Apparently these officials were so concerned Trump would reveal details of this cyber attack to Russia they leaked the details themselves to the NYT who just revealed the details of this cyber attack to Russia. All with the coincidentally happy benefit of damaging Trump in the process.
And the Times helpfully jogs our memory about the time these same officials & the Times revealed much more about a Syrian operation than Trump did via another felony leak to the Times in 2017.
Gee, it's lucky we have these guys to protect us from Trump leaking all our secrets.
25
This leak was certainly about to signaling to Russia ...
... and to Trump.
(Is there honestly any difference?)
25
Now when President Maduro of Venezuela blames the US for the power outages in his country it doesn’t look so far-fetched.
21
One of the largest vulnerabilities to American utilities is in its patchwork design - thousands of individual municipal/county water systems, both for providing potable water and the treatment of sewage.
Over the past few decades programmable logic controllers (PLC) have been installed into these local systems to automatically run the operations. It was reported a few years back, including in the NYT, that a huge problem was discovered. Apparently, workers at many of these local systems left the PLCs with their factory-set default log ins and passwords instead of resetting them upon installation. That simple act of not bothering to reset these meant that if, for example, Russia knew the factory settings of Siemens PLCs they could simply dragnet local U.S. utilities and get inside with no real hacking involved. Hopefully, this huge vulnerability has been closed.
7
Another commenter asks, rhetorically:
"What exactly is the difference between dropping bombs on civilians with drones and shutting down technology infrastructure required for hospitals, air traffic controls, and other public safety operations?"
None -- just a different method.
My hunch is that the "bark" of these techno-nerds (US, Russian, Iranian, whatever) is worse than their "bite." But no powerful country can afford to take a chance since the "bite" can be very damaging and typically is difficult or impossible to detect (Stuxnet being the obvious example). A country always must assume that the worst is happening and that its enemies will mever "advertise" what they're doing -- at least until it's too late, at which point the "advertisement" is likely only to heighten the first country's fear that even more is happening. Maybe (probably) it is; maybe not. The first country probably will never know.
It's always been that way in the "spy" biz, and always will be.
4
This is announcing a dererrant to stop Putin meddling further. It does raise ethic issues concerning affecting a nation's power and military capability, but as the article explains Russia has been aggressively probing US infrastructure for years.
I rather wish there could be international agreements on cyber interference but that seems too simple. We can agree limits on nuclear weaponry but the secret stuff we cant, when that is just as harmful.
Putin must be stopped. The attacks on our democracies have delivered untold damage; Brexit and Trump are two such disasters. The fact that he now knows he is vulnerable might just bring him into line and not take further incursions. Of course signalling systems have been breached can have the adverse effect; he finds them and goes for higher payback. This is the problem with meddling in other countries' affairs in the first place.
Trump somewhat hopping mad, so in a roundabout way it's probably the cautious and pragmatic thing to do. BTW - time this traitor was removed, so hoping the Dems start getting more successful with this villain!
8
It is intended partly as a warning, and partly to be poised to conduct cyberstrikes if a major conflict broke out between Washington and Moscow.
And no one is worried about the fact that Russia has made it clear that unlike the United States, it would use Nuclear weapons as the first tool of engagement???
Imagine having your city wiped out because someone decided to shut down St'. Petersburg's grid because Putin was there and he was surrounded by his paranoid generals???
The United States may launch a cyberattack against Russia but they may not respond with a retaliatory cyberattack, especially if they know the United States has managed to exceed their cyber capabilities.
1
Russians might still prefer Donald Trump over Democrat candidates, but they might start to be concerned with John Bolton. So if they have dirt on Trump, Bolton might be gone soon. If Bolton stays, it could show that Russians had nothing on Trump all this time.
3
Many commenters ask why officials are revealing this. They are revealing it to tell Russia that Trump isn’t really in charge; moreover Trump isn’t even informed as to security and defense operations. Thus, Trump’s questionable “friendship” with Putin won’t prevent the US from retaliating if and when Russia attacks our infrastructure.
14
Forget power grids. I'd love to see the US infiltrate their notoriously restricted social media, knock out some of the censorship protocols, and flood it with anti-regime propaganda.
10
There's no news here. We do this all the time. So do our enimies and allies.
1
The Russians, Chinese, and Iranians have been attacking and exploiting our networks with impunity. It's time for America to make a bold and clear response that such actions will be met with a sure and painful response. These countries' "Mission Statement" has been to lie, steal, cheat, deny, and murder any opposition, and they use the Internet and computer technology to further their aims. American know-how and technological prowess should slap down attempts by our adversaries. I was under the impression that such attempts to disrupt our infrastructure through computer intrusion was an act of war. When will American leadership take the bold step to safeguard our national interests?
4
This ill will among the world's most powerful nations to destabalize each other is highly disturbing. It's unsettling how immature and unevolved these government leaders remain. Their pursuit of power always puts people at risk. The public are pawns in the power game.
10
A commenter asks:
"Is it possible to take the nation’s power grid off the internet?"
Yes, and this "solution" has been tried.
But this may not prevent a country's enemies from getting malicious code into the "closed" system. About a decade ago, for example, Iranian nuclear scientists were under strict orders to this effect, but some of them took home thumb drives so they could work from home after dinner on whatever project they were involved with at work. The next morning, they'd upload the fruits of their previous evening's labors -- including whatever malware had been inserted onto their thumb drive (Stuxnet, for example, which subtly but effectively targeted certain centrifuges that had been built by Siemens, a German company).
I don't know whether the Iranians ever figured out how Stuxnet got into their ostensibly "closed" system, but this "thumb drive" theory was often presented as a possibility.
5
Reporting a dubiously sourced story like this falls into the "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" category.
6
This piece ran below the fold in my edition, is not even on the first web of the Times' web site this morning and ran these two amazing paragraphs well down in the story. Talk about underplaying a story and burying the lead!
"Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place “implants” — software code that can be used for surveillance or attack — inside the Russian grid.
"Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister."
15
Russia, if your listening... Is that a fair deal, you mess with our elections and we'll turn off your lights...
9
The problem is that the US interferes with many countries elections and also hacks into others electrical grids as well. How about we stop our rougue activity first before lecturing other countries on the same?
7
This piece ran below the fold in my edition, is not even on the first web of the Times' web site this morning and ran these two amazing paragraphs well down in the story. Talk about underplaying a story and burying the lead!
"Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place “implants” — software code that can be used for surveillance or attack — inside the Russian grid.
"Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister."
3
Trump has tweeted that the NYT are traitors for running this article. I would say they are doing a public service.
Adding to my previous comment, I would say that anyone who connects safety critical, or essential infrastructure systems to the public internet need their heads read. No network can ever be guaranteed secure, even private ones, and there is no network more insecure than the public internet.
9
These are Weapons of Mass Destruction aimed at the civilian population of Russia. That would be a war crime by any definition. To anyone who says, 'well the Russians are doing it,' that is akin to saying well the Nazis gassed the Jews so we can too. Does anyone understand the catastrophic consequences of suddenly bringing down an entire national power grid in the modern world? This not some inconvenience. Unimaginable numbers of people could die. Is Washington promising not to do it during the Russian winter, or perhaps that's the plan, to inflict maximum suffering? In the words of Robert McNamara, one of the criminals who planned the fire bombings of Tokyo and Dresden-they were war crimes against civilian populations.
6
It's called a deterrent. How many Americans would die if Russia did the same thing? I wish we didn't need one, but we do.
5
When John Bolton is involved in any form or fashion, I never believe a word he has to say. That war monger has never seen a war he didn't like, since dodging Vietnam.
10
How can we call the Iranians pirates when we're openly engaged in such piratical, illegal, destabilizing, and out and out stupid behavior ourselves?
(And when China probably already has the capacity to turn both the Russians and us off with the touch of a single button?)
5
@Green Tea
How? Because we fund humanitarian operations around the globe, protect our allies with billions of dollars worth of powerful military equipment, and have a global responsibility to limit the nefarious activities of rogue states.
Your tax dollars, hard at work.
4
I have to say, I trust having the military in charge of these cyber security plans much more than Trump. Of course it’s troubling, but we are stuck with this idiot traitor, and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. It is beyond surreal.
7
It's about time.
3
And Trump declares the coverage by the Times of these actions as treasonous. Is this just more Trump babble? Or has the Times engaged legal counsel to protect its reputation? Probably it is best to ignore noise from this incoherent POTUS.
3
So now we're supposed to trust these bumbling, disorganized, lying doofuses with our power grid? As in the cities of New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta- a massive power outage in the middle of summer is going to cause a lot of panic, and cause a lot of vulnerable folks to die.
Impeach now.
2
Wow . I thought my President was best friends with our pals over there . That’s not the case? What say you my bronze leader?
1
The Donald doesn't like you making Putin look bad.
4
Has the defence secretary been paid for by Russians? Or is he still independent?
Hard to keep up with the corruption in the gop and American government.
So depending whose paying him this guy will press the button and doesnt need to check in with congress or the prez tweeting from his bathroom.
Putin will not be happy the way his boy has let go of the situation.
Also surprised how many people accept USA cyber aggression but go crazy when China and Russia have a go back.
Same with Iran right now.
The blood thirsty pompeo hawks are calling the shots and we know how that ends.
Making America great white bullies again.
Trump is tougher on Putin than Obama ever was. Will the media ever report on that? Will the Democrats ever mention this?
5
No Trump is not tougher but, when they do not tell Trump, his administration is tougher.
3
Looks like the CIA is worried that AG Barr is going to reveal, and prosecute, a lot of corruption at Langley re the Russian collusion nonsense, so the CIA is leaking this, to fire a warning shot across Trump's bow. Won't work.
2
It is obvious that the NYT was sent back in the open knife. The two government officials can not be so stupid as to declare their own president "too stupid" not to be able to grasp the explosive situation.
How about that.... if the NYT for a while no longer "directly" reports about Trump, but only "in the third person". So the NYT would have "more space" and Mister T. less attack points. Not a few politicians talk about him, but do not mention his "you know who" name. Would be interesting what would arise there for new opportunities.
1
Wait a minute. I thought Trump is Putin's puppet. Why doesn't Putin unload on Trump with all the konpromat he has on the U.S. President? How can Putin stay silent?
3
We are doing what?
Committing an act of war against Russia - publicly - with no evidence Russia has done other than attacked our elections - denied, of course, by he who was aided by it?
If the Russians have any sense, no part of the nation’s grid is Internet-assessable, ditto the US-Canada grid.
These systems should not be assessable from anything but a control room terminal - doing otherwise is major-league stupidity.
There is no need to take such unwise steps.
Which means we - if not they, have moles in energy distribution centers.
So, either we are admitting a unilateral act of war, or we are attacking back, the wrong thing to do instead of cleaning staff and securing the system.
Excuse me, I’ve got to start digging one heck of a concrete-and-steel-lined hole about 200’ under the back yard and mortgaging the house for special HVAC, food and water systems because our leader is out of his mind, and theirs may be as well.
Great knowing you all ...
1
“Sometimes you have to take a bloody nose to not take a bullet in the head down the road.” What no secret advantages? Apparently in this world of "trust no one", the biggest leaker is Donald J. Trump. What to do in cyber security when the president throws out information to enemies with total abandonment. Duh you don't tell him everything. Even if they did tell him, he wouldn't understand it much less leak it out. Even my Trumper relative can't stand that "he can't keep his mouth shut". But I guarantee you he will vote for Trump because people don't care if Trump sells out our country.....which I am sure he already has.
3
Yet another reason to impeach and remove from office a president who is not protecting us from evil forces. He is too compromised!
4
Cyberweapons of Mass Disruption
1
“the officials described the previously unreported deployment of American computer code inside Russia’s grid and other targets as a classified companion to more publicly discussed action.”
But now it’s all public, isn’t it? What has changed? What is responsible for the timing? Why do unnamed officials think they can take it upon themselves to use this tool and then publicize it? Is this a dare to Putin to take countermeasures or a public slap in the face to the President who was thought to be so untrustworthy that they didn’t tell him about it, but now acting on their own they tell the world? What part does the NYT play in all of this? It was told but not the President. It then makes it public now. For what purpose? Is it in league with these unnamed insiders? Does the NYT now make policy and together with these unnamed individuals described as the “Trump administration.” Isn’t that a misnomer because they certainly don’t represent the President.
All of this needs to be investigated and the NYT called up to answer for its conduct which is not merely reporting the news but becoming involved in its genesis.
2
Obama knew of the Russian attacks and did nothing.
Trump has unleashed our dogs of war against them.
One of them was really incompetent.
1
If this article is true, then it is using top secret information which should not be made public because of its sensitive nature. It can only help Putin. Is this the same NYT that was so worked up over Russian collusion?
4
This, and Sanger’s other report yesterday, make it “crystal clear” (as Col. Jessup [Jack Nicholson] would say), that this entire amateur hour cast in a cheapened remake of “The Sleep-Walkers” and the “Cuban Missile Crisis”, are lacking both the gravitas and the humanity of JFK and Nikita Khrushchev.
God help us.
1
How soon will Vlad order Don to knock it off?
1
So the next war will be because of a computer hack?
1
Really? We're taking overt action against another sovereign nation, and talking about it in public?
What doesn't compute here? Are we asking Russia to counter respond? And isn't this announcement by the administration admission that they're aware of overt Russian cyber action against us? Like in 2016, for example?
The public discussion is stupid. It smacks of a Trump strike... ...see, we went after them. Definite proof of no collusion.
1
Trump, true to being Putin’s puppet, just denied the story and lambasted the press. Via a series of tweets of course, being the coward that he is.
I cannot begin to imagine how Trump voters must feel with this daily display of subservience to Putin and unparalleled cowardice.
1
Schoolyard psychology writ large: " everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth". The current president has distracted fat-lipped Americans from what Imperial powers did ( like gunboat diplomacy) and always do ( realpolitik). Russia may be tecnically savvy, but with an ecomony the size of Texas. At some point, you respond. Otherwise,..what?, let Putin run the Republican 2020 Campaign?
1
Is it possible that this is fake news to suggest that we are tough on Russia when we may not be? This is where the credibility of the POTUS and his admin matters the most.
2
So, it's quite ok to do this, right? Because, America.
1
This gives me a creepy feeling about receiving an email today from my power company advising customers to "be prepared for emergencies" that cause "loss of power for 48 hours," as if anticipating the NYTimes story—or worse yet: The customer advisory and the NYTimes story are connected by an untold immanent cyberthreat that is being posed as a hypothetical to implicitly tell Russia that the U.S. is aware of Russia's immanent intent to cause disruption—if the U.S. acts against Iran?
Call me paranoid, but evidently this is the kind of world we now live in. Who knows what’s really going on. “Stuff happens.”
The Pentagon has removed President Trump from the chain of command.
Good!
4
Are we ready to accept that America has relinquished its control to the mafia? These tactics are unsophisticated JV stunts that have the potential to get innocent people killed (think Boeing).
Sanctions, beefing up coalitions with our true allies, and improving our own infrastructure to be bulletproof against attacks from other nations is what we should be focusing on. Not these foolish war games and false flag operations on the high seas (Iran/MbS). Let’s get an admin capable of adulting vs acting like the Sopranos.
1
Remind me now, why should WE believe ANYTHING that Mustachio Bolton, Trump, Pompeo, anyone in this lying "administration" or rogue "Pentagon and intelligence officials" apparently calling their own shots?
2
Legal authorites slipped by whom (into a bill passed by congess)?
1
Why inform the president of anything, he will shoot it down on principle or mangle it trying to explain it. Yeap, the man is a dolt, and will ruin the project, somehow.
I can't believe I am reading this. Of course, Trump will not read this article and find out how he is being gaslighted.
What a laugh!
Forget power. Centralized production and consumption can be obviated with local, and hyper-local (your rooftop) production.
"Whiskey's fer drinkin',
Water's fer fightin."
No water; game over.
How many would-be John Galts can pump and produce potable water?
1
The President tells a journalist that he would accept help from a hostile foreign power in order to win an election.
The President is basically kept in the dark about cyber attacks against that foreign power because he cannot be trusted to keep the information to himself, or may report the information to enemies of the United States.
The President voices his distrust of our security and military authorities based on his "intuitions".
The President accuses news organizations who report on these issues "enemies of the people" and "failing".
The following questions are for additional credits:
1) What was the name of the President described above?
2) What political party was he affiliated with?
3) What percentage of politicians from that party were eventually convicted of crimes related to refusing to take action against The President or collusion with that president?
4) What was the name of the correctional facility built to house the president and the politicians who supported him?
5) How many years did the country known as Russia exist following the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
Grades will be posted online. Have a safe and relaxing summer.
2
The use of any type of 'violence' is a difficult issue. And cyber violence is violence. For mafiaesque types, like Putin, BoneSaw, etc. Stalin, Mao, etc. it is what they do to acquire and keep power. From a human development point of view they are retrograde. The decent people must counter the retrogrades' activities and that is where the difficulties and subtleties arise. One of the problematic subtleties is that closet retrogrades, like our own neo conservatives, Cheney, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. infiltrate our decision process, and try to tilt it to mirror the foreign dictator types, because that is how they think. These mental parasites bring absolutely unnecessary wars, and it is frequently difficult for the decent people to avoid the con. It's like they are parasites that infect a healthy tree and so weaken it that it falls, e.g. their activities have caused the US to waste several TRILLION dollars in useless and murderous activities, and now they try to do it again. We certainly need to respond to external threats, but we need to competently craft our response to those external threats. Putin is a parasite in Russia, just like Cheney and Bolton are here. To have a good result the reasonable people need to assert control and not let these kooks run the show and create disaster as they have done throughout history.
1
“Officials at the National Security Council also declined to comment but said they had no national security concerns about the details of The New York Times’s reporting about the targeting of the Russian grid,”
Really? They have no concerns about the NYT reporting it and their own actions as an unauthorized source, yet they’re supposedly concerned about the President being a blabbermouth?
“Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials.”
Who’s President of this country anyway? It’s bad enough that those who leaked this information to the NYT may very well be acting as a cabal committing disloyal acts against our country, but, to make matters worse, they’re so dumb they don’t even know to keep their activities a secret.
2
Dr. Strangelove is no longer science fiction.
It's about time. The only thing that a bully like Putin (and Trump, for that matter) will respect is when someone fights back.
2
Trump attacked The New York Times saying that publishing this article was a "virtual act of treason". In fact, the article is based largely on publicly available information & Trump's own NSC was comfortable with its publication. They had not discussed the effort with him in detail for fear he would interfere or share it with the Russians as he did with Code Word intel on Syria.
The gravest security risk this country has is not China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran. It is Donald Trump.
4
Russia, if you're listening, let this be a warning to you to stay out of our elections.
2
What the average American does not realize is that the Russian FSB does not directly hack American power companies! Those IP addresses can be too easily traced back to Russia! What is happening is that Russian Hackers run programs called Port Scanners that look for easy to log into computers in America! Every mom and pop business that runs in America that uses a computer can be used as a proxy to attack the power companies infrastructure! Add to that VPN software that masks the original mom and pop IP address that initiates the attacking computers location and you have a great cat and mouse game going on between Russia and America! Imagine thousands of small computers in America that are infected with malicious Russian computer code and you can begin to understand the scope of the threat! This is not a game and Americans need to understand what a serious threat that this is!
1
This is window dressing. The President doesn't know about it but the New York Times has a headline? Right. "Look how tough we are!" says the sub-text. "We're not going to take it!" Yeah... right... meanwhile Republicans block efforts to protect the voting process and Trump, sitting in the Oval Office, says he'd welcome foreign information on election rivals without notifying the FBI, though he tongue-in-cheek walked it back the next day. The effort of these headlined "escalated attacks" has produced no effect on the ground or grid in Russia. This is window dressing.
It is amazing how little governments act as if domestic tranquility were a common interest of them all.
So do we need a Geneva convention for cyberwar?
A very scary part of this story is: "Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister."
Several years ago when Trump was running and Russia was sending cyber incursions into our system, the nuclear power plant at Wolfe Creek here in Kansas was broken into an pictures of the control room were published. While it was frightening to many here our Senators and the President didn't seem to care.
Trump runs his mouth and divulges our secrets all the time, as well as giving the secrets shared by other countries to our enemies. Trump has refused to acknowledge the Russians interfered in any way when we have proof they did and are going to again. I don't blame the DOD for not wanting to tell Trump what they are doing, because he will betray the country to Russia every time.
2
If only Trump's supporters could be forced to accept the fact that their boy has to be kept ignorant of any details, classified or not, about attempts to prevent Russian attacks on America for fear that he will end them or tell them to Putin in his next secret meeting with him.
1
Not smart. They can do it to us in 2 seconds. There already have been multiple incidents of them penetrating aystems6of US eclectic operators. They have been hacking Ukraine's power grid for years
I am not a Trump supporter . I am afraid of where he is leading this country with silence and support of the republicans.
However I think that the New York Times was irresponsible to print this article.
I do not fully understand the rationale of putting our country at risk of increasing tensions with Russia.
1
"Cyber warfare" is still "warfare." There should be no distinction. Heaven help us.
My guess is that these military brasses must have an easy life. Otherwise, why would they want to attack another country and openly said so? They must hope to have another war or counter attack from Russia to keep them busy and employed. Our government is too generous on spending in defense.
An incredibly perplexing and odd move from Putin's puppet, don't you think?
