Two NYT op-eds that point to a precipitous decline in U.S. moral authority that nobody seems to want to accept

as usual, glenn is all over it...

Two Op-Eds in The New York Times this morning both warn of the precipitous decline of American credibility on matters of human rights and peace ushered in by the Obama presidency.

the first op-ed glenn cites is on cyber-warfare written by misha glenny...

A Weapon We Can’t Control

THE decision by the United States and Israel to develop and then deploy the Stuxnet computer worm against an Iranian nuclear facility late in George W. Bush’s presidency marked a significant and dangerous turning point in the gradual militarization of the Internet. Washington has begun to cross the Rubicon. If it continues, contemporary warfare will change fundamentally as we move into hazardous and uncharted territory.

This is one of the frightening dangers of an uncontrolled arms race in cyberspace; once released, virus developers generally lose control of their inventions, which will inevitably seek out and attack the networks of innocent parties. Moreover, all countries that possess an offensive cyber capability will be tempted to use it now that the first shot has been fired. . . .

the second is on extra-judicial assassination by former president jimmy carter...

A Cruel and Unusual Record

THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.

Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues.

more glenn...

Many American pundits and foreign policy experts love to depict themselves as crusaders for human rights, but it almost always takes the form of condemning other governments, never their own. There’s no end to self-styled U.S. human rights moralizers who will oh-so-bravely (and inconsequentially) write one screed after the next about the oppressive acts of Syria, or Russia, or China, or Iran (the targets of their wrath are not just foreign governments, but usually ones serving the role as Current Enemy of the U.S. Government).

But when it comes to the human rights violations they can actually do something about — the ones committed (or enabled) by their own government: the government for which they vote and to which they pay taxes and over which they are supposed to act as adversarial watchdogs — they are largely silent.

the u.s. stand on human rights has been seriously compromised from the native american genocide that accompanied the founding and the growth of the country up through the more recent horrors unleashed by the school of the americas right up to the present day... i am of the opinion that our trampling of human rights hasn't necessarily gotten worse, merely more visible, and with visibility comes the opportunity to step out of our national denial and do something about it...

 

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Glenn: The U.S. is the leading developer and perpetrator of cyberwarfare, not the leading target

i've posted extensively on the mutual back-scratching between the u.s. government, michael mcconnell and booz allen hamilton (see here)... this tawdry relationship pumps millions of dollars into the booz coffers as well as mcconnell's pocket and has made cyber-security technology one of the biggest profit contributors in the booz portfolio of taxpayer fleecing projects... mcconnell has appeared repeatedly on news segments decrying the imminent danger posed by cyber attacks and making the case for massively increased government attention spending focused on mitigating such threats...

glenn greenwald, always vigilant about spotting hypocrisy, immediately seized on today's nyt story glorifying obama's role in instigating cyber attacks on iran to make the point that, far from being the potential victim of cyber attacks, the u.s. is very likely the principal perpetrator, adding yet another chapter to the lengthy chronicle of u.s.-sponsored terrorism...

The primary fear-mongering agenda item for the National Security and Surveillance State industry is now cyberwarfare. The Washington cadre of former military officials who seek to personally profit by exploiting national security issues — represented by Adm. Michael McConnell and Gen. Michael Hayden — has been running around for several years shrilly warning that cyberwarfare is the greatest threat posed by Terrorists and other of America’s enemies (and, just coincidentally, they also argue that it’s urgent that the U.S. Government purchase wildly expensive cyber-security technology from their private-sector clients as well as seize greater control over the Internet to protect against the threat).

But — as is usually true when it comes to Washington warnings about the evils of Others — this is pure projection. The U.S. is the leading developer and perpetrator of cyberwarfare, not the leading target. The New York Times this morning has a long excerpt from a new book by its hawkish national security reporter David Sanger — the book is entitled “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power” — which reveals that President Obama personally oversaw the development, and ordered the deployment, of the world’s most sophisticated computer virus, unleashed (in cooperation with Israel) on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility.

[...]

Isn’t it amazing how the U.S. is constantly the world’s first nation to use new, highly destructive weapons — at the same time that it bombs, invades, and kills more than any other country by far — and yet it still somehow gets its media to tell its citizenry that it is America’s Enemies who are the aggressors and the U.S. is simply a nation of peace seeking to defend itself.

