USA Seeks Cyberwar Edge With Plan X

[Hum]

The Pentagon plans to bring warfare into the 22nd century, creating a new system to "map" the digital battlefield of cyberspace, defining a playbook for deploying cyberweapons and designating a management facility in Arlington, Va. to bring it all together.

It?s called Plan X, and it makes one thing very clear: Cyberwar is the future.

On Nov. 20, Pentagon research arm DARPA -- short for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- released a document called ?Foundational Cyberwarfare (Plan X),? a 52-page outline of how to fight a cyberwar. Its heart is a new map of cyberspace, a real-time rendering of the world of computers and how they connect -- switches, bridges, nodes and so on. It then seeks ?support platforms? that can deploy cyberweapons, measure damage, strengthen defenses and communicate.

?The Department of Defense (DoD) has developed superior capabilities over decades in the physical domains of land, sea, air, and space,? the document explains. ?When called upon, the U.S. military must have equally superior capabilities to rapidly plan, execute, and assess the full spectrum of military operations in cyberspace.?

These range from espionage against private industry to attacks like the Stuxnet worm that hit Iran?s nuclear efforts in 2010. And it?s the new world of warfighting, said Andrew Serwin, a member of the advisory board of the Naval Post Graduate School's Center for Asymmetric Warfare and an expert on cyberwarfare.

?You?re at a time where large physical war is winding down, and that physical domain is giving way to the cyberdomain,? Serwin said.

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[*RedBull*]

virtual saber rattling..... really?

[FlintyV]

Didn't the US at one point, want to physically bomb the locations of people who were engaged in cyber war?

[FiB3R]

They want to bring it ~987 years into the future?

[Hum]

?You?re at a time where large physical war is winding down, and that physical domain is giving way to the cyberdomain?

What do you win, when you destroy someone else's computer system ? :huh:

[FiB3R]

?You?re at a time where large physical war is winding down, and that physical domain is giving way to the cyberdomain?

What do you win, when you destroy someone else's computer system ? :huh:

e-peen. obviously. :woot:

[Growled Member]

Maybe less people will get killed when we bomb someone's web site.

[Nothing Here]

But what's the use in this really? Is it going to stop world-wide terrorism? Can it stop countries from sending in troops? Look I'm a retired/disabled Marine, so I just don't understand how any of this could stop anything. I'm all for people not dieing. But someone explain to me how this would prevent anything physical from happening.

[Growled Member]

But what's the use in this really? Is it going to stop world-wide terrorism? Can it stop countries from sending in troops? Look I'm a retired/disabled Marine, so I just don't understand how any of this could stop anything. I'm all for people not dieing. But someone explain to me how this would prevent anything physical from happening.

It won't but it keeps some geek in military intelligence a job because it sounds good.

[primexx]

the internet is the first place in history where your average teenager has the resources to match or even outmaneuver the US government. and that's why all the governments are so afraid of it.

[n_K]

The internet is used for many things it shouldn't be used for, e.g. storing plans for the F22 fighter on an internet facing server. Why? Because the internet is a hell of a lot cheaper than dedicated single links to places and can sustain points of failure and reroute them plus has the added bonus of searching the internet at the same time as well.

As the US is in some serious debt, it'd make sense to use the internet rather than dedicated lines but to do that they've got to secure their systems (lol, will never happen) and retaliate if their systems get attacked, such as releasing stuxnet onto iran to stop their nuclear program.

[pack34]

?You?re at a time where large physical war is winding down, and that physical domain is giving way to the cyberdomain?

What do you win, when you destroy someone else's computer system ? :huh:

You could cripple an economy and potentially disrupt utility companies causing loss of power, water or internet. Or even bring down factories that the country is reliant on.

[Phouchg]

Nearly every idea of military defense, pre-emptive strike or retaliation is fine and awesome, until very soon it becomes clear that it can and will only be used for offensive.

[exotoxic]

Maybe less people will get killed when we bomb someone's web site.

No, more people would die. For example you could take out the electricity in the middle of winter.

[Nothing Here]

It won't but it keeps some geek in military intelligence a job because it sounds good.

Thanx Growled. I should have known.

[Hum]

You could cripple an economy and potentially disrupt utility companies causing loss of power, water or internet. Or even bring down factories that the country is reliant on.

I thought of that too, but any half-way smart country will keep the Power plants on a isolated computer system -- not connected to the regular Internet.

Maybe you could lock up the banking systems.

[pack34]

I thought of that too, but any half-way smart country will keep the Power plants on a isolated computer system -- not connected to the regular Internet.

Maybe you could lock up the banking systems.

I think you would be surprised. They wouldn't really even need to be directly connected to the internet in order to be susceptible, remember stuxnet? Also, like you said the banking industry is sitting pretty open. State secrets could be hacked into, as well as trade secrets for any larger companies. Government officials could be brought down due to scandals due to leaked emails.

[Growled Member]

If things like were easily done I figure the terrorists would have done it already.