"Advocates of the more aggressive strategy said it was long overdue, after years of public warnings from the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. that Russia has inserted malware that could sabotage American power plants, oil and gas pipelines, or water supplies in any future conflict with the United States." Thanks Barry. Obama, one of our greatest Presidents, Hah!
Is it possible to take the nation’s power grid off the internet? If so, and if implemented, would the grid still be vulnerable to enemy depredations?
1
@FMR yes and yes. See Stuxnet
Our amazingly uninformed president is playing with fire here and he is too self centered to even grasp what might happen. The Russians are also quite adept at hacking and the outcome of this latest adventure could very well prove catastrophic to the US.
For a president who claims that he wants to avoid foreign entanglements he certainly is ineffective at doing so. This administration is working on a shooting war in Iran, a nuclear war in Korea, multiple military incursions in Africa, endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an ethnic cleansing in Sudan.
There is hardly a single region on earth that has not been touched by the devastation of our military might. Now they are working on a digital war with Russia, just to keep things interesting.
All they offer are the same old neocon lies about making the US stronger while embroiling us in endless wars that make us less secure and a target for terrorism. This idiocy also wastes billions of dollars yearly on "defense" which could be better used to improve the lives of Americans.
Will the citizens of the US ever wake up to what is happening and call a halt? I doubt it.
4
This makes me wonder if Cyber Command has a role in crippling the infrastructure of Venezuela during the ongoing efforts to oust Nicolas Maduro.
2
I get the importance of the big picture cyber issues here, but what intrigues me is the back story as to how this came to be reported now and why senior military/government people want this info public. This “little-noticed new legal authorities, slipped into the military authorization bill passed by Congress last summer” seems like a really big deal. What else falls under “clandestine military activity” in cyberspace, to “deter, safeguard or defend against attacks or malicious cyberactivities against the United States”? Did Trump know about this new law? Does it provide a basis for monitoring hacking into election databases? Or into a candidate possibly accepting help that might result from cyber attacks from foreign powers? Without knowing more than what is in this article, what the US is doing as described here seems to make sense, but what intrigues me just as much is the politics behind how/why this got into the NYT.
1
This era is the most dangerous in our evolution with the planet and our survival at stake. Retaliation seems to be the fallback way we communicate in conflict though true to our ancient mammalian heritage. We need to find better ways to bring all nations together to solve massive problems. If only our morality would progress as fast our technology to guide us!
2
“A question that may not be answered until its code is activated” - a telling and lovely remark, right? Since there’s no real way to test this program until you run it, there’s no way to know what will actually happen, or what the unforeseen side-effects will be (Stuxnet, anyone?)
1
I nominate Paul Nakasone for this year's George Orwell Memorial Doublespeak award for the following statement appearing in the article: 'Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, has been outspoken about the need to “defend forward” '.
I thought Iraq, for example, had been an offensive action by W, but, no, he was just "defending forward". I am in awe of Nakasone's creativity.
2
There are many levels of technology expertise in this country and constantly on display. Simply put we can’t find families of children put in cages.
I have to believe that our technology military expertise is above everyone’s else. Which is why foreign countries are always stealing our expertise.
Who I fear is the con man in the office and John Bolton. These men who like the dictators of the world believe they are the masters of the universe and human beings don’t matter. George Bush was surrounded by white male elites who never served in the military and who were the face of a miscalculated war that we are still in.
Now since Trump can’t ever tell the truth about anything he will find out very quickly what it is like to be he very isolated.
Ms. Hadley should stand on the sidelines and keep her mouth shut she stepped down from public office. I don’t know what she did at the UN but give endless speeches that were undercut by the president. She and her racism about healing vs taking action and removing those confederate statutes after people were slaughtered in her state wAs embarrassing to women and minorities.
As Americans We need to do great research to discover the truth at all times because the GOP have lied about everything and they own all aspects of communication.
However we are smart and recognize all lies from the GOP
1
I assume this report is minimally sourced for security reasons, but let's assume its veracity. Also a given: regarding the internet, Pandora's box is already open and I suspect a return to hardwiring is improbable if not impossible. But why isn't our critical infrastructure on a completely separate closed system for protection? Is that impossible, too?
I fear that the bomb that starts WWIII won't be sudden and physical but calculated and cyber. We may well be pretty far down that path already. I do not rest easy knowing the makeup of our current administration, and that control of this cyber bomb is in their petulant hands.
1
This short paragraph, reporting on the Pentagon's assessment of Trump, clearly suggests we have a traitor in the WH:
"Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister."
3
I suppose it's like ordinary military deterence: we publicize our capabilities in order to deter anyone from starting something with us. The business about needing to keep Trump out of the loop is just plain weird, and who knows how he will respond to this? Or what the rest of us should think about it?
1
It sounds very like the arms race in the run-up to WWI. Each of the great powers thought it that HAD to build new threats to offset those of adversaries. Each side believed this exercise of power would teach the others a lesson and cause them to desist. The effect was the opposite.
It's time for an international cyber disarmament conference. Or rather it will be time once Trump is out of office. Nothing can be done while this clown is in power.
I think Cyber Warfare has been happening for quite some time already. Do you honestly think it's a coincidence every time flights are grounded because an airline's computer system has experienced "technical difficulties"?? In the area I work in, I get these notices all the time and it disrupts flights for at least a few hours if not a full day - which equals lost time and money! Our entire lives are now built around technology and we are royally done for should a major outage happen or some rogue decides to hack the traffic grid and make all the lights green at the same time or hack all the computers on our cars and take control. Even the most basic transactions require a computer - just look at how Target had its cash registers inoperable for a couple of hours nationwide.
Cyber warfare has already been here for years folks. By the time the masses get a clue, it's already too late.
1
What, for me, was the most frightening part of this story was that the President of our country was not briefed on the new strategy for fear that he would compromise it's security.
3
Looks like any country using Windows is more susceptible to hacking. Russia may yet have and advantage over US. They invented Nginx web server. This is a dominant server in the Internet and bugs could be implanted there.
I appreciate our Central Command’s assessment that Iran removed the one mine from the one ship, however, I want our 17 Intelligence Agencies take on if any nation might have set Iran up, too.
Maybe we need, Ms. give-it-to-Barr, Senator Kamala Harris, in our White House, instead of Trump, to ask the right questions? ‘Why’, if Iran is concerned about their economy, due to Trump-imposed sanctions, would Iran ‘want’ to provoke an expensive war with ‘us’?
What nation has been dodging our ships with their planes in recent years, and recently toyed with clipping one of our ships broadsides to threaten ‘possible’ causalities; like their government doesn’t care if their own might die? (Russia: So, count Putin in on meddling with the ways of Middle Eastern violence.)
Could our Intel think, suspect, or even, know, that Russia could have caused this trouble between the U.S. and Iran in trying to victimize our country with Trump, both, darned if he doesn’t respond and darned if he does? With Putin also thinking, that Trump wouldn’t want to out Russia for the set-up since Trump’s been so strangely-friendly?
What if Iran knew or suspected that it was Russia, and removed the one mine to ‘avoid’ a war with us with Iran not wanting to publicly out their Putin-Russian backer for possibly setting them up in case Trump militarily responds?
What can the ‘Times ask Intel Official’s?
1
The current President is missing in this discussion because any discussion as to action on the U.S. part to allay Russian interference in this country to elections or power grids delegitimizes his right to be President.
I seem to remember a disused phrase about poking the bear, the bear being the old USSR. One fears attempts at manipulating the Russian power grid will only embolden the bear to once again wreak havoc on US elections.
If this is true why isn't this classified information and if it is why is it legal to publish it? Receiving leaks of classified information from internal government sources should be just as outrageous as receiving information from a foreign power
2
As a former intelligence officer, I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that by disclosing this information the operation has been completely neutralized. I guess that should be added to the SAP CI investigation of Benedict Trump.
1
Have not forgotten that NSA was hacked last year and all it’s cyber tools are now in the hands of ?
Do unto others, and they will do unto you. I understand that Trump doesn’t have the patience for details but our ‘defence’ sec’y is not known for his forbearance.
Many US citizens pay little attention to the demands of being engaged citizens--following the news, considering policy options, and the like. Many of them don't bother to vote, or, if they vote, do so on the basis of a single straightforward issue: guns or abortion rights. But many educated and engaged voters can't understand tech and its reach into cyberspace. This piece demonstrates that even engaged voters will simply be shooting in the dark when they cast their votes. Who understands the grid? Cyberspace? Beats me.
So, the gloves are off, and it’s devil take the hindmost? That’s just great. Russia is every bit as capable of messing up the US infrastructure as we are theirs.
1
I find it much more likely that this story is "signaling" voters in the US than Russian authorities. The Trump administration has signaled its appreciation to Russia for its aid in the last election. The idea that Trump would do anything to harm his ally seriously is laughable.
1
Speaking of cyber revenge, have we decided which of Vladimir Putin's rivals we would prefer to be President of Russia?
Silly question: The Trump administration doesn't believe that Russia interfered with our election.
1
I appreciate our Central Command’s assessment that Iran removed the one mine from the one ship, however, I want our 17 Intelligence Agencies take on if any nation might have set Iran up, too.
Maybe we need, Ms. give-it-to-Barr, Senator Kamala Harris, in our White House, instead of Trump, to ask the right questions? ‘Why’, if Iran is concerned about their economy, due to Trump-imposed sanctions, would Iran ‘want’ to provoke an expensive war with ‘us’?
What nation has been dodging our ships with their planes in recent years, and recently toyed with clipping one of our ships broadsides to threaten ‘possible’ causalities; like their government doesn’t care if their own might die? (Russia: So, count Putin in on meddling with the ways of Middle Eastern violence.)
Could our Intel think, suspect, or even, know, that Russia could have caused this trouble between the U.S. and Iran in trying to victimize our country with Trump, both, darned if he doesn’t respond and darned if he does? With Putin also thinking, that Trump wouldn’t want to out Russia for the set-up since Trump’s been so strangely-friendly?
What if Iran knew or suspected that it was Russia, and removed the one mine to ‘avoid’ a war with us with Iran not wanting to publicly out their Putin-Russian backer for possibly setting them up in case Trump militarily responds?
What can the ‘Times ask Intel Official’s?
1
As a deterrent, our hacking of their systems is useless unless they know we have done it. (I learned that in a movie years ago.) Hence the news had to be released.
The President has taken to twitter to call this story both treasonous and false -- mutually contradictory claims. His anger is puzzling. It's as if he doesn't plan on retaliating for a Russian attack on our critical infrastructure.
The Intelligence agencies' reluctance to fully brief the President is fully understandable in that context.
We know this is made up media hype from the WH. If it were true, it would be highly classified. Think of the implications of telling countries that the US has the software to sabotage their energy grids or even internet capabilities if the US doesnt like them. Trump is trying to make himself look tough on Putin after his lovefests with Putin came under so much criticism. Vote out the GOP!
But Russia needn’t stop trying to mess with US elections, since Lord Trump can’t be bothered with such everyday incursions.
"The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and the Canadian province of Ontario on August 14, 2003, beginning just after 4:10 p.m. EDT.[1]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003
I was at the office when this happened. We had no idea how wide spread it was until much later. I ended up sleeping at co-workers house until the next day. You had to pay for everything with cash if you didn't have cash too bad.
This wasn't a cyberattack just a large power failure but it serves as a good reminder of how much we take for granted everyday of our lives.
There definitely needs do be some kind of dialogue started about what is considered off limits.
Fair's fair. Donald Trump is the Russian malware we're still stuck with.
Hmmm. Nice act of war we've got going on there. Might be time to rein in the more sociopathic tendencies of our government, and start holding our own criminals accountable.
1
You can hurt Putin and help the environment at the same time. Just replace your fossil vehicle with a Tesla and put up as much solar pv as you can.
The only beneficiary of the economic war, physical war, cyber war, or any other kind of war is only those who would benefit from a disrupted economy.
A failed world economy would slow down new investment in replacing the dirty fossil fuel economy. The failed businessman and degenerate president is the last hope of the dirty fossil fuels to avert being replaced with clean renewable power.
Too late!... Trump appears to be failing even at .... failure! 2020 will be the year of good riddance of the moral weakling and national embarrassment in the White House.
of the letters i read two strike me as really on target.
stop using the people of the world as pawns in a macho game!
Decentralize the production of electricity. Solar homes ! power our cars ! the technology is here !
1
For decades there has been discussions about the need to decentralize our power grid for the sake of security. Unfortunately, the U.S. has become reactive instead of proactive. And what a horrible time in our history to have elected an imbecile like Trump. We just don’t have the time for this! I live completely off grid, and if any of this scenario comes to pass, I’m sure I’ll meet a whole bunch of new friends.
Sure... we never did it first?
It is so unlikely since we shipped routers to sell in Europe with govt spyware installed. The story appeared briefly in the news and then strangely disappeared... many years ago... i think it was pre obama.
These guys are playing a very expensive and potentially deadly game and we are paying for it. Men in power have been doing this for millenia and getting away with it. Were they all emotionally hurt as children
Hope we elect an intelligent woman before some petulant man child blows us all up.
The most alarming part of this report is the part where officials at the Pentagon, the security agencies, and the Department of Defence felt that they could not inform President Trump about their operations because he would TELL PUTIN!!
For conspiracy theorists (like myself!) the failure of power over all Argentina and Uruguay today is the result of an intelligence agency proving it, too, can cyperkill an electircal power grid.
If only the nations of the world could be governed by adults
"Under the law, those actions can now be authorized by the defense secretary without special presidential approval."
It used to be that only Congress could declare war. The Military Industrial Complex seems to have finally gotten what they have always wanted. Now the Offense Department can declare war all by itself, even without presidential approval.
8
This whole problem has grown from the fact that so much of our infrastructure, our everything important, is connected to the 'net. Why?
I ask why because, before the internet was a thing, you had to be AT the important places to do it harm.People, actual humans, were operating things -at- those places. Yes, the power grid needed to be operated, keeping the 60Hz frequency, balancing loads, etc. People did this, and the systems, the plants, the whatever, if they needed to coordinate, operate, and interconnect things, they used POTS connections. Plain Old Telephone System. People talked to other people, and made things happen.
If some malefactor called in, wanting something to happen, the odds of that were huge. Russia couldn't hack that, unless they had a person in the system they wished to mess with.
Sure, I know well that things are, for the most part, easier, faster, better, whatever, since the advent of the Intertubes. I get it. What disturbs me is the fact that someone with evil intent can so easily connect to our power grid, nuclear power stations, and the rest. All they need is a 'net connection and a lilbit of knowledge. That, folks, is truly frightening, and only becoming more likely as more stuff, some of it reeeeally important stuff, gets connected to the rest of the world on the 'net.
We've made ourselves vulnerable by giving away the keys. Disconnect those important things, let 'em connect by real wires, real telephones, real people operating the system.
13
I think part of the problem may be that while the demand for electricity increased dramatically over the past ~35 years, the generating capacity has not done so. Consequently coordination of generation and transmission now requires speed of action that can only be achieved by automated control. On the other hand I don't understand why these control systems would be "accessible" to the public.
Well said! Finally, someone who gets it.
Carbuncle for President!
What exactly is the difference between dropping bombs on civilians with drones and shutting down technology infrastructure required for hospitals, air traffic controls, and other public safety operations? How would this not be construed as a war crime no worse than chemical warfare or nuclear bombs?
4
“Because the new law defines the actions in cyberspace as akin to traditional military activity on the ground, in the air or at sea, no such briefing [of the President] would be necessary, they added.”
Well, they seem to think so, but we shall see. One thing seems certain. The deep state rolls merrily along and, in fact, has become so bold it thinks it can advertise what it is doing.
3
And, by the way, what exactly will the US 'achieve' if it does manage to bring down Russia's power grid?
We'd be much better off putting these resources into education and the development leading edge technology. We lost the 5G battle... but we can bring down the Russian power grid. What a hollow victory.
5
We are advertising our covert cyber offense tactics? Why don['t we put a lot more money into hardening our own voting systems, power systems, and so on.
If you want peace, focus on the defensive aspect of the Department of Defense, of the FBI.
The Republicans are totally unwilling to do anything whatsoever to defend the U.S. voting systems from attacks but we are ready to provoke an escalation?
Where has the wisdom gone?
6
I wondered about that too. why would our intelligence people advertise or even leak such information? Who benefits? Well, although I am no conspiracy type, it did occur to me that it allows the administration to scream "treason" at the NYT while simultaneously looking very tough on Russia. Was someone played here?
And I'm guessing that two can play at that game, too.
4
It's hard to know how true this article is; there are few details, and fewer sources. But two points:
First, what goes around comes around. The US is likely far more vulnerable to cyberattacks than Russia probably is; we are far more digitally connected, and much more of our infrastructure is dependent on online computers than is likely the case in, say, Russia.
Second, though details are not provided in the article, it's likely most cyberweapons we have at our disposal target versions of the Windows operating system. The US has made a major hue and cry about how Chinese Huawei telecommunications products might theoretcally leave parts of our infrastructure vulnerable to hacking or espionage by the Chinese. We've asked the world to follow our lead and boycott Huawei. It seems more than a little hypocritical if we use vulnerabilities in Windows or other American products to target the Russians.
1
Almost all operating systems have vulnerabilities, most produced by sloppy or negligent coding, some 'a back door', inserted on purpose. And given human beings unmanageable desire for convenience, these operating systems have propagated willy nilly, regardless of how critical the reliability of the system being served. Our most successful operating system was pushed into the market by a CEO who believed 'market share' was god and certainly trumped the tawdry business of reliability and robustness. In any event, the world is for the most part running on what should be considered as beta test software, and a wheel can fall off, or be broken off, at any time.
3
Why is critical infrastructure, such as the power grid, connected to the internet?
10
OK, suppose we want a parallel network unconnected to the public internet. Does every electric, gas, phone, cable need its own? Every bank, securities company, airline, hospital, city gov, state gov? And every one of the contractors who works for them? How isolated does it have to be, does everyone need their own wiring? Suppose you are a provider of electric switch gear, how do you get onto your customer's network to help them solve a problem?
The internet compatible solution is a VPN. Nothing I have seen indicates that hackers can defeat this technology, instead they use phishing attacks to get credentials to get into the systems or exploit flaws in computer code running in the network nodes.
This is a very odd story given that supposedly the President was not aware of the program until this story ran. Now are we meant to feel that something is being done about Russian cyber attacks even though Republican Congress recently voted down a bill that would make our elections more secure? Certainly the President hasn't changed his mind about foreign interference in our elections. Recently he expressed little concern about using negative research provided by a foreign entity to damage an opponent. What exactly is going on?
6
The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure is a war crime.
I am glad to hear that we have not yet actually executed such an attack, but it is very disturbing that we have somehow delegated the authority to commit an act of war, in peacetime, to anyone.
4
@Robert Stadler
The Russians then have already committed a war crime.
1
While it's been said that a good offense is the best defense, I don't see this sabotage being such a fail-safe offensive strategy that we don't need any defense at all vis a vis Russian disinformation campaigns and hacking around our 2020 elections.
And thanks to the president, and his Republican loyalists in the Senate, we don't have any defense at all against said Russian disinformation and hacking, at least not sufficiently greater than we had in 2016.
Let's be honest: If the Trump administration thought that sabotaging Russia's power grid would be the right way to deter Russia from messing around in the 2020 election campaign and voting process, to the point that we wouldn't need an equivalent defensive strategy, would the administration be doing it?
Given the president's comfort level in using leaked emails against his opponents and his affility for, and trust of, Putin as his ally, I'm fairly confident that if these virtual "land mines" are the only way we seek to deter any of those actions by Russia, it definitely won't acheive that result.
1
Cyber attacks carried out by us against other countries are beneath our dignity. We created this networking technology and we should be able to easily defend against it. Maybe we really can, but we play this 1984 game to keep the military dollars flowing. No questions asked.
The Russian power grid may be more vulnerable than ours, but Russians are more accustomed to being cold and miserable. Add to that a dose of national pride, and Russians will cope with electrical outages much better than their American counterparts.
When the grid starts failing here, you'll see, well, gridlock. The US runs on electricity.
And, if it weren't obvious already, the victims of this kind of cyber-warfare will all be civilians.
This will all come to a no-good ending.
1
So now SecDef can authorize offensive cyber-military actions against foreign powers not only without apecific approval of Congress, but without even approval of the President. The Constitution aside, is that in the War Powers Act?
Are we pretending that an act of cyber-war is not an act of war? If we are being attacked by Putin or by anybody else, then the President has a responsibility to say so clearly, and to give the reasons for counter-attacks. Perhaps this is not the Guns of August, but the Byte Packets of June. Still, we have a right to know when attacks are being carried out in our name and why. We need to be sure the Rules of Engagement will not lead us into the maelstrom, cyber or otherwise.
3
Why are critical services like the power grid on the worldwide web to begin with? Couldn’t we come up with a separate infrastructure that isn’t accessible by outside forces?
2
You see this question over & over & the answer is YES - we could. If we only had the will, but we don't.
Greed & stupidity have taken care of that.
I will now refrain from using Mrs Gump's stock phrase for the 1000th time ...
There is nothing in this story that scares me. I am so tired of hearing about successful cyber attacks against the west by countries like Russia, China, Iran, et al. So it's about time that we start flexing a little muscle. In the end, it's the only thing that Putin and the Russians understand.
There is one thing that scares me in this story:
"Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister."
Now that is a terrifying statement.
2
Wow - if they are admitting to this publicly one can only imagine what is really going on.