Needless to say, if any cyber-attack is directed at the U.S. — rather than by the U.S. — it will be instantly depicted as an act of unparalleled aggression and evil: Terrorism. Just last year, the Pentagon decreed that any cyberattack on the U.S. would be deemed “an act of war.” As Rudy Giuliani said about whether waterboarding is torture: “It depends on who does it.”

once again, i'm led to speculate that the u.s. engages in such hypocritical and provocative behavior precisely because it does engender acts of reprisal which the u.s. then uses as justification for continuing to pump more cash into the pockets of our super-rich elites...

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The free flow of information is a HUGE threat to control-obsessed governments

here's what you can find out when folks like anonymous get busy and dig it out...

The hacker collective Anonymous has released a fresh batch of data taken from Vanguard Defense Industries, a Pentagon and FBI contractor.

The data release was revealed via a post on tor2web.org and later publicized on the group's AnonymousIRC Twitter account. In it the group claimed to have released "1GB of private emails and documents belonging to Vanguard Defense Industries (VDI)."

Anonymous later said the e-mails belong to the contractor's senior vice president, Richard T. Garcia, and contained information regarding "internal meeting notes and contracts, schematics, non-disclosure agreements, personal information about other VDI employees, and several dozen 'counter-terrorism' documents classified as 'law enforcement sensitive' and 'for official use only.'"

A key bit of information highlighted in its release pertained to Vanguard Defense Industries' ShadowHawk drones, which are used by military, law enforcement and private companies across the world and are loaded with grenade launchers and shotguns.

The seven-foot ShadowHawk drones,
which are used by military, law enforcement
and private companies across the world and
are loaded with grenade launchers and shotguns.

Despite highlighting the ShadowHawk unmanned aerial vehicle, the group offered no clear reason for the attack on Vanguard Defense Industries besides its association with military and law enforcement agencies.

"We are doing this not only to cause embarrassment and disruption to Vanguard Defense Industries, but to send a strong message to the hacker community. White hat sellouts, law enforcement collaborators, and military contractors beware: we're coming for your mail spools, bash history files, and confidential documents," read Anonymous' statement on the matter.

The attack on Vanguard Defense Industries is the latest in a slew of attacks on military and law enforcement agencies. Credited as a part of its "F**k FBI Friday" campaign, previous victims of Anonymous' wrath have included big name companies such as Booz Allen Hamilton and Monsanto.

and here's what our oh-so-concerned-with-free-speech (in OTHER countries, that is) is doing about it...

glenn...

The emergence of entities like WikiLeaks (which single-handedly jeopardizes pervasive government and corporate secrecy) and Anonymous (which has repeatedly targeted entities that seek to impede the free flow of communication and information) underscores the way in which this conflict is a genuine "war." The U.S. Government's efforts to destroy WikiLeaks and harass its supporters have been well-documented. Meanwhile, the U.S. seeks to expand its own power to launch devastating cyber attacks: there is ample evidence suggesting its involvement in the Stuxnet attacks on Iran, as well as reason to believe that some government agency was responsible for the sophisticated cyber-attack that knocked WikiLeaks off U.S. servers (attacks the U.S. Government tellingly never condemned, let alone investigated). Yet simultaneously, the DOJ and other Western law enforcement agencies have pursued Anonymous with extreme vigor. That is the definition of a war over Internet control: the government wants the unilateral power to cyber-attack and shut down those who pose a threat ot it, while destroying those who resists those efforts.

There have literally been so many efforts over the past several years to heighten surveillance powers and other means of control over the Internet that it's very difficult to chronicle them all. In August of last year, the UAE and Saudi Arabian governments triggered much outrage when they barred the use of Blackberries on the ground that they could not effectively monitor their communications (needless to say, the U.S. condemned the Saudi and UAE schemes). But a month later, the Obama administration unveilled a plan to "require all services that enable communications -- including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct 'peer to peer' messaging like Skype" to enable "back door" government access.

