Re: military strike possible?

[Jimi Thompson <jimit () myrealbox com>]

In reality, this will be all too simple to accomplish.  Consider for 
a moment, a few simple facts.  IP addresses can be a bit hard to come 
by, especially if you are looking for IPv4 address space.  North 
America has 80-90% of all the IPv4 space on the planet.  The 
university I work for has more IP addresses than the entire country 
of China.

All of the major ISP's are here - Cable & Wireless, Qwest, AT&T, AOL, 
UUnet, Verzion, etc.  The core DNS for the entire Internet physically 
resides in the USA. Make a few tweaks to some peering agreements and 
some routing tables and - presto! change-o! - you are now in a black 
hole.  No traffic comes in and none goes out.

I can assure you that our government, in light of 9-11, has looked at 
what it would take to isolate a country, any country, from the 
Internet.  Our military would be remiss in their planning if they had 
not.

My concern is more along the lines of Carnivore.  You have to get 
court orders to read my snail mail.  You have to show probable cause 
and justification.  Why in the heck is my email considered to be 
different?  It's still my mail.  Just because I send it 
electronically doesn't give anyone the right to sniff, filter, 
tamper, read, etc. my mail any more than my sending a letter at the 
post office should.

2 cents,

Jimi



At 5:10 PM -0500 10/29/03, J Kallberg wrote:
> I have been waiting for awhile for some rogue Internet nations.
> Nations that become safe heavens for everything we want to prevent.
> I thought some side line dictators out there would see Internet as a
> revenue stream as they funnel narcotics, money laundering, arms sales,
> terrorist propaganda, etc.
>
> BUT not yet....
>
> Maybe we have too few Noriegas around...
>
> And if they should up, can the Western World just hook off a nation
> from the Internet like cutting oil supply?
>
> JK
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Raymer, Dan" <DRaymer () webmd net>
> To: "'Meritt James'" <meritt_james () bah com>; 
> <security-basics () securityfocus com>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 4:08 PM
> Subject: RE: military strike possible?
>
>
> considering that intelligence can't even tell a Chinese embassy from a
> warehouse or where senior leadership is having a meeting, how do they expect
> to hit a bunch of teenage script kiddies (or heavens forbid, REAL crackers)
> coordinating an attack via IRC?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Meritt James [mailto:meritt_james () bah com]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 11:11 AM
> To: 'security-basics () securityfocus com'
> Subject: military strike possible?
>
>
>
> Going from the premptive strike philosophy demonstrated in Mideastern
> countries, what are your thoughts on a military strike against (as yet
> unseen) "cyberterrorists" a'la
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/985295.asp?0si=- if there were extranational
> agents tampering with identified components of the infrastructure to
> the extent that they were risking human life?
>
> --
> James W. Meritt CISSP, CISA
> Booz | Allen | Hamilton
> phone: (410) 684-6566
>
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Forum Systems PRESIDIO: PGP / XML GATEWAY APPLIANCE
The Presidio integrates PGP data encryption and XML Web Services security to 
simplify the management and deployment of PGP and reduce overall PGP costs 
by up to 80%.
FREE WHITEPAPER & 30 Day Trial - 
http://www.securityfocus.com/sponsor/ForumSystems_security-basics_031027 
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