"Hackers and WWIII" Topic

Let's say WWIII started today. Not extremely likely, I know, but not impossible either. How big a part do hackers/the internet play?

I'm sure everybody has seen Die Hard 4. How much of that is reality, and how much is Hollywood? For that matter, how much control does the U.S. have over the web?

Say that China and the U.S. (and allies) went to war over Taiwan or Korea. What would China's best bet be regarding the web? What damage could the two nations do to each other? If the web would be significant, could China compete on an equal footing, or would their best bet be just to shut down their connections to it? Is this even possible?

Anyway, I'm sure TMP has plenty of computer nerds… uh… cyber commandos out there who can answer this one.

Thanks as always,

Vince

I would think hacking either remotes/drones (the spy ones for sure, but especially predators and other armed remote devices) would be a big deal. Perhaps hacking cruise missiles, or are those 'closed' systems? Messing with satelite systems or even just listening in/disrupting communications between units, since the US military is pretty dependent on joint coordination between forces these days.

That would be the most direct way. Indirectly, attacking the soft underbelly, which would be any part of American industry that supports/supplies the military. So, disrupting Stateside/international supply lines, factory orders, etc. If that order for 200,000 replacement widgets disappears, now there's trouble.

Well, the internet started out as a US defense project, but we're long past the point that anything important to the defense of any nation has any business being connected to it. Economies could be hurt, but any damage to defense networks would much more difficult to achieve, but certainly not impossible. I haven't seen Die Hard 4, but I'm fairly certain that Penny Arcade's take on it is kinder than that of a network security professional's. link

I guess it depends on what we mean by hacking.

Disrupting e-mail delivery and html-based commerce and communications would have a big impact on the economic infrastructure. I'm not sure we grasp how American business has embraced the web as a way to shift services away from labor intensive telephonic operations to secure html transactions.

Electronic banking, online sales, heck, even boring old 'customer service would take hits in the short term'. Most companies rely on the web to handle a signifcant percentage of what was formerly a physical or labor intensive transaction. Adding that volume back into the mix throws off staffing plans and processing capabilities.

But DH 4's take seemed pretty extreme. Now if you introduce uncertainty into people's minds regarding data security or data integrity, you've accomplished a lot of the same thing for less effort than actually taking down the whole network.

If the internet (& cell phones, texting, etc.) disappeared tomorrow, there would be a huge mass of people going into catatonic withdrawal (downright coma for those whose entire lives revolve around playing online RPG's), which would be eventually alleviated by exposing the victims to sunlight, books, and other non-computer social interaction…. ;)

What would you say to a country or organization launching there own version of WW3 by just taking down the bank networks, or just hosing every account either by setting them at random ammounts or setting them all to zero. How long would that take to fix and would 5 days of no commerce kill some nations?

How fast can you switch to cash from a non-bank reserve?

Nothing important happens on the web – it would be a pinprick. Like the 'Cyber Attack' on Estonia last spring – cyber war is sort of like paying a bunch of kids to spray graffitti on your enemies' garages. Annoying, but not even vaguely decisive.
-Kle.