This year, the Obama administration began demanding greater power to obtain Internet records without a court order. Meanwhile, the Chairwoman of the DNC, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, is sponsoring a truly pernicious bill that would force Internet providers "to keep logs of their customers’ activities for one year." And a whole slew of sleazy, revolving-door functionaries from the public/private consortium that is the National Security State -- epitomized by former Bush DNI and current Booz Allen executive Adm. Michael McConnell -- are expoiting fear-mongering hysteria over cyber-attacks to justify incredibly dangerous (and profitable) Internet controls. As The Washington Post's Dana Priest and William Arkin reported in their "Top Secret America" series last year: "Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications." That is a sprawling, out-of-control Surveillance State.

and why do you think the surveillance state is taking such an aggressive stance...? just look at where things are headed...



an article i read yesterday labeled the uk riots as an "insurrection"... i don't disagree with that assessment...

coming soon to your town...!

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Let's look forward to our first cyberspace war

gosh... i was just starting to digest the existence of drones and now i've got to transition from the matrix as just a movie to the matrix as hard core reality...

Pentagon Declares the Internet a Domain of War

The Pentagon released a long-promised cybersecurity plan Thursday that declares the Internet a domain of war.

The plan notably does not spell out how the U.S. military would use the Web for offensive strikes.

The Defense Department’s first-ever plan for cyberspace calls on the DoD to expand its ability to thwart attacks from other nations and groups, beef up its cyber workforce and expand collaboration with the private sector.

Like major corporations and the rest of the federal government, the military “depends on cyberspace to function,” the DoD plan says. The U.S. military uses cyberspace for everything from carrying out military operations to sharing intelligence data internally to managing personnel.

“The department and the nation have vulnerabilities in cyberspace,” the document states. “Our reliance on cyberspace stands in stark contrast to the inadequacy of our cybersecurity.”

Other nations “are working to exploit DoD unclassified and classified networks, and some foreign intelligence organizations have already acquired the capacity to disrupt elements of DoD’s information infrastructure,” the plan states. “Moreover, non-state actors increasingly threaten to penetrate and disrupt DoD networks and systems.”

Groups are capable of this largely because “small-scale technologies” that have “an impact disproportionate to their size” are relatively inexpensive and readily available.

The Pentagon plans to focus heavily on three areas under the new strategy: the theft or exploitation of data; attempts to deny or disrupt access to U.S. military networks; and any attempts to “destroy or degrade networks or connected systems.”

One problem highlighted in the strategy is a baked-in threat: “The majority of information technology products used in the United States are manufactured and assembled overseas.”

smart money says we're on a countdown to our first cyberwar...

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Gerald Celente appears on RT & predicts a global youth revolt and cyberwar

ok, i saw this and folded... it's a "gotta post"...

Gerald Celente, the founder of the Trends Research Institute, believes that the Internet will empower the youth of the world to unite to start a revolution that will overthrow the existing deadlocked elitist establishment. He predicts that in 2011 every citizen is going to realize that the Great Recession the world has been living through is actually a Great Depression, because the American establishment is "running out of schemes."

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Why the Wikileaks kerfuffle is so important and what's it's showing us about the sad reality of our world

a very big game is afoot...

glenn...

NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen has an excellent analysis today documenting how, in the wake of 9/11, [journalists] dropped all pretenses of checking those in political power and instead began explicitly proclaiming -- as The New York Times' chief stenographer and partner-of-Judy-Miller, Michael Gordon, suggested -- that "capturing the dominant view within the government was the job [of journalists], even if that view was wrong." As Rosen writes, "our press has never come to terms with the ways in which it got itself on the wrong side of secrecy as the national security state swelled in size after September 11th," and thus: "To understand Julian Assange and the weird reactions to him in the American press we need to tell a story that starts with Judy Miller and ends with Wikileaks."

[...]

[I]t just so powerfully proves how mindlessly subservient the American establishment media is: willing to repeat over and over completely false claims as long as it pleases the right people -- the same people to whom they claim they are "adversarial watchdogs." It's when they engage in such clear-cut, deliberate propagandizing that their true function -- their real identity -- is thrown into such stark relief.

