn't call that significant (as in, impacting the global energy consumption significantly) even if thousands of devices started the attack at the same time.

Would you call that detectable? Eespecially en masse. Perhaps a smart grid could detect these attacks in some way and dynamically adjust power to compromised devices?

Re: Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

#77

Post by Zigurd »

cm2187 wrote: post #41
meowface wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's espionage, not necessarily an act of war. The US government is threatening to strike back with more espionage. (If they haven't already...)

Espionage is stealing data. Disrupting utility services is an act of war, whether it is shutting down an electricity power plant, cutting communications, or any other act of sabotage.

Equating what amounts to a temporary sabotage of a non-critical service to an act of war highlights how brittle and conflicted is US cyber-strategy.

Surveillance has for so long gotten all the money and mindshare A stockpile of zero days is considered a good and necessary thing. Back doors in hardware and software are considered clever and useful, and maybe even a workable compromise for domestic surveillance.

Imagine if the domestic surveillance budget had been spent instead on making Linux into an EAL6+ certifiable system and creating open, verifiable designs for chips and firmware for secure hardware platforms.

Re: Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

#78

Post by lambdadmitry »

msane wrote: post #27
csallen wrote: post #16

Schneier wrote about related attacks just over a month ago in a post titled "Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet" ( https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/someone_is_le... )

Hopefully it's not related threats about hacking during the election. Remember that recently Biden openly threatened cyber attack on Russia if they make any attempt to tamper with the election. Which is completely unprecedented, as is the notion that DOD is openly saying Russia was behind DNC and other attacks.

It's not just DoD, eset found strong evidence to back the claim [1].

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12764898

Re: Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

#79

Post by fowlerpower »

duaneb wrote: post #72
fowlerpower wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a mute point. We do too. Do you not think Hitler scared the whole world? If you let this guy scare you into inaction then he's already won.

At the same time, declaring unilateral war against hitler would have been stupid.

Really? Right after he hit Poland? That would have been the smartest move the world could have done and you would have had much less bloodshed than you did. You would have prevented the holocaust prevented the destruction of most of Europe.

But you keep telling yourself that.

Re: Internet Attack Spreads, Disrupting Major Websites

#80

Post by duaneb »

fowlerpower wrote: post #79
duaneb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, declaring unilateral war against hitler would have been stupid.

Really? Right after he hit Poland? That would have been the smartest move the world could have done and you would have had much less bloodshed than you did. You would have prevented the holocaust prevented the destruction of most of Europe. But you keep telling yourself that.

This is so much easier to say if you're not a historian. "What if" scenarios are invaluable. You might as well say we should have killed him. Easier said than done!
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