Cyber-War is Going to Happen. Discuss.

jamesrobbo1

Title

Reply 1

cl_steele

Beyond any reasonable doubt...eventually that is.

Reply 2

paddlesnap

Yeah, probably. What's your point?

Reply 3

jamesrobbo1

Original post by cl_steele

Beyond any reasonable doubt...eventually that is.

I disagree - cyber espionage is a certainty (and happening), but cyber war has no precedent (despite what many say), and the ability for states to conduct cyber attacks is grossly misunderstood. I would argue it wont happen, but cyber attacks will be part of wider conventional wars.

Reply 4

jamesrobbo1

Original post by paddlesnap

Yeah, probably. What's your point?

Discussion, no point.

Reply 5

Pigling

Going to?

Cyber-War happens every day on TSR

Reply 6

cl_steele

Original post by jamesrobbo1

I disagree, if lets say the US and China had a wee tiff aside from nuking each other and carpet bombing destroying their web based infrastructure would be even more effective... take down the NASDAQ or NYSE for example its going to cause some unpleasant reprocussions for the US let alone attacking their military capabilities... after all its hard to wage a war if someone wrecks your communications capabilities is it not?

Reply 7

jamesrobbo1

Original post by cl_steele

And how exactly do you take down comms systems?

There is a law of cyber-weapons, in that the more damage they cause, the more specific they have to be. E.g. stuxnet was around 10 000 man hours worth of work - yet all it was able to do was delay the Iranian nuke programme. Stuxnet would be be beyond useless on annihalating your laptop system - it is designed with one thing in mind, causing centrifuges in a particular Siemens system to overheat. To take down comms in the US would involve more effort than just about anything

Reply 8

cl_steele

Original post by jamesrobbo1

baring in mind i dont work in the cyber warfare dept for any government i cant really answer that now can i? But on that note as neither do you nor can you answer it, i doubt any country with sufficient assets to do it is going to show their prized golden goose before it actually needs to anyway i.e. Iran making a fatman is hardly cause for the US to show the world that it can indeed squash them in such a way.

On a more physical side though detonate a few warheads in space the EMP should be more than sufficient to flatten enough satalites to make the act of making war at the very least tricky.

Reply 9

jamesrobbo1

Original post by cl_steele

Its not about being right or wrong - its about computer programming. Weapons work because gaps in software (poor programming) exist - gapless software = inability to launch stuff like Stuxnet.

EMP would be highly effective, but does not count as cyber war

Reply 10

Aj12

A big enough cyber attack that could be traced back to its orginator would likely trigger a convential responce anyway. The idea of a sole cyber war seems far fetched

Reply 11

Cnuofesd

I think a more sophisticated way of approaching the question is 'will a cyber-war ever be viable' and 'is it possible to win one'? I'm sure during the Cold War asking the question 'Is nuclear war inevitable?' was often greeted with a similar response, but eventually both sides backed down as they realized they would lose more than they would gain.

War is just a means of obtaining resources, be them commodities as we are increasingly seeing today (Mali is 3rd biggest gold producing country in Africa), access to markets as was the trend in the 19th Century, or even cultural resources such as Crusades (Though how religiously based they were is hard to determine).

Therefore the only reason to engage in a cyber war is for the same means - a greater control of resources. So how can you 'win' a cyber war? Well, by disabling the oppositions computer systems you shut down their military, thus allowing your military to occupy whatever land they want. 'Cyber Warfare' is not an isolated form of war at all, it is interdependent and combined with conventional warfare, that being troops on the ground and thus control of resources.

The other way would be to say, inflate an oppositions currency and close their banks, crashing an economic system. However, this is again a means to an end - shutting down the oppositions military without spilling blood. Because nothing is lost on the side of the winner (All you lose is the resources invested in superior technology , I see the viability of such wars being highly worthwhile. The issue again is if cyber war is declared - is nuclear war inevitable? If so will we just see a return to the MAD situation until one side is able to overwhelm the other?