Just to underscore this point a bit further, consider this remarkable (and remarkably good) Editorial from The Guardian yesterday, which not only vehemently defends WikiLeaks, but -- extraordinarily -- also justifies the "denial of service" attacks from anonymous individuals around the world aimed at various companies serving the Government's war on WikiLeaks by depriving them of all services (MasterCard, Amazon, Paypal, etc.):

These companies all considered that their association with WikiLeaks damaged their brand image, a reflection prompted in some cases by a helpful call from the US state department. In essence they are trying to have it both ways: pretending in their marketing that they are free spirits and enablers of the cyber world, but only living up to that image as long as they don't upset anyone really important. . . . .

The hacktivists of Anonymous may be accused of many things – such as immaturity or being run by a herd instinct. But theirs is the cyber equivalent of non-violent action or civil disobedience. It disrupts rather than damages. In challenging the credit card companies and the web hosts in this way, they are reminding these businesses that their brand reputation relies not only on how the state department sees them, but also on how they maintain their independence in the eyes of their users. . . .

In times when big business and governments attempt to monitor and control everything, there is a need as never before for an internet that remains a free and universal form of communication. WikiLeaks' chief crime has been to speak truth to power. What is at stake is nothing less than the freedom of the internet. All the rest is a sideshow distracting attention from the real battle that is being fought. We should all keep focus on the true target.

[I]t is impossible to conceive of any establishment media outlet in the U.S. uttering a peep of support for what those protesters did. The immediate consensus in the American political and media class was that these activists were engaged in pure, unmitigated destruction -- even evil -- and should be severely punished. That's because the greatest sin in our political culture is doing anything other than meekly submitting even to assertions of lawless and thuggish government and corporate power. If the Government and the largest corporations collaborate to lawlessly destroy Wikileaks for the crime of engaging in threatening journalism, then you simply write polite letters to Congress or complain on your blog; what you don't do under any circumstances is resist or fight back using even symbolic gestures of disobedience. That's the authoritarian mentality pervading -- defining -- not only the establishment media but (as a result) much of the citizenry.

[...]

[N]ote how few object to the fact that the DOJ is investigating the pro-WikiLeaks attacks, but not -- of course -- the ones directed at WikiLeaks. That's because we collectively believe -- with the establishment media leading the way -- that the most powerful authorities have the unfettered right to do whatever they want to anyone who is sufficiently demonized as Bad, while the worst sin is to do anything outside of approved (i.e., impotent) means to protest establishment power and authority, no matter how destructive and criminal the ends are to which that power and authority is being applied.

we are witnesses to a tectonic shift underway in our world and i, for one, am eager to see how it all evolves... as always, i'm eternally optimistic that ultimately the truth will prevail...

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Is the U.S. engaging in cyberwarfare against Wikileaks? [UPDATE]

[UPDATE]

according to raw story, the wikileaks website that was relocated to switzerland has since been taken down as well... the wikileaks url is now at the following link - http://213.251.145.96/...

when you get to the part about the massive 10GB/s denial of service stream, you have to ask yourself, who is capable of that kind of attack...?

Amid international pressure and a series of crushing denial of service attacks, the site WikiLeaks.org has finally slipped underneath the waves. It's DNS host, EveryDNS.com, killed the domain early late Thursday night, according to an update posted to WikiLeaks' Twitter account.

The host cited "mass attacks," the whistleblower organization said.

The take-down is another in a long line of setbacks for WikiLeaks, which has in past months completely upturned historical precedent in the successful release of more secret US government information than anyone else ever before it.

[...]

Word of the take-down came days after the site said it was feeling the effects of a series of massive denial of service attacks, which is what forced the switch-over to American servers. One sustained attack exceeded 10 Gigabits per second, according to WikiLeaks.

"According to a study by Internet security company Arbor Networks, the average denial of service attack over the past year was 349 megabits per second, 28 times slower than the stream Wikileaks reported," CBS New York noted.

[...]

Update: The site has relocated to Switzerland, and is now available at Wikileaks.ch. Read more about the move at the New York Times here.

wikileaks has always claimed to have massive back-up in place... i guess this will be the test...