If this were done to the US by Iran, wouldn't that be considered an act of war? Or am I forgetting the constant double-standard?
2
Upfront disclaimer: I receive no royalties from it, nor am I related to him.
Mark Elsberg's book, Black Out, originally published in Germany in 2012, in Great Britain in 2017, shows what can happen when a small group of anarchistic hackers gets busy. They take down the bulk of Western Europe's power grid in winter. Not a pretty picture, especially if one extrapolates to a hostile power wanting to cripple a geopolitical opponent. I can only hope that "the authorities" have taken steps since its publication to negate the possibility.
This should not be something any news agency reports. Oversharing, in this case, is a threat to national security.
@Miss T Nonsense...these types of scenarios have been reported in unclassified space for more than decade. The United States has its armed forces stationed in many countries and operating on the oceans and seas. They're all ready to do their jobs on command. We don't keep that a secret.
@Miss T
The idea is to make this known to the Russian people as well. That's how deterrence works.
Good move by the administration. The only thing the Russians understand is force. Risky? Sure, but so was the deployment of nuclear-tipped ICBMs. Peace through strength, this time in cyberspace.
2
I find this a disturbing report. We all know that secret services sometimes do shady things. But until now the norm was not to talk about it. Secrecy is one reason. But another reason is decency.
The norm is that countries treat each other with respect. This kind of bragging takes away that respect and suggests that the US can treat the rest of the world like the proverbial mafia boss treat the rest of the world.
1
Looks like the Trump administration continues to toe a hard line against Russia. First by maintaining and upping sanctions, then adding troops to Russia’s border with Poland, and now this effort. Regardless of any superficial comments about wanting to be friends with Putin, actions speak much louder than words.
I wonder just how many of these newest cyber weapons will soon show up in our own neighborhoods and homes, after being unavoidably leaked or lost by our military or the NSA? Let's not forget that the current crop of malware is derived off NSA cyber warfare tools some even bigger tools at that agency managed to loose track of.
1
As V.Putin just asserted during a press conference that the relationship between the US and Russia is "getting worse by the hour".
To his credit, this new "offensive" development initiated on the part of the US will accomplish little to deflate the rising tensions, therefore improve the current state of play between those 2 superpowers.
What the long term objective?
Escalate the tensions as to head into a new Cold War by way of conducting full-scale cyber warfare? With the fate of millions of fate of millions hanging by a thread. Another outbreak of paranoia seems to dictate a rather suspicious spat of actions against a country, who until proven otherwise, hasn't been overtly standing against US interests. At least, Russia's president has never declared the US as enemies of his nation.
This also, quite bafflingly, runs so much counter the statement made, not so long ago on television by HRC, about D.Trump being "V.Putin's puppet" thus playacting in favor of Russia's interests. Some obvious contradiction there given that one cannot have it both ways. So in the end, could the media be more clear on D.Trump being on the side of Russia while in the same breath he authorizes issuing sanctions to be detrimental to that same country?
Something doesn't square.
Perhaps, once brains have cooled down over this imbroglio, the nonsense might deescalate then things go back to normal hence the world will be allowed to resume living more peacefully.
2
> “little-noticed new legal authorities, slipped into the military authorization bill passed by Congress last summer.”
Could I suggest that Congress should read and notice things like that before voting on a bill?
1
We don’t have a president in charge of anything. There is no policy other than how he and his family can stay in perceived power and make money. Those who enable him have their own agenda and he doesn’t care and neither do his supporters.
4
While aimed at Russia's declining economy, the warning here is to the handful of nations maintaining full-time workers who do nothing but try to invade and damage American public and private organizations' computing systems.
Electrical power cuts across Argentina and Uruguay have just occurred. Parts of Brazil are also affected. I wonder if Russia, China or North Korea are behind this? This may have been done to demonstrate something to the rest of the world, especially Mr Trump and his administration.
I worked in the nuclear weapons complex. People work on black projects which are totally unacknowledged by the military, as it has to be. The US has to maintain technological superiority to defend itself against attack. Information in the newspaper is not classified and doesn't represent the current state of technology. So whatever the government is doing in the way of cyberdefense is way beyond what we the public will know about. So extrapolate the technology in this article and it may hint to what the state of the art actually is. And no, Trump does not automatically have access to all classified information, no one person does. There are things even the president doesn't know about and even if he did he wouldn't understand them at all.
I don't believe the US government has alien technology from Roswell, that's ridiculous. But I do believe that what I know as a citizen and what the cutting edge is, is way beyond what I could imagine.
1
I'd be interested in knowing why Putin chose this moment to order his While House stooge Trump to have people leak this story (I don't believe for a moment he is sincere). Trump need Putin's help in 2020.
1
This really just argues for a substantial effort at cyber DEFENSE. Forgot offense, protect our systems.
While not condoning any of these cyber-terror attacks, it is yet one more argument for decentralized renewable energy.
Nobody can hack the sun away from your roof (+ you deal with the clouds)
3
All jingoistic excitement aside, I wonder if our officials will ever come to the realization that “what goes around comes around.” Does flexing our muscles intimidate to the point others back down or does it merely escalate attempts to undermine each other?
And how is Trump going to react now that it has been publicized that Pentagon and intelligence officials have kept him out of the loop? I forecast a Twitter storm...and possible dangerous fallout.
US malware has been known to be discovered, retooled, and reused against us. And now that we've alerted Russia that their electric grid has been hit by us, they'll simply find the malware before it does much damage and shoot it back at us. And we thought we were being so clever by not informing Mr. Trump.
anyone who doesn't realize the U.S. has the greater capacity to wage cyberwarfare that the Russians, Chinese, and all others combined is living in la-la-land. the real complication is keeping Trump in the dark. not because he'd use it, but because he'd prevent using it in order to give away the baby with the bath water to keep is "lovely" letters coming from his "friends" in the world. so sad...
1
Trump out of the loop? YES!
Next, perhaps a no Trump news day. Could lead to a no Trump news weekend. No Trump news week a dream.
Seriously, this is serious stuff here. That our president is out of the loop as a cautionary tactic is good news, but also a bizarre and stunning development of how dysfunctional the WH has become. Thanks to those who saw this coming and are well prepared.
1
This sounds as if countries can go to war without the public having any knowledge of what's going on before it's too late.
My only hope is that the intelligence agencies have been viewing the White House as a Russian embassy and have monitored all of Trump’s contacts with his Russian handlers.
I can’t believe I just typed that.
1
The real headline is buried in this paragraph:
Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister.
2
Trump has tweeted that we aren't doing this which means we are doing this.
1
So, Pentagon and intelligence officials see Trumpski as a potential security threat.
As commander in chief would they need his authority to LAUNCH a cyber-attack?
Is a cyber-attack an act of war?
Does it need a Congressional declaration?
Have the intelligence committees in Congress with security clearances been fully briefed?
Conflict with China, Iran now Russia.
When is this administration not picking fights instead of building bridges?
This will force Trump to reveal where his loyalty truly lies. There is no doubt his handler in the Kremlin will soon contact him requesting a report on the program, or will demand the program be ended. More than likely, Putin will demand another secret meeting with Trump. That will be very telling.
Will Trump, who has never expressed any real concern about America's national security, seek to put a halt to the program to protect Russia's national security?
I guess we will soon find out if Trump has indeed been compromised by the Russians.
It so, this is truly a no-win situation for Trump.
So, Dept of Defense doesn't have confidence in sharing cyber activities with the short attention span President Trump? That in itself is simply horrifying.
1
Trump’s tweets last night about this story suggest he was unaware of the program, and it may be coming to an end.
I don't doubt the necessity in demonstrating to Russia our cyber capabilities, but I find this this admission surprising and disturbing on a number of levels. The first being how open we are about it. In past administrations it would be more of a clandestine operation to get Russia's attention and I'm not clear why Bolton or other in the government feel it necessary for it to be out in the open.
The second point and I believe more disturbing is the additional autonomy and authority our military has been given under the recent military authorization bill.
If our military had this authority under the Kennedy administration we would have surely been at war with Russia over the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Our government has succeeded all these years because our Founding Father felt it necessary for the military to be under civilian control. That's why the President is the Commander and Chief of the military.
It's clear that Trump is not in complete control of our government and even though he's a total incompetent. This sets the stage for a future more competent dictator. A very frightening prospect.
1
“Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister.”
By far the most disturbing sentence in the story!
2
In publishing this article, I am pleased that the NYT consulted with the government to ensure that no secrets were disclosed to the RUSSIANS. However, that does not take into account a significant risk noted in the article itself. Namely, that TRUMP was in the dark and was in the dark for a reason. Now, as the world knows, our President, who has a unique fascination with Russia and Putin, knows and given that Putin will not like this incursion, Trump will likely shut this down, to the detriment of our national security.
Apparently attack is necessary because defense is too much work.
1
Classic disinformation campaign. Make Russia look for something that isn't there. Tell Trump where it is(not), so he can tell Putin.
Russia also no doubt has the ability to mess with our power grid. This seems like a very dangerous game.
... what? And why is this offense strategy being made public? This doesn’t add up.
1
I was beginning to think that climate change would most likely wipe us out, but after reading this article along with the news from the Middle East, it seems war is already under way and more likely than climate change to do us in, although war will make a huge contribution to move climate change along.
Do you think trump would tell the FBI if Russia began meddling with the power grid?
What a waste of money this crazy insane Cold War mentality where the money could be placed on human programs here and abroad. Conflict with Russia where it would surely become a nuclear winter nightmare. the US had perfect opportunity in 1990 to make global peace but used false promises(not expand NATO) and huge military increase not decrease to get military supremacy over Russia. Then the US used that supremacy to attack unjustly Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia and others. Result: total global wars raging throughout without end. Makes the Bolton/Bush/Cheney happy though.
I don’t know the details but we have needed a better stance in protecting the United States from countless countries including Russia, China, North Korea, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, in general, Nigeria and many Middle Eastern countries. Trump was warned about our power grid and nuclear reactors vulnerabilities in his first months in office when he stayed away from the White House (30 million cost) because “ the White House is a dump”. North Korea hit United States banks for millions.
US corporations have been hit and probably every bank. Equifax? Trump didn’t ok money already approved for the pentagon to have cyber protection and dismissed the threat.
It’s a mess. These counties work 25 hours a day hacking in. In China the United States knew the exact building where they operate from and we saw it on tv. Money is stolen every day by these agents. About time we protected ourselves but I can’t speak to the Russians power grid. We know ours is exposed and under protected. We need to protect ourselves from the computer whizzes we trust too. They can be corrupt d hard to detect. All this while the planets in peril from global warming accelerating every day. We think we have time but we don’t.
1
Protection of our critical infrastructure requires regulation of the private companies who own it. This is the bane of every Republican everywhere. McConnell will call such measures “job killing” and that will be the end of that. Good times for Russian hackers.
2
I missed two elements of the subject in the article.
One is Venezuela. Its problems with its power system recently are widely believed to be an American cyber attack. And in contrast to what State Department propaganda wants us to believe those systems were modern - what unfortunately means more vulnerable to cyber attacks.
The second is Russia. Putin recently announced plans to be able to disconnect the Russian internet from the rest of the world. The Times and many other media suggested that that had something to do with suppressing dissent. It is more likely that Russia had become aware of those American operations and was taking countermeasures. This might also explain why some information about this Cyber Command operation is now declassified.
17
Ironically, should Russia be successful in attacking the grid in California, we may not notice.
Blackouts are PG&E’s new go-to fire hazard strategy. It’s a lot cheaper than fixing the equipment for fire safety and PG&E won’t be sued for fires caused by sparking generators.
Perhaps we’re entering an era of deindustrialization.
15
There is hope?
As a technology professional what I find most disturbing about the mutual escalation described here is how prone our software already is to bugs and unintended behavior. during the normal software development cycle software is tested again and again by it's authors, QA professionals and end users and yet we still ship products with critical defects and vulnerabilities. Consider Boeing's recent troubles with it's 737 software and the deadly result of those issues. Now think about how these pentratration tools being deployed by nation states against adversaries may unleash their payload without anyone even intending for that to have happened! When windows 10 crashes because of a bug we might lose a day's work. when one of these tools goes haywire it may start WW3.
341
@Peter
"...yet we still ship products with critical defects and vulnerabilities"
Of course we do, since at least the mid 80's the decisions of when to release software have been moved from the professional software developers to the marketing department. It doesn't matter if the software is flawed, what matters is the 'latest release'.
One simply has to look at the battle between Windows and OS/2 to understand this. An infinitely superior OS/2 lost the war for the desktop simply due to the marketing of Windows. It wasn't until Windows NT was released in July 1993 that Microsoft came close to producing a product as robust as OS/2... but of course as we well know, many of the flaws that were introduced in haste still exist and are exploited on an almost daily basis.
29
@Peter
" software is tested again and again by it's authors"
No it isn't. After 20+ years watching "fake it till you make it" H1Bs, I can tell you the testing is as incomplete and as unprofessional as is the code...
17
@Peter
Some perspective for those who take electricity availability for granted.
In 2004, Florida got hit by four tropical storms and hurricanes. We lost power for days at a time, twice in the month of Sept. By then, we had cell phones, but they failed too, soon after the grid went down, because some cell towers lost power. Those that have back up generators can only last so long without refueling — and of course, everyone and everything needs that first fuel when it starts trickling back in.
People with gasoline generators (us) learned their limitations, too. Gas stations run out quickly due to a surge in demand by storm refugees, so even if you shelter in place, you may not be able to refuel your generator. Storing large amounts of gasoline is dangerous, smelly and a royal pain.
Fast forward 15 years, and now everything is tied together. But many people no longer have a landline phone, so it is panic time pretty quickly. You need water every four hours, and get pretty cranky eating potato chips after a day or so.
Prepare now with renewable energy, and propane generators are a much better choice. The fuel infrastructure is more readily available.
Help your neighbors, some of whom may not have the health or resources to respond.
25
Throw in my two cents: while I don't think the US should attack any country on any level without a clear provocation (act of war), having readiness to make war is always wise in a world of fascist states that seem to thrive poilitically on hallucinating about threats from the US as a political excuse to stay in power and hold power over their own people.
17
So we should be cheering for this .. right ?
3
I don’t think we should even know about it.
I’d have cheered if it was Obama’s administration.
"It's never been a good bet to bet against America." - Joe Biden
16
actually, the US has a pretty dismal record concerning its many foreign interventions. Vietnam was the most visible loss, but there have been dozens.
10
The US has been the most successful country in the history of the world. Europeans are always writing into the letters section with their sour attitudes towards the US I think it might be jealousy? If it is not then why are Europeans not more grateful to the US investment and sacrifice in; common defense, NATO, world commerce, etc. Sure we have problems but doesn’t having saved western civilization (Europe) more than once deserve some admiration or thankfulness? You make it very hard for Americans to support NATO.
@Nick
You'd be speaking German now, Nick, if it wasn't for 2 US "foreign interventions."
It may be better that Trump not be told. What's the point of having a three year old mentality playing with a stick of dynamite?
49
Well put.
If the Russians and other state actors are inserting malware into our infrastructure we must do the same to them. An early lesson learned in the schoolyard is that you let bullies push you around unchallenged at your peril. "If you want peace, prepare for war" - the Roman general Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus.
17
Suddenly, Target Corporation is shut down at its registers. Hmmmmmm. Whos winning?
6
@Patrick Stevens
Correlation does NOT equal causation.
I’m sure this will end well.
14
What caused Target's cash registers to fail?
11
@Bruce Mincks Were they just an Easy 'Taget' or was that a clear messaging on Targeting in general?
@Bruce Mincks
Trump paid cash!
If posting facebook ads and/or scamming John Podesta into handing you his email password is an "act of war", then what does that make this?
6
This type of terrorism should be outlawed on all sides.
8
Oh, you mean the way the nations of the world have outlawed nuclear weapons. . .
If Trump is still in office in November 2020, then Putin will again decide who the president of the USA will be. The only way that the Democrats could remove Trump from office would if he blatantly defies a Supreme court ruling regarding documents or allowing testimony. Thus, the Democrats best hope would be to hold off on enacting any articles of impeachment until the court battles are over. Just proving collusion and obstruction of justice won't sway any Republican senators.
Trump famously said "I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes". That has now been replaced by "Trump could be caught handing America’s top military secrets to Russia and still not have any Republican votes for impeachment".
Whatever evidence and proof of criminal acts that Mueller could have come up with, it is certain that such evidence and proof could not be as powerful an indication of wrongdoing as the evidence in the public record that Bret Kavanaugh was lying in the senate hearings relating to his confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice.
Once Ford’s account included three people she said were there AND his calendar had them all at Tim Gaudette’s house on July 1, 1982, AND Ford’s description of the interior of Gaudette’s house in Rockville, MD exactly matches that of the actual house: the only way that Kavanaugh was not lying is either: Ford somehow obtained access to his 1982 diary/calendar, or Ford has a time machine..."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4216597
13
@Lance Brofman CBF's mom is now 81. CBF's grandmother's funeral, on the same day or the day after, she thought she took a lie detector test (pretty odd that one can't remember if a funeral you attend was on the same day you took a lie detector test, but I digress), would put her grandmother's death somewhere between 99 and 106 years. Bless her, she lived a long and rich life.
@Lance Brofman
The three people Ford said were there, including the one whom she said was in the room when she was attacked, all testified that no such thing ever happened.
Odd how you over looked that little detail.
@Lance Brofman Impeachment IS a form of court battle, and should not need to be held up while the other court cases roll (Steamroll) through.
It is a matter of the House of Representatives doing it's Job in doing it's oversight function. It is Obvious to those not similarly deranged that our present Great Yellow Snowflake in Office has been conducting criminal acts since day one of his presidency, that he has been telling lies constantly, and had to be directly TOLD that it is a Big Bad No No to go taking info from foreigners, his responses on that did a funny swerving 180 turn there.
As far as Kavmanaugh, he should be removed and imprisoned for life for his high grade lying, blustering and whining on his witness stand, and lying about not just Ford, but a wide swath of easily checked lies that several reporters checked of the boxes with and found deep felonies. That he sits on out High Court is an insult to all honest and non-corrupted people, especially as he puts a relative as one of his staff...can you say Nepotism on the Court?
If Trump is not being briefed on the details of this covert Russian operation, due to entirely justifiable concerns about his trustworthiness, what happens when there is an actual outbreak of cyber warfare with Putin's regime? Does Pious Pence call the "shots", Nancy Pelosi? What a frighteningly ridiculous situation the nation finds itself in with this dangerous imposter in the White House.
28
The whole world knows about it now.
What do Russian disinformation campaigns look like, and how can we protect our elections? [Brookings]
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2018/10/03/what-do-russian-disinformation-campaigns-look-like-and-how-can-we-protect-our-elections/ (read the entire article)
--One of the goals of Russian information warfare is to create a society in which we can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction.
--The Russian government is becoming more sophisticated in mastering the tools of political warfare for the digital age. This includes the use of bots, trolls, micro-targeting to spread disinformation.
--The strategies are not new but the digital tools are.
--Over the next few months we are going to see more disinformation campaigns, including fake websites that work together as a network to spread disinformation, fake personalities and entities on Twitter and Facebook, and manipulation of social media networks’ algorithms, including Google, YouTube, and others. And we’re not really paying enough attention to algorithmic manipulation.
--The more frightening development that we are likely to see in the next 12-16 months is the use of artificial intelligence to enhance the tools of political warfare.
As citizens, we have a responsibility to be more discerning
and aware, to be critical consumers of information and recognizing that the information we consume is not neutral but often manipulated by malicious actors.
12
Wouldn't turning off the power of a country harm innocent people? Exactly how could attacking innocent people become ethically correct?
The article cites "little-noticed new legal authorities, slipped into the military authorization bill passed by Congress last summer." Government members might believe they can make unethical behavior ethical by writing their laws, but why should anyone not a government member believe this?
(Comment on U.S. government's cyber-terrorism against Russia -- submitted Sat. 1:28 p.m.)
12
Crazy. An act of war. Officials involved should be jailed immediately for treason.
6
This is long overdue and really puts Trump in a bind. First, this is long overdue and really puts Trump in a bind. Putin, Trump's handler, has to be very angry. On the other hand, Trump was in a corner and had to respond somehow to the outcry that doing nothing was proof that Trump was in Putin's pocket.
Now both Trump and Putin are not dumb and they had to do something. They are both under deep suspicion. My guess is they recognized this and concocted a scheme so as to give us the impression that Trump is not letting Russia get get away with this and he in fact is not a KGB plant in our White House.
We need to step back for a moment and recognize the two people we are dealing with. They both have no morals and both believe what Gordon Gekko said in the movie Wall Street. "Greed is Good". ... https://youtu.be/PF_iorX_MAw
4
Greed is good, Gazprom said it first.
This will not end well!
9
Baffling to me, in one spontaneous moment without filter, Trump announces he would willingly accept election help from Russian interference.... and we are retaliating against their acknowledged hacking. Who exactly is our enemy. Trump walks the statement back, in our face. He did it once with impunity. Who’s to stop him? Whatever he says. He’s a traitor!
21
Renewables are not the total answer, but the glacial pace at which we have developed solar, wind etc could soon look like criminal negligence. The average single family home has few connections to the grid, and even small clusters of homes or even multiple housing can still be 'local'. Not the total answer, but imagine the next time there is a major storm we don't wait weeks while workers replace those ugly poles and wires with ... more ugly poles and wires. Sort of dumb, no?
