We have repeatedly discussed how internet attack is contrary to our own interests. Here is one example from a couple years ago.
The problems with internet attack start with the battleground. Of all the nations in the world, the US is probably the most vulnerable to internet attack. We have the biggest surface area. We also are the most dependent on the internet. We have the most to lose in any internet conflict. Years ago, we rationalized that it was better to wage war via the internet, then to wage war with physical weapons. This assumption has become less and less true over the years. We have now reached the point where internet attack is the easiest and most convenient way to cripple the US. We will soon reach the point where internet attack can be more devastating than any physical attack.
The next crippling aspect to internet conflict is the horrible consequences of internet weapons. We are told that internet weapons can be created, controlled and deployed with no more thought or aftereffects than a tank or a drone. Nothing could be further from the truth. Internet weapons are more like germ warfare than tank warfare:
- Every internet weapon requires tolerated (possibly encouraged and created) vulnerability within your own defenses. We all use the same internet. We all use the same tools. You can't create vulnerability in your potential opponents and somehow eliminate it in yourself.
- Internet weapons have a horribly short lifespan. If you are going to have them, you have to create new ones all the time. You have to tolerate or create new vulnerability within yourself all the time.
- Internet weapons are nothing like nukes. They don't require massive infrastructure. If the vulnerabilities exist, any nation or criminal organization with access to the internet can create and deploy internet weapons.
- You can not deploy an internet weapon against your opponents without giving them the ability to use it against you. In most cases, they can simply record and analyze the attack, and then turn around and use it against you. Also, in most cases, if you deploy an internet weapon against ANYBODY, then all interested opponents immediately get access to it.
- The time between you using an internet weapon on an enemy and somebody using it against you is almost always less than the time it takes to fix the underlying vulnerabilities within yourself.
- Since all internet weapons follow from common vulnerabilities, then any opponent can out-produce and out-deploy internet weapons against you at any time.
- Internet weapons are useless unless they are wielded by practiced people who are expert in penetrating all possible opponents defenses. The only way you have this kind of people is if they are actively attacking all possible opponents all the time. In order to have an effective internet attack force, you have to wage continuous internet war on all important opponents. if you stop attacking, you cripple your ability to attack.
We now know that the US/NSA has launched premeditated, unilateral, unannounced internet war against the entire world (including our own population) for years. We are not the only ones who do this. The first acts of this war has been always been penetration and subversion of everybody’s defenses. The second act of this omnipresent war has been appropriation of resources. It sometimes precedes further.
Based on what we know now, it is clear that waging internet war is a self destructive and criminal act against our own civilian interests. Our only sane action is to immediately engage in diplomatic actions to stop the internet war. We should immediately, unilaterally stop attacking other nations. All nations should levy diplomatic and trade sanctions against any nation found guilty of waging internet war. We should classify internet weapons as weapons of last resort. They should be considered in the same class as nukes and biowar weapons.