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Just another way of rendering Posse Comitatus moot

these days, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether our military is being deployed on the streets of new orleans or they're keeping our citizens in line while sitting behind computer screens in the pentagon... our puppet-masters are intent on using ALL the resources necessary to keep us peasants in line - chicago, tehran, wherever...

the nyt take is, as you would expect, somewhat benign...

The Obama administration has adopted new procedures for using the Defense Department’s vast array of cyberwarfare capabilities in case of an attack on vital computer networks inside the United States, delicately navigating historic rules that restrict military action on American soil.

yes, the nyt "navigates" somewhat "delicately" too, not even bothering to mention the "historic rule's" name, posse comitatus...

tom burghardt, posting in his blog, antifascist calling, offers an in-depth analysis of the development in addition to a detailed description of the innocently-named, project 12...

A "Memorandum of Agreement" struck last week between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Security Agency (NSA) promises to increase Pentagon control over America's telecommunications and electronic infrastructure.

It's all in the interest of "cybersecurity" of course, or so we've been told, since much of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) driving administration policy is a closely-held state secret.

Authority granted the über spy shop by the Bush and Obama administrations was handed to NSA by the still-classified National Security Presidential Directive 54, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD 54/HSPD 23) in 2008 by then-President Bush.

The Agreement follows closely on the heels of reports last week by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that DHS has been tracking people online and that the agency even established a "Social Networking Monitoring Center" to do so.

Documents obtained by EFF through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, revealed that the agency has been vacuuming-up "items of interest," systematically monitoring "citizenship petitioners" and analyzing "online public communication."

The documents suggest that "DHS collected a massive amount of data on individuals and organizations explicitly tied to a political event," the Obama inauguration.

This inevitably raises a troubling question: what other "political events" are being monitored by government snoops? Following last month's raids on antiwar activists by heavily-armed FBI SWAT teams, the answer is painfully obvious.

And with new reports, such as Monday's revelations by The Wall Street Journal that Facebook "apps" have been "transmitting identifying information--in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names--to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies," online privacy, if such a beast ever existed, is certainly now a thing of the past.

[...]

"In early 2008," a PI analyst writes, "President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 54/Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23 (NSPD-54/HSPD-23) formalizing the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). This initiative created a series of classified programs with a total budget of approximately $30 billion. Many of these programs remain secret and their activities are largely unknown to the public."

Amongst the programs stood up by CNCI "is an effort to encourage information sharing between the public and private sector called 'Project 12'."

The whistleblowing web site "recently acquired the key report from the Project 12 meetings: Improving Protection of Privately Owned Critical Network Infrastructure Through Public-Private Partnerships. This 35-page, For Official Use Only report is a guide to creating public-private partnerships that facilitate the implementation of 'actionable recommendations that [reflect] the reality of shared responsibility between the public and private sectors with respect to securing the nation's cyber assets, networks, systems, and functions'."

patético...

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The Booz Allen Executive VP, former Admiral and former intelligence chief, fear-mongers for his company

all in the name of national security, of cuss, of cuss...

Mike McConnell on how to win the cyber-war we're losing

The United States is fighting a cyber-war today, and we are losing. It's that simple. As the most wired nation on Earth, we offer the most targets of significance, yet our cyber-defenses are woefully lacking.

o-o-o-oook... so, check the next paragraph...

The problem is not one of resources; even in our current fiscal straits, we can afford to upgrade our defenses. The problem is that we lack a cohesive strategy to meet this challenge.

translation: we need to increase defense spending even MORE, and, oh, btw, my company is a prime defense contractor... we also need to develop a national strategy, and, oh, btw, my company can do that too...

and what does this dinosaur put forth as the model for protecting against this high-tech challenge...? why, the cold war, the boogieman that made so many of these old farts and their companies rich beyond measure...

During the Cold War, deterrence was based on a few key elements: attribution (understanding who attacked us), location (knowing where a strike came from), response (being able to respond, even if attacked first) and transparency (the enemy's knowledge of our capability and intent to counter with massive force).

Against the Soviets, we dealt with the attribution and location challenges by developing human intelligence behind the Iron Curtain and by fielding early-warning radar systems, reconnaissance satellites and undersea listening posts to monitor threats. We invested heavily in our response capabilities with intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarines and long-range bombers, as well as command-and-control systems and specialized staffs to run them. The resources available were commensurate with the challenge at hand -- as must be the case in cyberspace.