Don't take my word for it. The military has actually been a pioneer in energy independence thru renewables for all the obvious reasons. Perhaps they have been a bit 'hush hush' about this because so many supporters of a strong military are also major recipients of funding from ... You guessed it, the power companies, busy replacing those ugly poles and wires with more ugly poles and wires.
Yikes, that's ... crazy !
3
After reading this article, I ordered a solar panel and generator.
5
@mbh
It takes power to pump gasoline. How much, exactly,
to you plan to (safely) store onsite for your generator ?
The military doesn’t want to explain things to Trump because they know he’s a Russian asset. The meeting between him, Lavrov and Kislyak after he fired Comey with no American press in the Oval Office confirmed that. Let that sink in.
24
@Elusive Otter You're right! Russia is just keeping up appearances.
Russia is counting on a cyber attack in like, so if we turn off a city's lights, their government can turn off the lights of 5 other of their cities and blame it on US and get their people to flock to them. Threatening their tools of population control, aka their media, is the real way to remind them of their vulnerabilities
1
A Really Really Bad Idea. Nuff said.
4
Last night I had a dream. More like a nightmare
I dreamt that instead of the U.S. attacking Russia’s
Power grid, Russia was attacking ours. And they were
Successful in bringing it down! Here’s what followed:
Cars started to skid
The stock market slid
Restaurants stopped serving squid
Some flew to Madrid
(they were still serving squid in Madrid)
Some nut even put in a bid. For my kid!
Don’t believe me? Yes, they did
It was mass insanity!
Could such a thing ever happen in reality?
God forbid
6
@Very Confused
Here's the good news, we don't have a national power grid.
Sleep tight!
By intentionally leaking this story, the administration is providing cover for Putin to disrupt the American power grid (they did it first!). It also helps to present a narrative of “tough on Russia”. Which is extremely important when you’re taking your marching orders directly from Putin, (possibly behind this whole leak, too).
4
@Corbin I thought Mueller concluded that Trump did not coordinate with Russia? So how is it that Trump is "taking marching orders directly from Putin?" Don't you believe Mueller, or is your TDS fever running high?
Helsinki. “Putin said they did not do it, I believe him”. The Stable Genius.
7
CBS News 2015:
"In 2012 and 2013, in well-publicized attacks, Russian hackers successfully sent and received encrypted commands to U.S. public utilities and power generators; some private firms concluded this was an effort to position interlopers to act in the event of a political crisis. And the Department of Homeland Security announced about a year ago that a separate hacking campaign, believed by some private firms to have Russian origins, had injected software with malware that allowed the attackers to spy on U.S. energy companies."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-power-grid-vulnerable-to-foreign-hacks-probe-finds/
3
This seems like a pathetic attempt to provide cover for an out of control president who announced to the world he would take illegal dirt on political opponents from enemy adversaries.
Who is running the white house? Kelly Anne? Bolton? This is the real danger.
7
It was Sarah until she resigned - the “very stable genius” only hires the “best” people.
All they are really doing is helping the Russian AI to learn to defend Its network.
The hypocrisy.
When America does it- it's fair, professional and needed. When China or Iran does something similar- it's threatening world order.
And you still wonder why your standing in the world has gone down.
10
Bolton as the administration's spokesman on the subject of "potential digital targets"?
Heck, Bolton's so ignorant that he thinks 'digital exam' is another term for 'test of computer proficiency". Even worse, he's convinced Donny Jon of that as well.
3
Both the FBI and CIA stated to Congress last year that Trump had not given them any orders to tighten cyber security. They appeared flabbergasted.
Now Trump steps on a verbal landmine this week by announcing to the world that he would welcome aid from foreign adversaries to take down his opponents in the 2020 election - treason - and this announcement comes out in the New York Times.
It reminds me of the anonymous op-ed published here by so called white house members of “The Resistance.”
Who IS running the House? Kelly Anne? Ivanka? This is Amendment 25 removal, forget impeachment. The man and his staff are a clear and present danger to our democracy. This ship is rudderless. Congress, do your job!
11
Reminds one of the US/Israeli "Stuxnet" bug in Iranian nuclear systems, which of course was a precursor to Obama's soft touch detente with Iran, now in the ham hands of team Trump. These tools are no better or worse than the hands they're in.
4
I'm surprised that the US would use a strategic ability in such a tactical fashion.
Oh, right, Bolton is involved and he can't resist poking...
5
The paranoia of an empire losing its hold on the world. To destroy the power system of a nuclear power? Are you immortal in the USA?
5
Tell the Russians what is being done to disable their infrastructure as a warning.
The poor Russians who can’t code to save their lives must be shocked.
Oh, they can hack into our systems extensively.
They can find these little Easter eggs and figure out how to remove them. These cyber weapons are perishable and when found can be easily discovered and neutralized.
So what is the genius purpose of this disclosure?
2
How nice! While accusations against Russia or China 'interfering' in the US cyberspace remain ungrounded rumours or libel, the American side via one of its major newspaper confesses that it actually practices criminal activities against foreign countries.
3
Remember in 2003 when the eastern seaboard went into a long term blackout?
Remember we were told it was an unpruned tree limb?
(http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/11/19/blackout.report.reut/index.html)
It would take days to turn the power on everywhere as to not overwhelm the system?
Two thoughts.
First, was that the truth?
Second, why do you need to be so sophisticated and perhaps unreliable, if all you have to do is take out one critical cable out in the open?
The USA is an open society. Bad actors could do this with good information and very low tech (chainsaw).
Russia might be a little more difficult. But it is really big with lots of line in remote areas.
Pelosi should call for a hearing on this, no?
1
Why does it take until paragraph 21 for NYT to tell readers POTUS has only been given a limited briefing because the Pentagon and intelligence officials are afraid he'll leak to a foreign power(s)? Our country's security is at huge risk with Trump in the Oval Office.
8
And our security teams are reluctant to give details to Trump out of fear he may share information with "foreign powers".
In other words, they fear the President is a traitor and will blab to his mentor Putin.
First ever president who is a clear traitor? Sure seems so!
10
The best offense is a good defense. Decentralized and modernized infrastructure and energy grids are essential. I dont care about breaking up Amazon, etc., i think we have more important energy needs like getting away from a total reliance on oil and gas that need our attention. A leader with a strong strategic game plan to keep us safe is required. Trump and Bolton are not it.
3
People had electricity service and the grid existed before the internet. Perhaps a little less convenience is in order for the power system operators who could supply electricity to citizens and their businesses without internet connectivity. What really is standing in the way of removing the grid from the internet? The grid that worked up to the 1980s or so was just fine, the only difference today is that it might need to simply be bigger due to a larger population.
4
@Chris Stuxnet proved even systems not connected to a network can be remotely hacked. Decoupling the grid won’t help much.
I have found that nobody listens to my critique of technology by which I state that 1) we no longer possess the skills that technology does for us, 2) our division of labor has become so extreme due to technological advancements that nobody really knows how to do anything but their one job, shopping and driving, and 3) should we lose power, we lose petroleum too, and without both we lose our society in just a few days.
Food goes bad immediately, water pressure drops in cities precipitously, and people can't go to work, school or entertainment -- they can't do anything but wait for the power to come back on. But they don't wait, they loot, they attack, they scavenge, they make trouble. Anybody with a personal supply of food and water are targets. None of this is hyperbole or paranoia, yet those who make such slanders are driven by fearsome possibilities they NEVER want to face.
Power outages would be akin to full-scale bombing of whole cities. The Defense Department knows this, but the citizenry does not.
10
There is no defense. Surrender is only honorable option.
@Chris your apocalyptic scenario is belied by the many examples of prolonged power outages without looting or mayhem.
from Susan Abken:
If we are stepping up attacks on Russia's power grid, or saying that we are, one result will be that the Russian people will back Mr. Putin, rallying around a strong leader, and dissent there will be crushed.
Drawing attention to an external threat reduces the need in both the US and Russian society to look in the mirror and examine and fix our own internal problems. How very sad.
As long as an issue like this one makes the front page, then ignorance, a weak educational system, hunger in the Third World and the USA, gun violence and lack of meaningful work need not be examined too closely.
Such a useful problem!
5
Great. Then Russia gets digital with our grid (and we have to assume they're doing so already). The problem is with the people on both sides believing the ruinous and contemptible lies that undeserving politicians tell the populace in order to keep well-paid positions of power by continually stirring up anger and fear. Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin are only the tip of the massive (and melting!) iceberg.
3
There seems to be some confusion about Donald J. Trumps job. He is not in the White House to run the Government of the United States. He is there to run the Republican Parties fund raising operation. That's it. No reason for him to have known anything about this at all.
Contrary to all the endless snickering, Trump is extremely good at his job. Cash is pouring in at a rate the Republican Party has never seen before.
3
@Peter Zenger That is funny, I have seen the reports that the Democrats are bringing in money at a great pace and the Republican Funders are holding onto their checkbooks since they cannot be sure that Trump will do ANYTHING right for them, and with as mixed up as Trump keeps things, the money flow for the Republicans has been drying up.
Some get some money, but nothing at all like the Dem Side now. Big Money people see the Republican Party self-destructing and are pulling their money and stocks out of those places doomed for an economic crash due to Trump Policies. Futures for most any US crop is hit the bottom as may farmers in the Midwest have yet to plow, put a seed in the ground or put anything in the pasture as it is all under water.
Those people will have not a penny for the Trumpster Fire and will be too busy trying to save their farms to bother giving any to the Lying Donnie Dumpster Recollection Fund.
@B. Honest
Both sides have been gathering record amounts, but Trump has done far better than any other Republican in recent history, which is the real reason they put up with him.
All of the information on fund raising is available here:
https://www.fec.gov/data/browse-data/
Besides attacking their power grid, we should be informing their citizens of the graft & long range planning that is being done to help Putin & his oligarchic friends get rich(er). That is if the Republican Senate approves of harming their oppo-research firm.
1
What a combination: 1) a non-functioning Chief Executive who's at best non-functioning, at worst in the pocket of our enemies; 2) a doomsday weapon poised for deployment, in the hands of the military alone; and 3) a congress who's thrown its hands up until someone else takes over as president in a year and a half.
What could possibly go wrong?
9
This is all well and good, but America can easily be defeated by Iranian zodiac boats carrying RPGs. One such boat is enough to sink an American carrier. If America invaded, Toyota pickups with AK-47s and RPGs could knock out all ground forces. Cyber weapons are useless against low tech power.
1
@Fred -- Not in any universe can a swarm of such boats much less just one boat take out a carrier or other large naval ship with RPGs. Nor is it true machine guns and RPGs on pickups could defeat the U.S. military. I can't believe I'm even rebutting these fatuous claims. The U.S. military would spray anti-aircraft fire at those little boats if they ever got close, however, the U.S. military specializes in standing off at a distance to destroy things. And they would bomb any nation into the stone age before a single boot hit the ground. The way the U.S. loses wars is by sticking around too long. Period.
@Fred: No worries, RPGs will not sink aircraft carriers.
There will come a time soon, very soon, when this spy movie will take a back-seat to the disasters of climate disruption. We will be considering this insidious game of greed domination a very small potato in relation to the pending calamities.
7
I fear we won’t last long enough for climate change to do us in.
@Robin Johns
Indeed. Hopefully, enough calamity will happen soon to at least take our focus away from this idiocy.
An interesting paradox here is that a gazillion plants over billions of years transformed into petroleum - which is now a key cause of the second death of glorious green existence.
Hmmm... Wasn't Baltimore locked down with our own NSA cyber-weapons turned against us? How long before this stuff is reverse engineered and planted deep in our own systems?
3
The only drawback with this aggressive approach against Russia (or, for that matter, against any other country on earth) is that we all share the same technology, and we are, therefore, equally vulnerable to cyberattacks from some punks from somewhere we have never heard of, or from some zealous government operatives who dream of having knowledge-wise extra advantage over others.
This is totally false. And the only deterrent against ‘cyberattacks’ is to deliberately stay away from it on mutual survival interest. Secondly, it borders to ‘treason’ to hide this latest news from the President of the country; the respect for the Office of the Presidency must be paramount regardless of who thinks what and why.
2
The office is hard to respect when occupied by this particular president. As the saying goes: you have to give respect to get it.
by reading this, it appears that trump was correct with respect to obama not addressing russian hacking aggressively enough, which led to the hacks in 2016 and the facebook trolling.
4
@sh
And Trump's answer has been to do even less, including saying he believes Putin over his own intelligence agencies.
Maybe a closer reading is in order.
9
I don’t recall congress declaring war on Russia. Or is this one more emergency?
6
What bothers me about this kind of story is that the impact of malware, spyware, beware ware, whatever, is in response to a handful of people in power, around the World. We've got what's-his-name, China's got Xi, the Iranians have Rouhani, the Russians have Putin, Duarte in the Philippines, and so on. These are among World leaders that toy with the collective lives of millions of World citizens that just want to be unafraid, happy, and as fulfilled as they can be. Someone please tell them that, won't you?
3
The newer and more digital a system is, the more vulnerable it is to hacking. The older and less digital it is, the less vulnerable.
That probably makes us more vulnerable than Russia, but our somewhat obsolete infrastructure (the one we need to spend $1 trillion on) may be less vulnerable than expected due to its obsolescence.
The inherent immorality of going after power plants, refineries, and other non-military targets is that the effects target civilians. The fact that one nation may have done so (Russia, to Ukraine's electricity during a winter) does not justify another nation doing the same.
4
While a cold war of mutually assured destruction via anything other than nuclear weapons is a step up for humanity, it is an epic boon for all other earthly inhabitants.
"Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister."
Do we need to know anything else about Trump's unfitness to serve as president?
16
I just hope that our defensive measures are highly effective because technology is, I assume, far more ubiquitous in the United States than in Russia thus making us potentially far more vulnerable.
3
we must force the senate to try trump so we can know which senators have been compromised. there will probably be retirement announcements before the vote. this is a counter intelligence investigation now.
7
The timing of making this information public is not accidental. This information is released when it looks like Mr. Putin has decided to support Iran in its conflict with the US. So, the message to him must be: support Iran and we will bring down your country's power grid. This is diplomacy, Trumpian style.
1
That’s actually a good strategy.
1
Some thoughts from an obsolete old power engineer:
(1) For the most part our power grid can be run by people at the substations and generating plants. There are always manual overrides--to wit: big levers with handles that actuate big switches. This is not a new development, for the systems were initially designed for manual operation. The digital relays were added later.
(2) The whole business makes power guys cringe, for they've been trained to keep the system going. But if necessary, every section of the power grid can be brought back to life by the employees.
(3) No public utility can operate reliably in a war or anywhere else that's lacking basic civil behavior. I'm surprised that cell phones have done so well in combat zones, for they rely on cables to link the towers.
16
It's so very odd to have any US officials talking about any of this publicly. And, I can't get beyond the thought that this is more of Trump and Putin doing the "let's make it look like we're enemies to divert attention away from the reality that one of us is actually beholden to, and doing the bidding of, the other."
2
Before we threaten someone else, we should have an all out push to secure our own infrastructure, especially the electric grid. The grid is interconnected in such a way that a serious enough problem could take out half the country. Huge one of a kind transformers that are not even manufactured in the U. S. are vulnerable to sabotage. SCADA systems are vulnerable to cyber attack and as we (or Israel) showed with the Iranian centrifuges, a cyber attack can cause physical damage. Instead of making a fundamental change in the system, we are putting up fences around power plants.
Decentralizing our energy systems using wind, and solar and whatever else is out there would not only make us safer from attacks and "natural" disasters, but would cut our carbon emissions somewhat mitigating the disaster that is upon us because of climate change.
It is not wise to threaten someone else when you are so vulnerable. As our system is currently configured, we can get much more than the broken bones mentioned in the article. A long power outage over half the country would be an existential threat.
5
This reminds me of the Cold War. We were sold a bill of goods about Russia’s capacity to harm us when, we the US was actually the aggressor, JFK sold this under the brand of “Missile Gap”. The United States is, as usual, the aggressor here. The US Empire wants to control the world. Any independent nation will be considered a threat and not be tolerated. This demonization of Russia is an embarrassment and worse, is extremely dangerous, The Russian bear is not to be trifled with, despite American fantasies.
11
What is wrong with this law system? Open demand on attacking energy sources which could lead to casualties, property and environmental damage is an international criminal case and such officials must be investigated and charged immediately to avoid subsequent collateral effects.
5
When staff members refuse to disclose military actions on a foreign adversary for fear of being countermanded, it implies two things:
1) we are now building up a deep state to counteract a democratically elected leader
2) who is acting under the illusion that self interest is the same as the national interest
High crimes.
4
@Iko
Agreed. Leaker clearly wants to get a certain result from said leak.
Why would a rational person trust leaker’s version of events? At face value no less. What if leaker already ran his or her opinion by our leadership and did not care for the response? Is the leaker an elected official?
Can you imagine what would have happened if D-Day plans were leaked by a person who disagreed with strategy/tactics? This is an inappropriate forum. Period.
It's bad enough that Congress long ago relinquished the authority to declare war to the Executive. Further delegating that authority to the military is a receipe for disaster.
3
"Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail..."
Um, isn't it normal procedure to brief the president of the United States about major changes in military strategy like this? I mean, the president is supposedly "commander in chief." How about Congress, or at least the relevant Congressional committees? Are they being kept in the loop?
Or are Bolton and Co. just winging it on their own?
If so, that's quite disturbing.
4
How do we know that knocking out the grid isn't a prelude to a surprise nuclear attack? Chaos far worse than on 9/11 could disrupt communications long enough for Russian missiles to destroy our land based missiles and bombers on the ground. Then it would up to the Navy to initiate Armageddon on Russia. Putin would obviously place the communication facilities between the Navy missile submarines and the President at the top of his earliest target list, so the sub officers would have to act on their own after failing to get orders from the mainland.
It would be a shame if the Navy launched, and the United States had not been destroyed, only the shutdown of the grid caused a lack of communication.
That's the danger of nukes on missiles, a fatal mistake, or series of them, could unleash the End Times many Trump voters assume are nigh. and eagerly await.
Murphy's Law might just strike after fooling around with the power grid on a significant scale.
Here's the thing - if electricity goes out for any protracted time in the U.S., people will die. Many people, and quickly. The fragile veneer of social cohesion will be the first, and fatal, casualty.
6
Deterrence is the point of having a United States Cyber Command. It is reassuring to know that it exists and that it has hacked into Russia's grid, and that the Russians know this. Like the nuclear deterrent, the cyber deterrent is necessary to protect us from harm. The Russians should think twice before attempting to turn out our lights.
2
Sadly, I’m not sure how our outdated infrastructure would fare if a foreign actor messed with our systems. I know it was not the work of terrorists but, let’s not forget the 2003 East Coast blackout that left 50 million people in the dark.
1
The military was so accustomed to using our millions of people as a shield and treasure for their cold war, that now we also have to worry about losing services infrastructure. I'm sure glad I have solar panels and batteries.
Finally; given that the only thing Russians understand is power, this will get their attention in a way that entreaties to decency, the rule of law, and such "abstract concepts" won't.
The fact that Trump wasn't told speaks volumes about the disdain in which he is held by the intel community; he cannot be trusted with information, as he has proven multiple times. It's rather alarming that he has the nuclear codes.
2
“Sometimes you have to take a bloody nose to not take a bullet in the head down the road.”
We are not good at taking a bloody nose, not like the passivity we expect from all the places we have bombed in the past 60 years or so. Dropping bombs is the knee-jerk routine we do best. We're closer to the bench-clearing-brawl mentality if batters get hit by a pitch.
I think any hack on our power grid that immediately affects the public in serious ways, like accident fatalities or first-responder service disruptions (police , ambulance, fire fighting) would generate rage and vengeful emotions that politicians like to take advantage of. "Calm down, in retaliation, we just turned off the Moscow water supply," might not be enough to dampen emotions.
Shouldn't we expect that the proper way to protect out critical communications infrastructure is to isolate it from the ubiquitous access internet and thus the every hacker who wants to do us harm, including the bored kid sitting on his bed, with his laptop, somewhere in Hoboken? Is our future condemned to "let the best hacker win"?
1
We would be advised to harden our infrastructure against both cyber attack and Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP).
Both have the potential to wreck havoc on our society. Were we to lose significant portions of the grid, We would see massive food spoilage, death from either heat or cold, a breakdown of our water and sewage systems, industrial and even transportation systems
Estimates of an EMP event , artificial or natural, equivalent to the 1859 Solar Storm forecast as much as 80% death rate in the US.
Along with offensive actions, defensive measures are needed. Of course the utilities and the current administration are opposed. The former by the $6 billion cost, the later because, Trump's ego cannot stand any diminishment of his glorious 2016 victory.
1
@John Goudge
We would also see multiple Fukushimas as nuclear power plants lost the capacity to cool themselves . . .
Good. An advance warning to Vladimir Putin, even by the Trump administration, that 2 can 'play this game'--an advance warning of what he could encounter if he does more or especially escalated election interference in 2020. Or rather: let's hope this awful administration is competent and dedicated enough to intend it this way.
1
Yeah, and I'm pretty certain that Venezuela's accusations of US online attack on their power grid has merit.
6
if this is a well thought out strategic policy, it would be this administration's first, so I am very skeptical. so comforting to know that both sides have decided to play games with our lives instead of with nuclear weapons. unfortunately, since these weapons won't destroy the entire planet, there is a 10,000x greater chance we see them deployed in their most virulent form before too long. I guess I will savor having reliable power and a bank account while I can.....
"Under the law, those actions can now be authorized by the defense secretary without special presidential approval."
Bypassing the president to wage a cyber war on the Russians who seem to own the president? How messed up is this, and why are we all putting up with all of these corrupt politicians around the world playing chess with our lives while they all live in luxury off our backs.
4
The CIA has four departments. The newest is Digital Security and like the other three you can bet that there are important activities that they are engaged in to protect the country and also some nefarious things going on beyond public scrutiny.
And there in lies the key. History has taught us that without careful scrutiny,beyond what most administrations provide things can a do go wrong. Sometimes terribly wrong.
The torture regime carried out under Bush/Chenny, the Bay of Pigs under Kennedy and even the tapping of diplomatic phones and worse under Obama were all carried out by the CIA.
Without congressional oversight we run the very real risk that some of the digital attacks that we know about may have been in retaliation to similar and worse carried out by the CIA.
Unless we want to wake up one day in the midst of a full blown cyber war congress needs to get a handle on these activities.
In fact this "leak" about attacking the Russian grid is probably from an insider that feels that this run away train needs to be under more control.
It will not happen from Trump, so congress must act now before things get completely out of hand.
1
What could go wrong here and how could the affect us?
1
While I think it’s good to give Russia a proper response for what they’ve done, I think a better one would be to invest in our infrastructure and find ways to prevent this from happening again with innovative solutions.
Why?
Because Russia isn’t exactly the only one who contributed to misinformation.
Bolton says election safeguarding has been the administration’s top priority. Why don’t we know that? Why doesn’t Mitch McConnell?
2
So now we are engaging in what are beyond a shadow of a doubt acts of war without any Congressional oversite or declaration of war?
This is going to lead to WWIII. It begins with a cyberattack, escalates into a shooting war with Russia, and ends with a nuclear missile launch.
This cannot be allowed to continue.
5
"Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister."
Trump: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 pices of malware that our US Cyber Command has lost in your power grid. Don't worry, it's just fake news, a conspiracy between our Deep State and our Lamestream Media. Or maybe it was some 300-pound Chinese kid who lives in his parents' basement? Tell me when you find it, and I'll believe you more than I believe my own Intelligence agencies."
1
This is an act of war, period. An act of war aimed at a civilian population. If you approve, that's fine, just don't whine about "Russian interference with our elections" anymore.
6
An act of war. Would it be an act of war if the Russians did the same to the USA? And the US does not want election interference through Facebook ?
4
Imagine a world where one country tried to tell every other country in the world who to be friends with, who to trade with, who their rulers should be, what products they should buy and from whom, what laws they should pass, what meetings they should attend, how to live, etc, etc.
And imagine this same world where the people who lived in this bully of a country thought they and their country had the God-given right to tell other people in other countries how to live.
Sounds like some future dystopian hellscape, right?
Surprise! It's not. This is 'Murica! in the 21st century on planet Earth.
8
It's not just the Russians who threaten our infrastructure.
Foreign entities have been investing in this country with an eye to being on hand when the infrastructure contracts go out. We have to wonder why Turnip raced off to Saudi Arabia almost as soon as he was sworn in, and what his son is up to when he goes there.
The very idea of our infrastructure being owned by the likes of MBS is enraging. Not only would they would profit by "winning" the contracts to build and repair our crumbling underpinnings: they would also charge us fees to use "their" roads and utilities; they would have access to sensitive information about all our interconnections; and they could easily shut us down from within--close the roads, shut off the power and water, have us by the short hairs in short order.
We cannot vote the Corrupticans and their standard-bearer out soon enough.
The Democrats should use this frightening and scandalous situation to explain to the voting public why taxes, far from being evil, were intended by the Founders to be collected and spent for the General Welfare, to prevent outcomes just such as this.
Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.
1
I hope all those calling for new nuclear power plants in the US at least read the headline on this article.
2
I thought America was the country that always played by the rules, and we’re upset because we’ve been taken advantage of for too long.
But apparently we’re attacking another nation’s power grid.
Hypocrites we are.
It’s better if we’re just honest with ourselves. Admit that we spin facts to feed our narrative, to justify the damage we cause to other nations.
Next nation to justify going to war with? China. Cause only we can be #1.
4
Attacking the civilian population of ANY country should be deemed Terrorism, because it truly is. This whole nonsense of how Russia is the worst cyber player in the world is so false. I have begun making a list of all the propagandist sites, think tanks, businesses and governments that crawl into our consciousness every day attempting to manipulate us, and it is growing very long - including our very own Koch brothers who spent 15 million on propagandist cyber attacks on candidates during the 2016 election, and others so very much larger and more significant that the alleged Russian "interference" which consisted of $100,000 of ads that included puppy dogs and all sides of every issue. We have all been duped by this, because even our own government is much more guilty of cyber hacking than any other in the world (except for maybe one, which you can guess). And now, to use the cyber intelligence to cause pain and suffering to civilian populations, along with sanctions is cruel, dishonorable, illegal and extremely risky and frightening.
4
Sure, the US can install malware deep inside Russia's grid. But that doesn't mean that the American cyberwar gambit is effective. And it doesn't mean that the US has the capacity to prevent Russia from using malware to inflict even deeper damage on the American grid.
To understand exactly who is probably getting the better of who in this conflict, we need to ask ourselves what motivates Russia and America to fight this conflict. The answer doesn't bode well for Americans.
Russia, which has been on the defensive since the fall of the USSR three decades ago, is fighting to protect its sovereignty against American encroachment. The US, meanwhile, isn't fighting because it has to. America is fighting Russia simply to aggrandize its own power, and to expand its influence over world affairs.
In my opinion, Russia is the power that has greater motivation to win this fight. For this reason, any American effort to defeat Russia by using cyberwarfare is likely to trigger a devastating Russian response. The US should quit while it's ahead.
11
@Ted
The Russians have more to lose; and, as the weaker entity in this battle, they will be extremely careful about what offensive actions they take in the future.
In this regard, Donald Trump, despite his manifest failings, is not Barack Obama. You may be sure that Vladimir Putin understands this better than anyone - his survival depends upon it.
The concept of "American encroachment" is understandable only from the Russian historical point of view. As Americans, we hardly believe that marching up to the gates of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad are in our national interest.
The Clinton Administration sought to expand our version of democracy as far East as possible, never thinking (or caring?) that the powerful in Russia would be panicked by such a change. (We, of course, couldn't imagine why those Russians would be panicked by our actions; after all, didn't they want to be just like us?).
The real threat to both countries is the Chinese. The Russians will eventually lose Siberia to China, whether by force or through purchase once Russia is finally and completely financially and demographically prostrate. That is a given. The Russians know this but as a declining power facing a growing power next door can and will be able to do nothing about it.
Russia's historical (and understandable) paranoia about encroachment by the West will lead to its eventual downfall. Again, the Chinese stand by waiting to pick up the Eastern pieces of the failed Russian Empire.
2
@BayArea101
"As Americans, we hardly believe that marching up to the gates of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad are in our national interest."
Ironic that you would say so, given that the US military is already stationed in Estonia (the suburbs of St. Petersburg) and Kharkov (not too far from Volgograd). I really don't see how Americans can overlook that -- at least as far as hybrid war is concerned -- we're already on the verge of recreating Germany's WW2 agonies at Leningrad and Stalingrad.
As for the Russians, they are weaker than America, true. But they are far more capable of sustaining loss and devastation than is the US. The NYT article suggests as much in pointing out that Russian malware can very possibly do more damage to American infrastructure than vice-versa.
Russia has always won big, and I mean very, very big, when the chips are down. Russians are not nearly as dependent on infrastructure as America, Europe, Japan, or even China. That means any great power which engages in sum zero exchange of blows with Russia is certain to emerge the worse for wear. Don't overlook that Russians are the world's toughest people when it comes to belt tightening too.
As for China taking Siberia, that won't be easy given that Russia is a nuclear power -- still a superpower on that level -- with a centuries long history of destroying any rival that tries to take it's land. The Chinese aren't fools. They'll make Russia an ally, not a foe, over the long run.
@BayArea101
"As Americans, we hardly believe that marching up to the gates of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad are in our national interest."
Ironic that you would say so, given that the US military is already stationed in Estonia (the suburbs of St. Petersburg) and Kharkov (not too far from Volgograd). I really don't see how Americans can overlook that -- at least as far as hybrid war is concerned -- we're already on the verge of recreating Germany's WW2 agonies at Leningrad and Stalingrad.
As for the Russians, they are weaker than America, true. But they are far more capable of sustaining loss and devastation than is the US. The NYT article suggests as much in pointing out that Russian malware can very possibly do more damage to American infrastructure than vice-versa.
Russia has always won big, and I mean very, very big, when the chips are down. Russians are not nearly as dependent on infrastructure as America, Europe, Japan, or even China. That means any great power which engages in sum zero exchange of blows with Russia is certain to emerge the worse for wear. Don't overlook that Russians are the world's toughest people when it comes to belt tightening too.
As for China taking Siberia, that won't be easy given that Russia is a nuclear power -- still a superpower on that level -- with a centuries long history of destroying any rival that tries to take it's land. The Chinese aren't fools. They'll make Russia an ally, not a foe, over the long run.
It seems to be common knowledge that our country's electric grid has been infiltrated by the Russians. What I don't understand, given this situation, is why the compromised systems can't be purged of any malware that might be present and the security holes that allowed it to be installed in the first place patched. Retail software companies (e.g., Microsoft) are finding security vulnerabilities in and releasing updates to their products all the time. What's so different about industrial software systems?
16
All well and good. It’s important to protect American companies who operate internationally, like the ones mentioned. Just a caveat- any company like Apple, who is busy avoiding taxes by playing games in Ireland, can be thrown to the wolves. No taxes, no protection - that’s how it works.
7
Reagan talked about a missile shield, a Star Wars defense, that would make nuclear weapons obsolete. Almost 40 years later we know that was a pipe dream.
But we can be safe in cyberspace. Many of the tools are there. A few more might need to be invented. What stands in the way? A U.S. government that wants, claims to need, to spy on everyone including its citizens stands in the way. Businesses that want to vacuum up and sell everyone's information stand in the way. Hardware companies that want to lease you a networked service instead of a stand alone device stand in the way.
We could have mandated IPV6 with its better security model twenty years ago. We could encourage end-to-end encryption to secure networks. We could have directed the NSA and other security agencies to search out and fix bugs in software libraries instead of building backdoors that are now open to everyone.
Instead everything gets converted to a weapon. Fear reigns supreme. Then we go to war and the merchants of death make huge profits.
12
Star Wars succeeded spectacularly. It didn’t have to actually function, it just had to make the Soviets believe it could work. It upped the technical and financial ante. The Soviets realized they couldn't keep up with the West and folded.
Finally something presidential about Trump. They say there's a lot of symbolism to the presidency and this piece reflects an instance where he's president in name only.
5
Cyber warfare opens the door to false flag attacks much like we are probably witnessing in the Gulf boat imbroglio where nobody really knows where the attack is coming from. But since it has the potential to be far more destructive it also has the capability of far faster escalation. As in the detente of the Cold War in the 1990's much more effort should be spent in making agreements to curb such actions with strong international sanctions when a party can be shown to be the author of such attacks.
2
It is time to go on the offensive in this Cold War. We’ve been on the losing defensive side of this way too long.
3
It's clear that most American, including many Times' readers don't understand Putin's strategy toward the U.S. and other democracies of western Europe. The real danger is his attack on our political system and democratic values. While an aggressive cyber defense and hardening of targets is important, cyber operations also need to undermine Russians' confidence in Putin and his government. There are plenty of ways to spread fake news and paranoia in Russia social and political media. The sanctions are our best "weapon". They hurt Russian economy and threaten wealthy oligarchs. If they didn't, why would Putin try so hard to squash them. Unfortunately, the President fails to enforce or expand them. Any guesses why he undermines sanctions?
11
As long as the government cedes control to contractors who bring in H1b visa workers and allow off-shoring it is hard for me to recognize outside powers as being at fault in protecting our electrical grid.
5
They're what? My son graduated in 2002 and we've been at war or trying to start one ever since. Can we not do anything but build weapons of death and destruction and look for ways to put them to use?
This war thing is getting out of control.
15
Upgrading the grid to be more resilient to hacking and also to better accommodate wind and solar would be a significant, smart, long term investment. It would improve something we all use that really needs improving. It would help reduce our carbon footprint. It would generate good jobs here in America. So instead the GOP spent a trillion dollars on tax breaks for very wealthy people which the corporate kind used mostly for stock buy backs.
9
There is a real danger in deploying cyber-mines in adversary systems. All code can be broken and used in retaliation. Even so-called "encapsulated" code can be disassembled. STUXNET was disassembled and repurposed as ransom-ware. To be effective in Internet-connected systems, any attack-code must emulate "normal" behavior. To do this, publicly available programming code, such as, Java, Perl, etc., is used as components of the attack-code. Once the encapsulation of the code is broken, and it will be, the code can be reverse-engineered, defended against, and repurposed to use against us. CYBERCOM, tread lightly.
5
I agree with Obama approach of not attacking that which we are also vulnerable in. they attacked democracy, we should attack their propaganda networks, their fragile lever to control their unhappy population. that will send a way stronger message to the Kremlin itself than turning off the power of a town for a few hours.
1
Here’s a thought: Why not “harden” our power and grid system against cyber attacks? I never seem to see such a concept mentioned. It would be difficult but not impossible to achieve. Suggestions anyone?
2
“Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction...”
So the commander of United States Cyber Command, Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, decided to undertake an overt act of war and not tell his Commander in Chief because he thought he might disagree?
If true, Trump should fire this guy tomorrow, if not court-martial him for insubordination.
7
Why would information of such intelligence operations be publically announced as it has? Baffling.
7
@Floyd because they want you to know about it.
One day we’re all gonna wake up and look at our
bank statements, 401Ks and our Etrade accounts
and see a $0.00 balance.
Then what ?
3
@New World
Have monthly paper acc't statements sent to the house and save them.
Congress asleep at the wheel. Congress has to approve war.... and frankly this is a dangerous game. I am rather sure the US is quite vulnerable with the electric grid problem. (And our citizen aren't being taught writing and keyboard to communicate, if our electric grid goes out and it has.)
The British monarchy may be hereditary passing to the first born; but in Rome, Byzantium, China the emperor could choose his successor... there was an adoption procedure.
Apparently some people study the genes of domesticated species to determine what genetic factors play a role in behavior. I believe in fact homo sapiens may have been more war inclined than Neanderthals. Wrong set of genes won out.
Glad to learn about this apparently already in place before Trump absurdity. Which president first authorized this?
You see how Donald Trump's Iran claims were eaten up by the mainstream media. Now you see how Trump is playing both sides. He claims he wants to be lenient with Russia (which is a fool's errand) but his administration is getting tougher with Russia. Trump is easy to manipulate because he is so beholden to so many interests. Sorry to say it, but this makes him an attractive candidate to powerful interests.
5
Fake news. Shell game in progress. No one in clandestine operations provides these kinds of insights without a reason, and I assure you that it’s not to produce a ‘show of force’. What kind of people would purposely harm innocent people of this kind of scale? Last time that I looked, the government works for the citizens and their best interests, not the other way around. We should demand better leadership and accountability, for starters.
2
It would have helped to lead this story with some of the background that features later in the article. As written now, this action seems wanton, unprovoked, and childishly malicious. In context, however, it seems prudent and necessary, if still full of danger and the risk of unintended consequences. Ultimately, we may have to decide that a foreign cyber attack is the equivalent of a military attack with bombs and guns, and be ready to respond with genuine military force. Today's Pearl Harbor is digital. Our response needs to be clearly massive if such an attack happens. There is no such thing as digital deterrence.
I don’t understand why Trump allows such threatening behavior toward one of his closest allies. Isn’t he in control of his own government?
3
With Trump in the White House, are they really authorized to use this technology against the Russians. I sincerely wonder about this because Trump opposed any effort to shore up our nation’s defenses from cyber election hacking.
1
So if a Russian nuclear plant has a meltdown or other catastrophe, will they be justified in wondering if the US caused it? Also, the malware against Iran spread to other countries even thought that was not intended to do so.
4
Maybe we could do something really useful and sabotage Facebook and Twitter. Now there's an idea that would improve the quality of life.
5
Cyber warfare isn’t like the exclusive nukes club. What happens when one of a multitude of non-state players engineer a cyber attack in Russia and make it look like it was initiated by the US? We have no plausible deniability.
4
@Anthony Davis Aren't we all living the movie "Dr. Strangelove"?
1
This isn’t like a child’s game where measured responses can be easily calculated. What if we shut down part of Russia’s power grid and Russia responds by deleting millions of American personal bank and investment accounts ? That is what I worry about!
2
Best reason yet to go solar and off the grid.
3
Escalation of war, only once the economy has had a chance to boom, and only once our leaders have had a chance to make money on the long side of investments while partnering with lobbyists. Then the markets crash, like clockwork, but only after those leaders have had a chance to shift their entire investment portfolios to the short-side? I'd like to have legislation introduced that forces all elected officials to publish all short positions in their portfolios, especially when their votes can lead to financial gain. Our system of government and capitalism is tilted too far to the benefit of those in power. Sickening.
1
I get that opposition research is not to be pad of or tested during q Federal Election. I have yet to see the claim that the Steele Dossier obtained at least in part from Russian Sources from Brit Christopher Steele, is legal. However, Trump's obtaining such information for Free is a crime. Its all very confusing.
1
power grids are just one aspect of this battle, there is also the chemical industry, rail transportation, dams, nuclear energy, the military relying on digital communication and satellites, and other critical infrastructure
Cyber MAD has arrived.
Shhhh, Now that we all know, let's tell our Commander in Chief.
This is political not strategic. It’s bragging to impress American voters to think that we are fighting back against the Russians on one level and it’s also normalizing the interference of the Russians to excuse the President’s efforts to diminish the seriousness of what they did and are continuing to do on another level. Strategically, discussing this has no useful purpose for our country. It tells the Russians what is being done and the intended targets of the efforts—all they need to neutralize them.
Cyber warfare is the great leveler. A small nation or NGO can use it to damage a great nation, sometimes without attribution. One has to assume that Russia can and will retaliate quite easily at a time of their choosing. Do not be surprised if next winter we find ourselves freezing and starving in the dark.
1
Great. A new hot/Cold War. And wouldn’t we expect the Russians to respond and hit our grid? Does this never end?
2
This isn't good. Let's de-escalate people.
4
I have been so sure that I would die a natural death before the world ends via nuclear annihilation. But, I've been too sanguine about human nature and its rapacious hunger for domination. Some lunatic will impulsively start it in a fit of rage -- deluding himself that he will survive. Instead of slowly killing everything in the air, on the earth, and in the ocean, it might just happen in one awful day.
1
This was not discussed with POTUS Trump for fear he might spill the beans in one of his "beautiful" but totally secret talks with world leaders. Or just get mad at action against Russia?
And this week the POTUS' claim that Iran was behind the oil tanker attacks was received with universal skepticism because Trump is a LIAR.
So what we have fellow citizens is a POTUS who is not believed and who is not fully "briefed" at any time. So who IS running the country? Has the Pentagon gone rogue knowing Trump will never figure it out and is not interested? Is Bolton flexing his power towards his desired ends?
While the US needs to be fully prepared to defend and attack as we have not been before, somehow I am not fully confident still in our cyber security.
And having a 'leader' who is ignorant and lies further jeopardizes our national security.
2
Very weirdly I’m with Trump on this. The issue here is not ‘oh look how brilliantly we undermine Trump’, the issue is If the president wants to leave Russia alone, where the heck does anyone or any agency get off doing the opposite. Seriously. For the sake of everyone please get your country under control.
3
I thought from the hysteria about Huawei that America had integrity and honor and would never hack these things.
1
Isn't the Trump Administration's attacks on the Russian power grid and act of war?
2
What a relief it would be to me, and maybe the world, if Trump could bring himself just for a week, to be quiet and do nothing. Well, golf, eat, sleep--sure he could. But nothing else. It would be for a little while like that moment when the tornado siren stops sounding, or when the too-fast whirl-a-cups slow to a halt, or the fireman tells you the last sparks are out.
3
This is WAY overdue-tho don’t understand why this sort of action needs to be published.... Also way over due is taking remedial measures to protect our grid/remove control from private corporations.
Russia stands poised to launch massed nuclear strikes against all US target cities within minutes. I claim this article is more bluster than reality.
The U.S. opened the Pandora’s box when it created Stuxnet.
“In a March 2012 interview with 60 Minutes, retired US Air Force General Michael Hayden – who served as director of both the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency – while denying knowledge of who created Stuxnet said that he believed it had been "a good idea" but that it carried a downside in that it had legitimized the use of sophisticated cyber weapons designed to cause physical damage. Hayden said, "There are those out there who can take a look at this... and maybe even attempt to turn it to their own purposes". In the same report, Sean McGurk, a former cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security noted that the Stuxnet source code could now be downloaded online and modified to be directed at new target systems. Speaking of the Stuxnet creators, he said, "They opened the box. They demonstrated the capability... It's not something that can be put back.’”
1
David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth are the best of The Times. They report with authority. It’s no accident that their by line sit atop this report. We read their words knowing that the world reads their words. Their message is focused. Cyber is the new command. We had OSS in 1940. We had the CIA in 1953. The US has used its power for decades. We speak about it here, and our citizens are educated as are foreign leaders.
The New York Times reports are read world wide, New York to Moscow, et cetera.
The president knows. There are no secrets in Wall Street was the mantra in 1964 as I arrived. That message applies today.
No doubt we can destroy Iran and Russia.
Pity we cannot find the means to make the peace.
President Dwight David Eisenhower spoke as he retired. Sen. Michael Farrand Bennet directs us to his precious words at the end of his book.
Sen. Bennet expresses my concerns and my view and my hope.
David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth report what would concern IKE.
We can wipe out life on the planet. Can we make life safe from man’s ingenuity?
Can we learn to love our fellow man?
Let the candidates all read Sen. Bennet’s words.
Those that master the readings at the end of Bennet’s little book deserve our consideration.
Who will read it aloud to the president?
2
Bugs in the malware of the US and Russia might start a cyber or a nuclear war.
1
Electricity generation and reticulation worked perfectly satisfactorily before the internet, so why does it need to be connected to the internet? The obvious solution to attacks on systems is to cut the internet out of the equation.
12
That is...so obvious. Wonder why nobody - except you - ever thought of it? It couldn't possibly be that nuanced technical issues are involved. Or that reducing complex issues to simple solutions based on slogans is common on the web, but utterly useless in real life.
@Pelasgus Three reasons why:
1) Cheap
2) Cheaper
3) Cheapest
1
it's past time for a national infrastructure reform bill. We can add an infrastructure tax to American companies for the upgrades to our infrastructure systems oncluding roads, bridges, trains, electric grid, power stations for electric cars and that will help create high paying jobs and leave us with a more efficient and less vulnerable "Grid". We can do this, all it requires is will and money. We have both, now let's just deploy them better.
7
Followup to earlier post:
People may ask how we pay for new recyclable energy. The same way we paid for the interstate highway system which ran for decades and created much of our present infrastructure .... TAXES !
Under Eisenhower, a republican, income was taxed.
Todays mantra of little or no taxes, let private industry 'create' progress has not worked.
And I know those highly skilled hard working people stringing power lines after a storm would be happy to learn new skills.
10
The problem, as usual is management. It is not possible underestimate management.
Those of us on Long Island were without power after Sandy. In portions of The Rockaways, some 20' or more above sea level, National Grid turned off the power for 15 days. So we know what it is like to have no power.
Having solar cells on the roof is no solution because LIPA / PSEG-LI REQUIRES the system to shut down if grid power drops!
But the real question must be, why is the electrical grid vulnerable? Do the control systems use PCs, or rock solid IBM z/OS architecture? Has any z/OS system ever been compromised?
Why aren't individual electric systems designed to operate off the regional and therefore national grid in the event of a failure? And whatever happened to synchronous encrypted communication over secure leased lines?
These problems are not difficult to solve. They only require a desire. Mr. Cuomo, are you listening?
8
This will not end well.
The unspoken assumption behind this issue is that the US assumes it must have dominance in all relations to other countries, and that moral outrage for such acts do not apply to us, because we are the "good guys" of course.
Almost anything that another country can be accused of (interfering in elections, cyber-espionage, stealing trade secrets and technology) is something almost surely done by the US first to others.
I applaud the NYT for reporting this, but reporters should question the reasoning behind it a bit more.
18
@Scott Newton: Somebody is surely doing whatever the Republicans do somewhere, even more maliciously.
Reread the 25th amendment. Although the 25th does not have a clause anticipating the NSA and DoD Cyber command deciding the President is unfit for office apparently routine a defense authorization bill is written to not require NSA and DoD reveal to or seek approval from the President for cyber (and presumably other) defensive and offensive activities. There is some comfort in their operational freedom given the current occupant of the President's seat is our victim-in-chief DJT.
5
It speaks volumes that Donald Trump was not informed and purposely kept out of the loop about these cyber operations against Russia's power grid.
But it's not surprising.
Especially when only a few days ago before walking it back, this President said that he'd have no problem taking advantage of any available information to undercut his opponent, obviously forgetting that Russia already took him up this invitation in the 2016 elections.
No doubt they're primed to do it again.
Sooner or later Americans will come to the realization that Vladimir Putin is an ex-KGB operative who plans to restore Russia to its former Soviet glory.
And the Cold War never ended.
25
So your argument is that it's a good thing that the military is staging attacks against a nuclear power, basically without any oversight from any branch of government?
2
@Phil
No my argument is that it's a tragic thing that this president can't be trusted.
And the Cold War never ended.
1
Of course, the problem with all these "implants" and zero-day exploits is that once they are out there, they are readily deconstructed, repurposed, and turned back to bite us in new form, as has already happened on numerous occasions. Those of us in the cybersecurity community have been sounding the alarm for more than a decade, whether in professional papers, the general press, or in fictionalized accounts. With escalation, we are virtually inviting the Russians to mount counterattacks, the cost of which could be incalculable. Our natural gas transmission network may be even more vulnerable than our power grid, as an industry insider confessed to me prompting the writing of Gasline in 2013. Of course, now we have Trump on the trigger and...
12
Given the timing and the decision to talk about something so classified just now, I take this to be a threat aimed at Iran.
"General Nakasone had been deeply involved in designing an operation code-named Nitro Zeus that amounted to a war plan to unplug Iran if the United States entered into hostilities with the country."
The leak is an escalation, a threat.
18
I believe it's an overstatement: "dangers of escalating the daily digital Cold War between Washington and Moscow" while the Russian-placed President is in power. Everyone's seen repeatedly his subservience to Putin. Russia will launch an unprecedented attack on US elections, which the Republicans are counting on to maintain as much power as possible. Trump isn't going to retaliate, he's going to uncork champaign.
6
"Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister."
Sigh.... our prez. Our number one threat to National Security.
7
I certainly believe these sort of tactics are appropriate to use against an adversary. However, our doing so makes it difficult to complain when Russia engages in cyber warfare against us, like they did in the last election.
And it makes it even more difficult to argue that Trump is controlled by Vladimir Putin, when he has clearly taken more aggressive action against Russia than the Obama administration ever did.
5
Tell that to Ukraine. I'm sure they agree with you.
For that matter tell that to Michael Flynn. I'm sure his dicussions about reducing sanctions on Russia show just how aggressive Trump is.
Of course I'm speculating here, but I would assume somebody convinced Trump to delegate command authority for these cyber capablities because Trump is probably very bored with those briefings, also technically incapable of following along with any serious discussion of them, and intellectually incapable of participating in strategy.
This mutual insanity results from the disease people all around the world suffer from: the nation-state. Nation-states, in their modern form only four hundred years old, have taken the world hostage through feverish calls to nationalism and patriotism, deliberately confusing in our minds cultural identity with the nation-state. But cultural identity is not dependent on the nation-state! Either we find a way to free our cultural identities from those in power or, if and when this insane posturing leads to war, we pay the ultimate price of losing our lives.
7
The only comforting thought that arises from this article is the certainty that no mid-level apparatchiks, out to impress their superiors, could attack one of our nuclear power plants because the systems that run all of our nuclear facilities are !00% secure. Whew!
2
The U.S. escalates cyber attacks on Russia’s power grid. However, the Pentagon [and NSA] will not brief Trump because he might "countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials" as he did before with the Russians. Folks, we're running an unchecked cyber war against a global nuclear power without the involvement of POTUS who isn’t interested, doesn’t care, and is too busy complaining about CNN on Twitter. We are a banana republic and no one is minding the store
11
So why are they telling us this? Wouldn't it have been wiser to wait before the election? When the Russians interfere then tell them to stop. If they don't cease their actions immediately then pull the plug. Now they have an entire year to prepare and develop counter measurers.
Looks more like a paint job for Republicans than actual real action. Besides we must develop the response at home to ensure all citizens, Latinos included, feel safe and secure in voting without reprisal to themselves or their families. This isn't just about the Russians but from our own racist bigots the Russians influenced to do their dirty work.
2
US taxpayers still paying for government officials to create new malware that will eventually be turned against US taxpayers.
Thanks "public servants".
4
John Bolton has a long history as a Russia hawk. It seems he’s now in involved in ramping up cyber attacks on Russia’s power grid, sending the message “You will pay a price” for cyberoperations – like election interference – against the US.
What’s so ironic is that Trump may not have been briefed about American officials’ cyber-attacks, like placing malmare inside the Russian grid. Even if such an action in cyberspace is akin to a conventional military activity, and Trump doesn’t need to be informed.
Nevertheless, when intelligence officials are reluctant to inform him of their operations against Russia, it shows their low level of trust in their commander-in-chief.
They fear he would – doing Putin a fear – betray their secrets, or even let the cat out of the bag, like in 2017, when he spoke about a sensitive mission in Syria to Sergey Lavrov and the then Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergei Kislyak, during their White House visit.
The longer Trump stays in office, the more he poses as a security threat to the country, because he can’t be trusted.
6
Terrific, when do we get out lights punched out.
Anyone think Putin will back down and not retaliate.
3
I hope this is disinformation. Not only are our voting systems vulnerable but our infrastructure-electrical grid-bank ATMs-door locks-refrigerators-you name it.
We need to tread carefully here and I hope our cyber warriors are on the lookout for “worms” that could hurt us. The Russian populace is used to hardships. Are we?
1
Great. We need to escalate cyber attacks against China too. The only way to get them to stop attacking us is to show them we have the capability to respond. We need a new cold war of mutually assured destruction in the cyber realm to restore balance.
2
"Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place “implants” — software code that can be used for surveillance or attack — inside the Russian grid."
Aside from the unpredictability of his potential responses there's a strong possibility he wouldn't understand what they're talking about.
1
Until I admit something, I can claim it wasn't me unless my hand is in the cookie jar. Now that you have admitted to these acts the Russians will be on the lookout. I'm not sure this was a good move. One other thought, was this an oblique tipoff?
2
The article reveals that the military is withholding information from the president about actions it's taking against another country, because it doesn't trust him.
Predictably in the current political climate, everyone focuses on what it says about President Trump and fails to consider what it says about the military; i.e., that it feels it has a mandate to decide, at its own discretion, what military action against other nations is in the country's best interests.
The military didn't trust President Obama either -- to the extraordinary extent of public insubordination by its top leadership. How do we know that it obeyed his directive not to wage cyberwarfare against Russia, or any other country? We now have no reason to believe that it did.
It doesn't matter that the military distrusts the current and previous president for different reasons. It will defy a strong, competent president as easily as it will sideline a weak, incompetent president. This is the path to the military itself becoming a danger to the state through ill-considered unilateral action.
7
This brings to mind the devastating power outage in Venezuela recently. Maduro blamed the US for cyberattacking the grid. And others blamed the failing system itself. We may never know but the effects seen there are a sample of what could happen anywhere in the world with this new technology.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/03/09/could-venezuelas-power-outage-really-be-a-cyber-attack/
6
Hold on now. This news came from Trump’s “My” military.
I believe you may have been fooled into taking anything from anyone under the influence of the Trump administration seriously. He would say his wife is a Russian spy if he thinks it makes him look tough on Putin and he thought enough fools would believe it.
1
Keep in mind that the US will have a lot more to lose in a digital exchange. If another country gets annoyed enough they can start launching swarms of ball bearings into low earth orbit. That will also affect the US more than anyone
2
The only sure way to secure the grid is to accept the inefficiencies of disconnecting all control system from the internet, so that they can only be operated first hand by a human operator. I suppose that the lack of concern on the part of the general public about this issue is due to lack of knowledge. Of course, if, say, the eastern seaboard went dark for a few months that would change and there would be calls to secure the system. It's just a matter of motivation.
2
The US does to others what it abhors having done to itself, and is shocked when what it did is reciprocated. So much for either version of the Golden Rule.
10
As Trump says, the world doesn’t work that way.
You did read the article that this was a response to Russians already doing this to us?
2
@Andrew
The claim that Russians attacked the grid was already debunked a while ago.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-says-russian-hack-did-not-compromise-power-grid-plants
It’s been pointed out for years that our much higher level of internet control of our systems makes us more vulnerable to cyber attacks that Russia or China or Iran and certainly N. Korea. If this story is getting out, and based on the thesis that nothing happens by accident in the political world, the source must think that our defenses are strong enough to more than offset our inherent vulnerabilities. I hope that’s true.
7
See the Zero Days documentary, available on several streaming services, if you want to better understand this issue and its origins and early applications (successful attack on Iranian centrifuges as one example). This cat has been out of the bag for some time.
147
@Bitsy
Also, "Lights Out" by Ted Koppel
8
@Bitsy
Thanks.
Zero Days, very good and timely!
5
@Arden Is 'Lights Out' a book? Thanks.
1
This is where energy policy and cyber warfare meet. The sooner the world seriously reduces it dependance on petroleum industries, the sooner 'gas stations' like Russia will be shut down.
14
America decides our wins and losses; not Russia! We decide how much we lose and what success we win on.
3
Not willing to discuss it with the President but happy to chat about it with reporters..? If the President didn’t know about it he does now, so it’s hardly a successful strategy. I would presume this is more a way to convince the public that something is being done. Whether there is reality behind it is a different issue.
280
@Dubliner Trump has made it clear to the Intellience and security organizations that he doesn't BELIEVE Russia is a threat and do not come to him with that nonsense. Putin said quite forcefully that he and Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election, he claims.
In fact, White House staff go through great lengths not to upset Trump with talk of the Russian threat by hiding such information from him.
Reporters want to know as does the American people. Trumps' head is in the sand due to his fragility. I thank the military, intelligence community and cyber command for letting the American people know even though Trump wants them to stand down they aren't and are going toe to toe to protect this nation.
84
@Dubliner
" ... intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump ..."
I don't see any detail in this article. So if these officials were indeed happy to chat about detail with reporters, I see no evidence of that here.
The statements "General Nakasone and Mr. Bolton, through spokesmen, declined to answer questions about the incursions into Russia’s grid. Officials at the National Security Council also declined to comment ..." suggests that the intelligence community haven't been forthcoming about details to anyone.
17
@Dubliner
Coming from the 4th estate, he'll likely simply dismiss it as "fake news."
29
This scenario sounds like something straight out of Dr, Strangelove.
All sides and all actors need to realize that this is a no win game, with the very real possibility of serious harm to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people hanging in the balance. It’s a macho power game that can easily escalate into unintended and out-of-control consequences. As with prior successful nuclear test ban negotiations & treaties we need to step back and consider what’s truly in the long-term national interests of all concerned. The citizens of all the countries involved are not pawns to be played with like disposable chess pieces, in a power game with no real winners.
426
Sounds like a well reasoned analysis of what would be a very disruptive cyber attack. unfortunately, the MAD strategy is the least costly approach to these geopolitical adversarial issues. The world, is regretfully a very dangerous place at times; and mutually assured destruction is a good deterrent in these scenarios.
9
@Stan Chaz
MAD [mutual assured destruction] between Russia and the United States prevented nuclear devastation because both sides knew they couldn't win.
We are in a different universe now. Russia, with its poor economy one fifth of the US is no longer a superpower, although it is rebuilding its network of client states [with some like Cuba and Venezuela dying on the vine, and other former satellites like Ukraine and Georgia resisting their reacquisition by Russia.]
China is also a growing player, expanding its wealth an political and economic strength.
Various quasi stateless terrorist groups can damage the US and not experience appropriate retaliation because they have no official governments or homelands to hold accountable.
16
@Stan Chaz
'a power game with no real winners'. What you describe is war itself especially modern warfare. Human nature has changed very little. Avarice, anger and stupidity often rue the day. Only the tools have changed which make it easier to inflict more harm from an anonymous distance. our better natures are still here, but they seem to be hiding in the closet.
8
On the cyber playing field, the U.S. has so far shown itself still in the minor leagues against other nations. If the U.S. is so bold as to reveal action against Russia's power grid, we'd be best advised to stock up on candles and batteries.
250
@David Henderson
And I more and more appreciate the ugly gas-fired generator that sits in my front yard!
8
@David Henderson Actually the Russians were probably aware of it already, so its good we publicize it so that we don't look as feckless as we did during Obama's reign of inaction, where the strongest action we took was Obama telling Putin to "cut it out". I am sure senior Russian officials got laughs out of that for months. The current Administration seems to be running late on this, but at least they have taken it seriously.
10
@David Henderson Actually, the US has been deeply involved in cyber-warfare for over nine years. In June 2010, the US attacked Iran with a cyber-attack and, together with Israel, completely took out the Iranian military nuclear facility in Natanz with the cyber-worm 'Stuxnet'. That attack destroyed over 1,000 nuclear centrifuges and pushed the Iranian nuclear program back by at least two years. The type of attacks on civilian power plants now being discussed would be a cakewalk in comparison. Nearly ten years of continuing development has taken place since -- not just in the US -- and the tech people working for and with the US government are some of the best in the world. If the US has decided to start implanting the latest 2019 malware in the Russian power grid, they have a real reason for concern. It will be far more damaging and difficult to stop than anything the Russians have yet to develop.
33
And here is yet another reason for the US to get off the use of public utilities alone for the production of electricity. A big goal for national security ought to be the decentralization of electrical production. Businesses and many individual households could do this and create a manufacturing boom at the same time. Too bad the guys in charge are so fixated on making energy money in way only.
395
@B. Rothman Except that decentralization requires MORE communications, coordination and synchronization than more centralized production. (Supply has to be matched to demand, the electricity has to be properly phase synchronized, etc.) So a decentralized system, with any connection to the internet is likely to be much more vulnerable to cyber attack.
21
@B. Rothman Individual decentralization of your home or business or a factory when the grid power goes out would be a wise move for many. This would most likely be solar or wind and possibly a generator as well, all backed by a battery.
The interesting part comes in when your system is connected with the power companies grid. Will it be interactive? If it is then if the power company is hacked you are also hacked.
If your system only comes on when the grid power goes off you would not be connected to the power companies grid communication and therefor you would not be hacked.
An independent distributed system would keep your power on. Only used when the grid power was off. You would not be able to send excess power to the grid or get paid for excess power from solar or wind.
Think military base or critical infrastructure. If all critical systems are isolated they stand alone and cannot be taken down by cyber war fare. This is a redundant system but it does keep the power on when everything else goes down.
The only way I can see around this is to be connected to the power grid on a two way communication that is secured and verified to be hack free at all times. Not likely in this day of cyber war. It may be possible to shut down communication to the grid as soon as power goes down, thus isolating the location from any further attack or control by the outside. Then get conformation that it was not an attack, just an ordinary power outage and then reconnect. Simple.
18
@B. Rothman
Micro grids would be helpful, yes, but what about large businesses? Say the ones who make the fuel for your home furnace, or that power the compressors for your natural gas? Or that power the giant freezers at the plant that makes your french fries? My point is that we are really interconnected, and vulnerable to attacks as described in this article. This is the kind of thing that gives the cyber security pro at you local utility nightmares. We are balanced on a ball.
21
What's most disturbing about this article is that Trump hasn't been told much about it, out of concern he could screw it up. It raises the question of how much the president is actually The President or just an obstacle to be managed while parts of the federal government are haring off on their own into uncharted waters.
1250
@newsmaned
Agreed. It is profoundly troubling when the Commander-in-Chief isn't filled in on such sensitive operations, for fear about his reaction or that he might screw it up.
239
@newsmaned It is horrible to think that we have counterintelligence agencies operating as independent forces capable of dragging the country into international conflict with no knowledgeable CEO to keep everyone in check. But I, for one, have seen enough of Donald Trump to know that I feel safer with the unknown than I would if the current immature, obviously misinformed, narcissistic president were actually in charge.
201
@newsmaned You mean the same Trump that told two Russian diplomats in the Oval Office some state secrets and was caught on camera doing it? Yeah, stuff him in the closet - We aren't trying to open a Trump-Marriott's, or whatever, in Moscow. We are trying to prevent a total grid blackout when idiot lad pulls something stupid on Iran, like the phony oil tanker attacks. Triggering a response from their biggest ally.
The attacks were real. But my bet is Blackwater or similar pulled them off so we could keep having a reason to sell weapons to the House of Saudi. Yeah, just happened to be video taped. Right.
Trump has got us so far out of whack with the wrong people in the world that he should just be left to lie in the rose garden while others, in other branches run the real show.
153
Anyone who thinks that our military is not constantly fighting our enemies doesn't know anything about the military. Some version of this kind of thing has been ongoing throughout history. They are very good at it, often the best in the world.
That the US officials would reveal this information can be nothing but part of a strategy related to global objectives, including but not limited to Russia. The revelation itself can be considered a kind of weapon, though, of course, the general public is not privy to it's purpose.
I trust the competence of our military almost completely, but I do not trust their ability to set national policy. They control some enormous hammers, and there are many things in the world that could look like a nail.
The erosion of civilian oversight described in this article is terrifying. Unfortunately we're all getting used to that.
4
This is very concerning on why the Trump administration would disclose this to the public. What's their motive? More concerning is that Trump in his infinite wisdom had the idea of setting up a joint cyber security task force with none other than Russia. Weird.
4
This should get more people to move to rural areas off the grid.
1
“conduct offensive online operations without receiving presidential approval.” So trump is unaware of Nakasone‘s actions against his pal Putin. No doubt he will have words with his apprentice next time they meet. Indeed, Putin May release a few tax returns should Nakasone’s counterattacks continue.
“Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail” I certainly hope not. He’ll just tell all to his handler next time they meet.
Maybe Putin is instigating the conflict with Iran so he can study Nitro Zeus in detail - let Iran be his guinea pig.
Now if we only were allowed to shoot over the bow of harassing Russian ships and aircraft, For now, Putin will see how far he can provoke us into action or escalate until there is a tragedy on OUR side. Just like a school yard bully punches you out until you get the nerve up to put the principal on the creep. Unfortunately America used to be the world’s principal - and Putin is emboldened because now there is no principal to hold him accountable with a firm smack in the head.
Sinking a Russian war ship for every damaging Russian cyber attack on us instead of a cyber counterattack is better. That way we won’t reveal our capabilities up front at the escalation stage. Just make sure the sinking can’t be traced back to us. We have to cause real world damage or they’ll continue to dismiss us.
Still, in cyber the best defense is actually a good defense followed by a good offense. The NSA should help all of us harden out cyber infrastructure.
Most of our infrastructure is in the hands of companies—not the government. They will only invest in security if they see it as helping their bottom line. I am afraid that the goal short term profits runs counter to security efforts and leaves critical infrastructure ripe for attack.
3
@Jim
Agreed. That's why government infrastructure investment is a truly socialistic enterprise that benefits all and why private interests hate it.
Industry and private wealthy interests own and control everything our government does outright. Essentially whatever the opposite of socialism is - where industry and economics controls the government instead of the people. Hence the reason why industry blocks any effort of the government to protect us in the cyber world (privacy, data collection) or in the real global climate change world.
Just as we used to have separation between church and state, we should have a separation between industry & oligarchs and state.
Well, if the US decides to engage in some covert cyber-warfare then we should be safe, because the NSA has some really powerful hacking tools. So I'm sleeping easy tonight.
Oh, wait, you say those tools got misplaced and lost? Never mind then, just buy some candles for light and a Coleman stove to cook on. You'll be fine; it'll be fun, just like camping out. In your own kitchen.
3
I just don’t get it. The New York Times publishing what surely must be classified information about a secret incursion by the U.S. government into the Russian power grid! And Julian Assange is criminally charged for doing the same thing?
8
What was published here is not classified and if you read the article, you will know that administration officials had no problem with the publication of this work. Assange, on the other hand, definitely published stolen classified information and may have solicited and facilitated its acquisition—a crime.
3
@Jimas if you read carefully these unnamed officials, which the NYTimes approached (as opposed to simply receiving the info w/out solicitation) characterized the info (in the exact words of the NYTimes) as a "classified companion to more publicly discussed action"!
Is the foregoing not clear?
And, if this info was not classified & available for public consumption why weren't these officials named?
Would you not agree that when classified info is leaked the leaker doesn't want his/her named publicized?
1
Wow. And I thought trump was completely witless. I might have to revise that to "strategically watt-less".
1
If they could just flip the switches off on the internet over there in the months leading up to Election Day, that’d be great. No need to escalate a fight we seem ill-prepared for. This feels like a move that’s more likely to rally common Russian citizens behind a leader they don’t really like.
1
Why, pray, is this important security and military matter spread all over the Times, and thus the world?
Why not keep this secret?
What is the endgame?
2
Have we arrived at MASC -- Mutual Assured Short Circuits?
It is likely, though not certain that Russia's cyberPinkerton's did nothing to show us they had detected General Nakasone's incursions. That could have been because they didn't find them, a conclusion worthy of Pollyanna.
To make sure the Kremlin knew, the USG let the world know, for which this story is evidence. Why? As a deterrent to a new Kremlin intervention in our elections and to a future Russian adventure in sending American civilization back to the Stone Age.
That's good, so far as it goes but the possibility that all this signaling may go haywire should trouble our sleep.
Great to know we have capability to defend our country vs cyber threats from Russia and other adversaries. THe only problem may be if Putin sends Trump a love letter extolling his physical beauty and blinding genius Trump will unravel the system to thank Putin. Trump will also say that the CIA will not spy on Russia or North Korea anymore based on the two love letters he received. Trump is the crime boss what can anyone do he is all powerful with AG Barr.
3
Finally, revenge for what Russia did to our power grid.
By some estimates it would cost $5 billion to upgrade our power grid so we do not have the lights go out. Why aren't we doing this? Now, we are vulnerable, just as others are. Needs more thought. Instead of Tweeting without thinking, Orange Man should study this situation, like others.
1
We could wind up playing Squirrel with the Russians, and their tolerance of pain is probably much greater than ours.
1
All of which begs the question, why on earth do we spend about $750 billion a year on military hardware and personnel, when our adversaries have learned to do as much damage as they want without firing a shell, torpedo or missile? And, it would appear — and one would hope — so can we.
It cost Russia next to nothing to commence the unraveling of America’s political system - a few hackers sitting in cubicles, each with a laptop and an internet connection accomplished that, with the help of Fox News, facebook, instagram, you tube and, above all, an uneducated, bible-thumping American populace uninterested in facts and seemingly incapable of rational thought.
4
A "broad reluctance" to brief the president.
It sounds like an Onion headline.
But...
He wouldn't understand; he might countermand the effort; he might describe what's going on to the Russians (though given his dullness, they might have to correct his misperceptions.)
3
From yesterdays article on US doing trying to start a war with Iran. That was regarding oil tankers that were attacked in the Gulf of Oman.
Your editorial on that yesterday stated that we need to stay on top of this tanker violence because of: "American objectives in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere across the region." Those tankers are not American and the serial lying about the middle east and Russia and of course Venezuela are pathetic. All of this combined with climate change, world population growth and a news media that is only doing the "Manufacturing Consent" thing for the corporations including military industrial complex can only lead to world disaster. It is existential. Russia has been interfering with our military recently and that is another horrid example of why Donald Trump is the worst president we have ever had. A very dangerous man who surrounds himself with the most ignorant, hysterical, people who support the military industrial complex over anything else. Billions and billions of money is given to the military by the congress whenever they ask. We do not look for peace; we look to support the MIC at all costs and those COSTS ARE VERY, VERY HIGH AND GLOOMY. Attacking Russian power plants? Faking news for Venezuela and Iran? "American objectives in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere across the region?"
Wake up folks. It's up to you; no one else can save us!
4
And we'd be the first to complain if they did this to us. How about if humans finally stopped behaving like vindictive petulant 8 year olds. We're all stuck on this rock, so get along!
6
At last, a little good news about this matter.
Did they sell them Windows 10?
3
Mutually Assured Destruction
"Under the law, those actions [including cyber espionage aimed at Russia] can now be authorized by the defense secretary without special presidential approval." Because Donny would immediately pick up the phone to tattle to his BFF Vlad.
2
This is the war of the futur. Countries do not invade each and others they just cyber attack each and others. Remember what Russia did to Estonia a few tears ago. Russia cyber attacked Estonia causing a breakdown. Same thing happen in UK where a cyber attack brought down the National Health System's computers down and paralyzed the system. So why sending soldiers when with a click of the button of your computer you could causes mayhem and paralyzed a hole country.
1
@Wilbray Thiffault: One can picture the US and Russia toasting each other's generators and transformers, and having to go to China for replacements.
Why don't we just turn Russia off for five minutes. It's called a time out.
1
Something’s wrong with this article. A newspaper is telling the world that the US is messing around with Russia’s power grid? Shouldn’t this be super confidential?
Basically now Russians are allowed to re tagliate in any way for what the USA is doing.
What would be the reaction of the US if the situation was reversed? A bunch of blackouts in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and the Russians saying “we did it”? Our military would bomb them right away!
6
Oh great, American politicians who think power originates in the plug on the wall making decisions about things that neither their IQ nor their training allow them to understand.
I can hear our President saying, "we just turned off power to the bad guys' houses and crime dens".
Meanwhile, our top leaders will never report how many die in the hospitals or accidents that their messing with the power grids in other countries have caused. Just like... bombing Iraq.
Collateral damage: out of sight, out of mind.
4
If the United States of America has been doing this? Doesn’t other nations the same right to start doing the same? Some big nations can retaliate with catastrophic consequences for the United States of America. Trump is Dr. Evil (Justin Powers) though this is not a joke, this crazy inept man is here to create chaos and destroy the world as we know it.
2
To whom it may concern:
This article would be far more credible if it listed the names of the companies that make and sell the vulnerable power plant operating systems, transmission line management systems, and the power distribution systems.
Which systems are vulnerable? Emerson’s? ABB’s? Siemens?
Who’s switch gear is vulnerable?
Are they infiltrating the operating systems, the sensors, communications, the actuators, or maybe even the metering?
Even the US electric grid is, for the most part, very unsophisticated. Grid operators have very limited visibility into what is happening on the grid. In most of the US, when there is a power outage, linemen are dispatched in trucks to visually look for downed wires with their eyes!!! No computers needed.
Combine the fact that Trump shows no interest in fighting election interference with the improbability of vast penetration into the electric grid and all you have left is a paper tiger named John Bolton.
This article is likely fake news.
Mike
4
I assume Russia's elections are computerized. How about doing to Putin the next time he runs what he did here in 2016?
1
This will undoubtedly end as soon as Trump finds out.
1
There is nothing surprising and little new in this Saturday piece. The big powers can meddle and destroy. Tax payers are not helped. Citizens are not impressed.
The macho males running things need to be replaced.
2
I don't quite understand this, if US know that Russia is illegally hacking in to US power grids you either remove the malware or lodge a complaint with with the UN or whatever international authorities involved. If you hack back then you are no better then Russia.
4
Wasn’t their just an excellent show on HBO that shows what happens when you mess with controlling power?
No, not Game of Thrones.
Chernobyl.
Nuclear comprises 20% of Russia’s electricity generation. Do we really want our fingerprints all over the crime scene should something go wrong?
Can’t we mess with computer controlled vodka distillation instead?
3
Mitch is paid by the Russians and us stopping work on their election incursions Russians are investing big in Kentucky aluminium plants
Sort this grifter before it’s too late to cyber anything
1
So it turns out the mythical “Deep State” that Bannon, Trump etc propagandized against to get elected is what’s holding the country together and defending us against the forces of chaos.
2
If you are going to start covert operations that attack Russia's essential power grid, why brag about it? American geeks conducting cyber war can't keep a secret is one answer. Its certainly the wrong thing to do; it gives Putin more ammunition in his propaganda war against the West, and ensures he remain the 'savior' of mother Russia for the people.
4
I thought the stable genius did not reveal what he was doing in terms of attacking another country. And if his good bro, Putin, said nothing was going on, why is the US attacking Russia? (sarcasm).
3
“Defend forward?” A new entry in the Newspeak dictionary...
We are partying like it’s 1984.
7
Do they also have a way to shut off the president's Twitter feed if he truly goes nuts? That is, more nuts than usual?
6
Another excellent article pointing out that the United States is the world's most aggressive terrorist.
1
The fact that this strategy is long overdue aligns perfectly with the misbegotten Trump invitations to Russia to hack the 2020 election. This past week Trump admitted he would break the law to win an election.
But there appears no way to effect a course correction in American policy. Trump has neutered the 25th amendment by stuffing the cabinet with mindless sycophants and impeded impeachment via his deal with 43 traitors in the senate.
Unless the public speaks out en mass and removes this entire administration, Trump madness will surely lead to calamity.
His approach to Climate Change is as idiotic as his approach to Russia.
2
How can we aggress in this manner and then be so indignant when it is done to us?? I hate this!! I don't want to be a citizen of a country that attacks others. I want peace! Defense is understandable; attack is not.
4
I thought that Trump is a stooge of Putin, so, he won't take any action against Russia. This is the misinformation NY Times and other fake news have been telling Americans and the world. Now by releasing this classified information they are jeopardizing American National security. No wonder they are called enemies of the people.
3
@Alex E
The more likely explanation: Trump says in an interview that he would welcome Russian information on an opponent in 2020. There is a wave of negative blowback. So someone in the administration “leaks” to the press this story of how tough the US is on Russia as a distraction.
2
@Corbin If Russia reports a bad information to Trump about his opponent, he should take it and release it to public, if he is confident of the truth, before voting, and to FBI if it is criminal. It would be a patriotic act. Trump's opponent should also do the same thing, if he/she gets the information. It doesn't matter whether the truth comes from your friend or foe. If a candidate uses the information maliciously without checking the authenticity of the information, as Hilary and FBI bosses did during the last election, that candidate should be punished by the people and the law, if it is illegal.
1
Is it safe to report stuff like this?
2
The terrorists installing this malware and their commanders should be tried for war crimes and indefinitely incarcerated at Guantanamo.
1
Aboslutly dont tell trump our spying secrets. he is not to be trused and kushner will sell the info for money. dont trust any of them.
2
Wow...and people are getting bent out of shape over couple tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
Who’s sabotaging who?
2
What could go wrong?
Does Trump know about this? If he does, has he apologized to his spymaster Vladimir Putin?
1
Good news, I hope we're hitting the cyber bullies as hard or harder than they're hitting us. And it's wise to let trump in on as little as possible.
3
And yet Trump, Mitch, Lindsey and the rest of his gang of crooks won’t lift a finger to protect future elections. I wonder why?
3
"Under the law, those actions [cyber espionage against U.S. adversaries] can now be authorized by the defense secretary without special presidential approval." Because Donny would pick up the phone to tattle to his BFF Vlad.
3
As usual, the problem, whether it's "gun boat diplomacy" or Cyber Command's defensive/offensive operations, is human nature. Whether it's Putin or Trump, Stalin or Hitler - you can fill in the rest- the leaders we select choose anything from bullying to closing down necessary systems like energy to nuclear war that force us ordinary folk into mass suffering and death. At least up to now.
2
Well if this is escalatory and a cyber shooting war breaks out, let's at least hope Twitter is the first and only casualty.
2
Sounds like MAD 2.0., compliments 2020.
1
Does it strike us as remarkable that Congress passed a law that bypasses presidential oversight?
It reminds me of a discussion that parents might have, and tell the kids to go upstairs "mommy and daddy need to discuss grownup things".
I'm glad we have such a program, but so sad we have this boob in the oval office. We are in wonderland, and can't get out.
2
Quote: "Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister."
How dysfunctional are we when officials fear that our leader will give away our secrets?!
6
Why the confrontation people should talk and find ways to avoid conflict.
1
I am glad to know that our Intelligence Community is active in the cyber-warfare space. Especially since the Feb. 2018, hearing where Coats (Director of National Intelligence) said that there is “no single agency in charge” of blocking Russian meddling (WaPo).
Just this week the public was informed that Russian meddling bore some of the textbook tricks of the trade of Kremlin spycraft (NPR).
Having said that, why would the US publicly share that the US is engaged in any sort of cyber-offensive, let alone, tell Russia that we are targeting their power grid?
I just need to know our country IS DOING something to secure our systems and election processes, but I do not believe we need to tell the 'enemy' what we are doing.
3
Escalating attacks? Or informing Russia of their weaknesses?
Cyber assault is inherently centered around stealth. Sounds to me like Trump is intentionally tipping our hand. A submarine isn't much use if you teach your enemy how to find it. The description presented here more closely resembles a joint exercise. However, the US is the only one providing intelligence. Surprise, surprise. Unilaterally providing intelligence to Putin no less.
3
HOW TO WIN AN ELECTION WITHOUT STEALING ANY EMAILS
1 Restrict early voting in key swing states
2 Pass laws discouraging absentee ballots in those same states
3 On election day, turn off the power in the core of every large
city where democrats usually win by large margins, heavily
suppressing turnout
4 Count the ballots: Trump wins the state and is re-elected
President.
4
Why are we so inept at basic thinking that we do not have separate internets for emails, for inter banking and for electronic banking, . . . ?
And why do we botched have updates of critical structures, systems, and automobiles only by secure delivered DVDs? Can you imagine the drone trucks, private cars, railroads, aircraft all crashing from the latest updates malfunctioning at the same instant?
And why are we not burying out cables 8’ deep? A rogue nation setting off a high altitude high power nuclear bomb or a solar event could burn out much of our electrical and electronics for the USA.
2
If Fukushima didn’t finish nuclear power this must.
Imagine running your home with solar cells on the roof and a battery back up for evening use.
No lines running through forests, no power caused fires.
In the long run it’s cheaper than the alternatives.
3
Nuclear power is the only realistic way to dramatically reduce carbon emissions over a short timespan. Solar is too expensive and ugly to look at, as is wind. And solar and wind do not work when there is no sun or wind. The Green New Deal is a joke because it ignores nuclear.
1
"Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials..."
Wow. That does clearly state the HUGE problem we have with trump. He cannot be trusted to safeguard the USA, as he is sworn to do in his oath of office. That's downright frightening, more frightening, actually, than knowing that Russia is probably as capable as we are of shutting down a bunch of vital stuff.
7
This entire notification is a message for one person... Trump.
This is the intelligence agencies using their newfound powers that lack White House oversight, to signal to the White House that the intelligence agencies are DEEP inside Russia's systems and that they will know if Trump shows up inside those systems during the next election cycle.
They can't stop Russia from waging cyber war... and they can't stop Trump from welcoming help from or siding with Russia... but they can send a message that they will know if this administration "goes there"... again...
5
What totally blows my mind is that they have to keep this information from Trump, and everyone thinks that this is normal.
I don’t know if I should laugh or cry .
3
They don't brief the President because they are concerned that he might discuss it with a foreign official. I felt the need to laugh, cry, and scream all in equal parts upon reading this.
This man is too dangerous to the nation to be left in office.
2
I was surprised to read such material here, but such is life. I'm just as much a patriot as Bolton, Trump, General Nakasone, and any other American. We all just have different ideas of how to defend and help our nation. They choose the secrecy leads to misery methods, and I prefer outward dialog. It's pointless for me to oppose the aforementioned history so I simply express my ideas for moving forward;
Ok, so everyone is poised for action. But why are we at this point? Why are the connections of the internet still between continents allowing such precarious troublesome and dangerous posturing of both sides? Maybe Trump's desire for a wall should be among us adversaries, not our neighbors and friends. Can traffic from Russia, direct or routed be blocked between continents?
I have a different strategy in mind to punish Russia for meddling in our nation. It's not secret, it's not covert, it's right out there; They meddled in our politics, meddle in theirs. Putin is the problem and those Russians who elected him. There are still many Russians who oppose Putin, the troublemaker. So publicly appeal to the Russian citizenry to vote for those opposing Putin and his leagues. Very simple. We are justified, they know it. Don't hide. Tell the Russian people Putin is endangering them. It's the truth. Can't you people be honest?
And by the way, it was remarkably ignorant to give autonomous power to the military in these matters. That shows a lack of leadership and fealty to nation.
1
So now we are going to attack other countries power grids , to hurt citizens like it seems we did to Venezuela to try and install our puppet Gaido, because we want to control their oil the largest in the world. We did not like their election of President Maduro so we tried to overthrow him because he wasn’t willing to be controlled, like the 73% of dictators around the world that are our allies that we sell arms too. We have never cared about other countries elections, I also wonder if our elections are rigged, with our electronic machines supplied by questionable corporations.
Now we are blaming the Russian government for what a troll farm company did in Russia buying election ads for clickbait so they could profit. This sounds like the 1950’s red scare. Russia should be our friend just like Iran, except we ally with countries like Saudi Arabia the largest financier of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and that spreads Wahhabism. This is all so our Military Industrial Complex can profit needing ever larger weapons systems.
Peace is not profitable it seems for our Oligarchy.
3
I'm not clear on how announcing this is prudent.
2
If both countries didn't have stable geniuses in charge, I would be pretty worried. If the stability of one of the leaders was not the case, I would be even more worried.
7
I can understand why the U.S. would want to have this capability and to let the Russians know about it for the purposes of deterrence, but still, the news fills me with dread.
The U.S. power infrastructure is far from perfect, but as anyone who has lived and worked in Russia knows, their system is much less reliable and far more prone to breakdowns.
In addition, for anyone who watched the recent HBO series "Chernobyl," the idea of messing with the power grid in Russia is a little alarming. Russia still operates several RBMK reactors, and although there are repeated assurances that they are safe now, I wouldn't want to put that theory to the test by fiddling with the system.
I'm sure our guys are all well aware of this, but, just sayin'...
6
Boy things are heating up and we have the host of the apprentice as commander in chief. There’s a reason the Russians wanted DJT as president.
33
Well, the article does say that they aren’t giving Trump much info on this which is a good thing.
@Peice Man
Yes and the Dems must use the correct remedy immediately. You being from Salem might endorse a witch hunt or a mitch hunt that is in this case justified.
Come on Nancy. Why have impeachment in the constitution at all if NOW is not the right time to invoke it? If not now, when? Quit going soft. Do you think if the situation were reversed that the GOP would not already have the AG un handcuffs? What do we have? Closed door soft hearings, giving in to those brigands at every turn. C'mon Nancy. They mock the American people who just gave you the Congress and the green light. The pirates show contempt for the American people. Contempt of congress = contempt of the American people. The sociopath in chief is running rings around America with classic NPD characteristics. Time to impeach because the USA is in great peril. Russia now controls America from within.
1
Obowforanyonesroyalty did what.....talk, talk, talk, feel the country's pain.
Obviously, Trump is the Russian spy for Putin and that is why they don't tell him any details. What a bizzaro world we live in!
12
What an intriguing calculation; the "president" doesn't know about it (because Fox Pravda didn't know), but the military decides at this point in time, when we're on the verge of another "hot" war predicated on lies against Iran, to let the American public know. They're clearly in a strong enough position to do damage against the Russians, so if the "president" were to shut it down, sabotage it, fire people, the optics would be undeniable; it places him in a corner. That, or it's a pre-emption of the "president" (or prince Jared or some other self-serving kleptocrat) revealing the extent of these operations to the Russians (if the military is discussing them with the American press, the Russians already know something, if not details, about the operations). In-triguing in-deed!
4
It’s always the big-mouth in the bar that starts the bar fight, then he sneaks out the side door while the rest of us get hit with beer bottles.
Sure wish the bouncer had stopped DJT and his entourage at the door.
16
I wonder how long it will take Trump to apologize to Putin about these US cyber efforts against Russia.
12
Is there some reason why this is being made public?
22
Bad news is that now Trump knows about it.
1
Trump will do anything to distract from the debt he owes Russia for his Presidency.
15
Well one does have to wonder what the real story is. On the one hand it pleases me to read about our ability to project power to hopefully back off the Russians from their goals as defined herein. On the other hand the reporting newspaper is somewhat notorious in getting all the facets correct. I believe that contrary to general reporting the pres is privy to this issue. Proof you ask? Just as much as unnamed sources. We are never able to be fully privy to secret actions. Just burrow in to WWII secrets still secret. Secrets about President Kennedys assassination. My thought is I wish journalists were held to a higher standard and unnamed source mumbling jumbo was read as such.
I have anxieties.
I don't know why, but I have a nagging feeling that anything containing the word "cyber" that is connected in any way to the Trump "presidency" is inadequate, deficient and defective. I think it may be related in some way to another suspicion I have, which is, if you counted up all the IQ points present in the entire White House at any given moment, you could always count the total with the fingers on both hands.
Is it "shameful" or "disgraceful" to harbor these feelings ? I certainly hope it doesn't make me an "enemy of the people".
3
George Orwell would have a great time with all this.
9
On one hand - good. It is important to impose costs on bad international actors to deter them and deter copycat actors. Kudos to Gen Nakasone.
On the other hand - the Pentagon has more or less come out and said in this piece that *they didn’t brief the occupant of the WH* about what they are doing because *they view him as an operational security risk*.
In the short term, it’s good that the security establishment can act to protect us even when the occupant of the WH and Sen Mitch won’t.
In the medium or longer term, the idea that the generals are conducting their own foreign policy independent of civilian oversight is a couple of large jumps towards military rule of the US, and a slap in the face of nominal civilian control of the military.
It’s not too many steps from here to someone declaring themselves Caesar.
2
I can't believe that the "Trump administration," i.e., Donald Trump, has any idea this is happening.
1
Is it my understanding that Trump was kept in the dark about this? Bravo, for the first time American leadership becomes aware of the traitor in the Oval Office.
6
Difficult to mess with the US elections if the computer can't turn on.
Where is the discussion of our cyber risk? If we have these tools, so do they.
I am really, really am not a fan of the Putin regime and particularly its ongoing war on reality. But this seems crazy...!!
Doing this all while Mitch McConnell is blocking bills that would protect the US election infrastructure seems so wrongheaded.
Just tackle the defensive part. Secure your voting system. Curb the online non-sense factories of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter and things should be OK.
5
Is it just me or shouldn't this kind of program be, you know, black? Eyes only, top secret. The US would have a lot more to lose than Russia if we lost the East Coast for a few weeks. We don't stockpile transformers which are the backbones of the grid so if Russia overloaded a few thousand of them we'd be down for months. We shouldn't "overbound our steps" as Stan Laurel used to say.
4
@markd I think that probably this program is so black it's non-existent. Trump learned well from his "Trump university". It's a lot easier to flap one's lips and promise "beautiful, beautiful....fabulous" outcomes and collect 10 large per seat for that expulsion of hot air than it is to actually do the hard work to produce something of value. If you're a U.S. military general right now, it wouldn't behoove you to do anything but play yes-man. As in : "Yes Mr. President. We have a beautiful, beautiful..... fabulous cyber attack system in place and ready to go out there and take names and kick rear-end". After all, how would Trump know the difference ?
“Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern about his reaction—and the possibility he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials...”
There can be little doubt where the American president’s sympathies lie. He’s more a panting follower of Vladimir Putin’s quest for world domination that this article neglects to state directly but only infers.
I do not for a moment subscribe to any idea that Donald Trump has now been awakened to the potential disastrous effects of a shutdown of our country. He would benefit from it—as he did in 2016—and would blame a crippling attack on America on one of his favorite piñatas: “enemies of the state “—by which he would mean the free press, Democrats and the “deep state.” He would also, of course, benefit from the ensuing panic that he caused by his ignorance and negligence. “I alone can fix it.”
Never forget that sentence. It was implanted into his mind by his Russian patron, President Vladimir Putin.
3
Putin has probably had some measure of control since inauguration day. He would never show his hand and cut off power to the entire country just the southern end of manhatten and frame Iran. Wall st would be screaming to end the russian sanctions. Selling out is what capitalist do best.
God save the USA
5
GOOD! About time we started punching back. Russia is mistaken if it thinks it can wantonly interfere in other countries (Salisbury, 2016, etc.) without repercussion. Good job boys.
3
It is more imperative than ever to get Trump out of office, and the sooner the better. Trump is the biggest threat to our nation's security. His narcissism, his need to always be right, his avoidance of any opinion but his own, his thin skin, his arrogance and his intemperate attacks on his enemies makes him an extremely unstable and dangerous person to have in a leadership position. He creates no confidence in his ability to make the right choices, and so much--our power grid, water supplies, and virtually everything we depend upon, rests in his hands. There is nothing comforting about that, in fact, it simply adds to the anxiety felt by many Americans. We must vote to rid ourselves of this menace.
7
Just think what will happen when Russia plants malware into all our self-driving cars.
3
The Chinese! The Russians! They started it! Anyone who believes fairy tales from the Pentagon or Washington about this is a fool. Let's see at the end of the 'Cold War' Washington promised not expand NATO if the Russians et al handed over much of their nukes. They handed them over and Clinton, etc. marched NATO right up to the Russian border. George Kennan warned it was the greatest strategic error post WWII. Who knows what nasty things Washington is really up to. Like the mysterious Venezuelan blackouts right at the height of their coup operation. Washington's unending saber-rattling and war mongering can never be trusted. What a horrifying thought that they would cut off heat and power to millions of Russian people in the winter. It will be ordinary people who pay the price on all sides.
5
When attacked you fight back . President Trump is an expert at fighting back we are fortunate to have him in the White House rather than an appeaser as in the past.
1
It will all end in tears, I know it.
4
“Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister.”
This speaks for itself, remember that attorney general Barr advocates the position that if the president does it then it can’t be illegal. Is it cupidity, dishonesty, stupidity or sedition? If it walks like a duck and quacks in Russian like a duck then perhaps it likes vodka and condos.
4
Oh sure, we are secretly getting tough on Russia. Either that or Iran did do it.
Bolton and company playing with matches in the fireworks factory. Even Strangelove might be dismayed...
2
What an absurd, clearly unprecedented, and highly dangerous state this country is in when the Commander-in-Chief, as reported herein, cannot be trusted by our own military and intelligence leaders with probably compartmentalized, top secret classified information about our cyber warfare capabilities and plans against Russia for fear that he could very well compromise the operation. Isn't this yet another reason why Trump should be removed from office by impeachment? What his own Administration's national security people are saying is that their leader cannot be trusted with the most sensitive information held by the government. If this Fake President is a threat to the nation on a scale of that profound magnitude, he cannot and must not be allowed to remain in office. Congress, are you listening???
3
This sounds like a coverup story for Trump and the GOP. If it were true, it would have been classified. Gimme a break! Vote them out!
3
Hang on! The biggest thing in this story is buried way inside- they haven’t told Trump because they’re afraid he would spill the beans to Putin. His own people don’t trust him. Obviously, John Bolton, National Security Advisor, knows, but won’t tell Trump. Unbelievable.
5
Yeah....but....as of this very minute Republicans in the Senate refuse to vote on the House Bill that will provide funding to protect our elections from Russia hacking i.e., Florida two counties, and countless other election systems across our nation!
Until and unless the Mitch McConnell-Trump Republicans support protecting our elections I won’t believe what Bolton is claiming in this article!
2
Let me understand this.
The same USA that is outraged by Russian election hacking is simultaneously conducting cyber-attacks on Russian infrastructure?
This situation would be merely ironic if it weren’t so callously hypocritical.
3
This is a new definition of war in the 21st century, cyber-war, and I suspect that most Americans, especially Trump supporters are nearly clueless about what is at stake. With Putin and other authoritarian rulers, we must put on display our capabilities in more than nuclear warheads and naval powers. I trust the U.S. intelligence agencies and military much more than the executive branch of government. This is not my preference but it reflects the unprecedented time in which we are living.
4
It would be nice to think that the self proclaimed 'genius Trump knows something about the cyber war we are fighting or at least trust the experts on the front lines of this war. As it is he looks into Putin's eyes and declares him without sin and denies that Russia used cyber space to hack our 2016 elections and even declares that this information can be used to help his campaign. He prevaricates a little, but we heard you the first time, Mr.Trump. Our intelligence agencies may be planting these bugs in the Russian electric grid, but what we need is a leader who has the intelligence and wisdom to guide its use.
3
GREAT ! A military junta within the Trump regime...what could go wrong.
I'm sure these attacks are devastating to Russian citizens, but how will it compare when the Russians are finally successful with similar attacks on us? They've already shown us what happens when they blow up and election.
5
If we tell them the code is there, can they not find it and figure out the weakness we exploited to put it there? Does this not undermine our capability to respond to a cyber attack in the future? What am I missing?
1
This doesn't bode well for Putin's next job performance appraisal of the POTUS he worked so hard to put into power. Trump's been kept in the dark by Americans who aren't subservient to Putin.
4
Decentralized Power is one of the most critical steps we can take to protect homes and businesses, ie solar and wind.
2
Lucky us . That tiny “Start Up Nation” technological giant is on our side.
I must be missing something here. Is this the same Trump administration that is unable to deter Russsian election interference, but is now going on the attack to try to disable their power grid. Is this bizarre revelation intended to show that they are actually capable of holding Russia accountable? The combination of a childish Trump and a super aggressive Bolton is pretty bad. Where is Mattis when we need him?
2
If I was Russia, I'd demonstrate my prowess by making the NYC subway system run on time. That would cause absolute panic.
4
Think on this for just a bit...
These authorities were delegated downwards and the plans are largely being kept from Trump because the military and other national security authorities don't trust him not to tell Russia about them.
That's right, the military does not trust Trump not to tell Russia or "put Russia first."
The good news is that as long as this story stays in the newspapers and not on TV, Trump will never know about it.
4
The US government financed NSA leaked tools were used to attack Western targets and caused significant damage. I hope before placing this discoverable and exploitable code on foreign computer systems our own systems have been protected?
Blowback.
hmmm ... when it comes to cyberattacks, it seems to me this is goading the bear.
Not safe.
Dangerous!
1
The best defense is a good offense, and a vital part of this American offensive capability is to keep the details out of the hands of this president. I have long waited to hear of how we are actively and effectively responding to Russian aggression, but in this age of Trump I have feared his ability to undermine any steps on our part. Of course he is beholden to the regime that got him elected. It is essential to counter the aggression of authoritarian regimes like Putin's and just as important to rid America in 2020 of the authoritarian menace that is Donald Trump.
3
The best defense is a good offense.
1
Now that this has been revealed, no doubt Putin will tell Trump to remove it or else--whatever Putin has on him will be made public.
Cyber attacks are like submarines: they’re most effective if they remain undetected. Once you know where they are, the threat is much reduced.
This sounds more like a news release planned after the Russians discovered the malware.
2
Quoting from this story: "Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials, as he did in 2017 when he mentioned a sensitive operation in Syria to the Russian foreign minister." Another lesson on how to live with a treasonous President.
3
War in the 21st century.
Destroy the infrastructure that allows the general population to live by shutting down homes, hospitals and factories.
Destroy drinking water, sanitation, food preservation, medical care and access to banked money; the population will start to die off.
No need for a standing military or standard weapons. Just slowly kill off all the non-military population and the aggressor wins.
No need at all to struggle with the extremely difficult concepts of honor on the battlefield or rules of engagement.
Rules of engagement and military honor are so 20th century.
It doesn't matter who started the cyber-war cycle. It's just as destructive as thermonuclear war. It needs to stop.
1
"""""The meaure approved the routine conduct of "clandestine military activity” in cyberspace, to “deter, safeguard or defend against attacks or malicious cyberactivities against the United States.”
Under the law, those actions can now be authorized by the defense secretary without special presidential approval.""""
So the US absolutely needs the capability to cyber-cripple any country at anytime. Cyber-defense alone is not enough.
However, there is a slippery slope in my opinion, in that the actions should specify foreign adversaries.
Doesn't it kinda defeats the purpose if you make a formal announcement that you are installing malware into their system?
1
Interesting story. Was it leaked by the Bolton's people wanting to ratchet above the war fever given that the confrontation with North Korea has subsided? Was it leaked with the consent of Donald Trump as part of his re-election campaign strategy to improve bad poll numbers by showing that he is really tough on Russia? Was it leaked by the Pentagon/CIA without the consent of Trump because of fears that Trump is giving away the store to Putin after saying he would accept Russian help in the 2020 election? Somehow all this reminds me of the prelude to "The Guns of August" when all parties thought disastrously wrongly they were superior to their foes.
How about both sides coming up with a treaty agreeing not to do it, and then abiding by it, instead to lessen tensions??
2
@oyvey -- We would be able to monitor that, since by definition violations are placed inside our own computers. Trust but verify would be possible.
If you’ve lived among “the people” in Russia (or the former republics) for an extended period (semester to a few years), then you know well how domestic infrastructure lags behind the international posture of military prowess.
Stories of Russian cosmonauts using duct tape and other homemade items to fix the space station begin to get at the reality of life in Russia, not even a few kilometers from the Kremlin and central Moscow.
It’s pretty much a running joke, for decades even centuries, how inefficient and backwards most interval systems of governance, transportation, utilities and human services are.
They are sitting ducks. Once US cybarwarriors get past the initial firewalls, it won’t take much to shut the place down. Problem is, Russians are already used to broken systems. They’ll make do, as they always have.
I keep 14 days worth of water, food, and candles in my apt.
I live on the 12th floor and twice a week I use the stairs to get up to my apt.
I also keep a shotgun and cash
3
I hope our utility systems (which are mostly private, decentralized and not always well maintaind) have been safeguarded before we embarked on this offensive.
Every time I imagine a first attack by the enemy, the first thing they could do, if they were smart, is to bring down our electrical and energy infrastructure.
Very revealing and disturbing reporting.
However little mention of other major advisaries, i.e. China, or much about the range of the potential and actual threat other than the power grid.
Myriad other vital mega-systems are at risk given the ubiquitous cyber integration within virtually every aspect of national defense, transportation, and the entire economic superstructure at the national and global levels.
Pouring hundreds of billions into conventional military defense becomes highly questionable if we fail to adequately and aggressively address a burgeoning hostile cyber offensive capability and strong defense against it.
1
We dislike weapons that destroy both military targets and civilian lives without discriminating between the two, yet this weapon does exactly that.
The modern view of warfare is to limit the damage to civilians. The exceptions get attention because they are universally condemned even if the responsible people don't take responsibility publically.
1
@dugggggg -- We do that all the time, and really don't seem to care.
What we don't like is when it is done back to us.
Cyber warfare, whether between nations or between businesses and criminals, is asymmetric. It’s far more costly to defend than to attack. The way things work, an attacker only need succeed once, and he gets all the good stuff. But the defender must repel all attacks to be safe. This isn’t going to change much, even as tech improves.
What can be changed? Reducing the haul of good stuff from any given attack. If somebody hacks my local power substation, they should gain access to ... my local power substation. If somebody hacks Equifax in Illinois, they should gain access to Equifax in Illinois.
If a contract system administrator in Hawaii (I’m looking at you, Mr. Snowden) gains access to the NSA’s systems there, he should have access to ... the NSA systems in Hawaii, not everything everywhere.
The reach of the global Internet has addicted us to centralized access and control. (Wow, I can log in to my Twitter account from India! Cool!) But resilient information security demands the opposite. We must understand that every system will be breached sooner or later. Not even state actors with unlimited resources (Hi NSA) can prevent breaches. We must rethink security to reduce the consequence of each breach.
In the meantime, governments are trotting out the old Cold War strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction to contain the hacking problem. Will it work? We shall see.
1
Great. So now this sort of thing has been legitimatized, and can be considered acceptable, so when they do the same, they won’t look any worse than the U.S.
The threshold for the use of nuclear weapons is very high, the use of normal weapons or harassment is high, but as we see daily with China and Iran it is being using this (under deniability blanket) to taunt the USA and its allies.
One of the problems with cyberwar is that it can have a very low threshold and be a tempting option for a "first strike".
We saw the Russia (and probably others) have used it already because its deniability is so easy (after the WMD scandal, people are not so happy to believe the Pentagon).
There is no question that we (the West) need to be prepared for defense and equally for offense, which highlights Obama's "fear of conflict" in a very negative way.
I just wonder if space is being weaponized by us and others, there is a signed treaty but not everyone signed and signatures mean less then character of the states involved.
"The question now is whether placing the equivalent of land mines in a foreign power network is the right way to deter Russia. While it parallels Cold War nuclear strategy, it also enshrines power grids as a legitimate target."
Unfortunately, the Russians only respond to blunt force. We have already blacklisted every high ranking person who matters in Russia from the international financial system. That has clearly not done the trick. The only card left is to make sure they know that we can hit them hard within their own borders, creating the kind of chaos that makes authoritarian governments shudder.
I wonder if nation state conflict is the real threat in our digitally linked world. The global surge of conservative populism might seem to support that perception but beneath the political turmoil lies the reality of increasingly interwoven economic relationships, individual and corporate, on a worldwide scale. Real power may be beginning to reside not in national governments but in mutually dependent wealth-holding entities such as oligarchs and corporations that, overtly or otherwise, manipulate those governments. If that is the case, we would need to understand how wars between nations (cold or otherwise) might help or hinder the interests of such competing but borderless powers, the ones that might have the final say in how conflict is pursued or contained. Hmm, on reading my own comment, it seems almost like conspiracy theory drivel...except that it’s a theory that we would be foolish to ignore.
1
I don't understand why such activities should be revealed publicly. It seems to me that it reveals information to the enemy. Better to keep this clandestine or at least work through private diplomatic channels.
Serious stuff. Time to re-read Neuromancer. In the meantime, every time I visit Las Vegas, or Phoenix, I look around and try to imagine a two-week, summer-time black-out, stopping the water pumps, the air conditioners and the gasoline pumps.
If I lived in Vegas, I'd keep my car tanked up at all times. (But imagine a million people trying leave all at once, and how many would stall on/block the freeways because their tanks hadn't been topped off beforehand.) It's got to be fifty-plus miles in any direction you choose to sort-of drinkable water, but with little or no shade. And the temperatures along the Colorado River are often higher than Vegas.
I think these are the future threats we face. Time for some local resilience planning, especially for the big cities of the Southwest.
3
This is not going to end well.
Why does the default position always have to be one of being adversarial?
Imagine a world where a trillion dollars a year was spent to help others and make the world a better place, versus spending the money on ever more innovative ways of killing our "enemies".
1
Nations electronically attacking each others infrastructure is an exceedingly dangerous conflict point.
I get that Russia insists on doing this, and the US is simply counter deploying against them.. and should. But this truly is a Mutual Assured Destruction scenario.. where the US has a lot more to lose in the end then Russia.
Right now both nations appear to be in the explore and demonstrate phase of this new kind of warfare. It's their new playground for strategic conflict.
Left undeclared are all the counter measures deployed to stop or deflect attacks or potential attacks. Eventually one of these will fail at a point in time when the other party decides to "up the game" and a real catastrophe will ensue.
A successful exchange of cyber attacks between nations could very well permanently impair national infrastructure and push the nations off of their electric, telecom, and transportation infrastructure.. which to Americans would feel like being pushed back to the pre-industrial era of our nation. It will have similar effect on Russia, but Russians are more accustomed to bad/failing infrastructure. Americans will literally curl up in the fetal position when their electricity fails, their cell phones stop working, and they are forced to actually scavenge for resources to put a meal on their tables.
1
Thanks goodness for our massive investment in infrastructure including upgrading the power grid and for new more sensible military spending on fighting the next war instead of the last war. Do I need to indicate my sarcasm here?
On a serious note, the big power failure of 2003 was a taste of what this kind of attack could be like. It wasn't fun.
1
With this evolution, it is a matter of (short) time before the US power grid comes under cyberattack either from Russia, China or any other actor. I have of course no faith in the Trump administration in protecting our power grid. Clinton and Paterson wrote recently about a nightmarish scenario of what would be the total disruption of Internet nodes in the US: no more electricity, water oil, food, access to bank accounts and a very quick evolution to barbarism with half of the country dead in a few months from starvation or violence. Let us pray.
Thank you for reporting this NYT.
Thank goodness our Defense department is serving Country first and foremost, our country, the United States of America. Thank you very much for protecting all Americans.
2
just in the last few years there was a 'test' that
turned successful in testing either weapon systems
and / or travel in space, and yet again, no confirmation
nor denial that it happened by the government..
which is ok in my humble opinion.
but imagine what is going on with satellites,
with the terms 'pulsar' and 'disabling' being thrown
about,
beyond monitoring. must be pretty cool!