Just as important was the softer side of our national security strategy: the policies, treaties and diplomatic efforts that underpinned containment and deterrence. Our alliances, such as NATO, made clear that a strike on one would be a strike on all and would be met with massive retaliation. This unambiguous intent, together with our ability to monitor and respond, provided a credible nuclear deterrent that served us well.

it seems obvious that we're being prepped for the next great enemy... first, it was the soviet union and the threat of nuclear annihilation... then, it was terrorism and the fear of someone wearing a suicide vest under every bed... now, we need to quake in terror of an electronically savvy enemy penetrating the very networks that makes our interconnected life possible...

ask yourself... who stands to lose the most if mcconnell's vision of the horrors of cyber war comes true...? would it be you and me...? probably not... would it be the super-rich elites whose billions and billions of dollars/euros/pounds/yen/renminbi electronically circle the globe thousands of times every day looking for a place to land where it can make them yet more...? yes... that's who would suffer... poor babies... ain't buyin' it...

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An internet "driver's license"...? Nothing good can come of THIS...

leave it to our super-rich elites in davos to come up with new ways to keep all us peasants in check...

those people really suck...

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Here's the REAL matrix - read it and shudder

i read a fair amount of stuff that i find somewhat chilling... this one, however, is right up there at the top of the list...

Congress has ordered the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, to put together a National Cyber Range, as part of a massive (and massively secret) $30 billion, government-wide effort better prep for battle online. The project is now considered a top priority for the Agency. And to make sure the facility is as true-to-life as possible, Darpa wants the contractors running the Range to be able to "replicate realistic human behavior on nodes," a request for proposals, released today, reveals.

Specifically, the Agency wants to have its contractors:

• Provide robust technologies to emulate human behavior on all nodes of the range for testing all aspects of range behavior.
• Replicants will produce realistic chain of events between many users without explicit scripting behavior.
• Replicants must be capable of implementing multiple user roles similar to roles found on operational networks.
• Replicant behavior will change as the network environment changes, as the replicated “outside environment” (i.e. DoD DefCon, InfoCon, execution of war plans, etc) changes, and as network activity changes (detected attacks, degradation of services, etc).
• Replicants will simulate physical interaction with device peripherals, such as keyboard and mice.
• Replicants will drive all common applications on a desktop environments.
• Replicants will interact with authenticate systems, including but not limited to DoD authentication systems (common access cards – CAC), identity tokens.

These mock people have to be able to "demonstrate human-level behavior on 80 percent of all events," the Agency adds. And mimicking us flesh-and-blood types is only one of a wide array of tasks Darpa wants to see operators of the National Cyber Range, or NCR, pull off.

The facility should also feature a "realistic, sophisticated, nation-state quality offensive and defensive opposition forces" that can fight military info-warriors in mock combat. Contractors have to be ready to create 10,000-node tests from government-provided "network diagrams and configuration files" in less than two hours. And those nodes can't just be computers tied into a faux Internet. The NCR's operators should be able to "integrate, replicate, or simulate" military satellite and digital radio communications, mobile ad-hoc networks, physical access control systems, U.S. and foreign "unmanned aerial vehicles, weapons, [and] radar systems" -- even "cyber cafes" and "personal digital assistances [sic]."

dontcha love that bureaucratese...? it makes it somehow all the more sinister...

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Softening us up for government control of the internet

with the internet being pretty much the last uncontrolled (note: i DIDN'T say un-TAPPED) means of individual expression and unfiltered news left, it's obviously only a matter of time before governments put a halt to that too... mettle has posted regularly on this blog about content filtering using packet sniffing technologies, the kind of technology that will allow the internet to be controlled and access restricted to those with the most money (and the most power)... another way that it's going to happen is under the guise of national security, namely, protecting the security of the internet infrastructure...

bet on it... it's on its way...

A "cyber cold war" waged over the world's computers threatens to become one of the biggest threats to security in the next decade, according to a report published on Thursday.

About 120 countries are developing ways to use the Internet as a weapon to target financial markets, government computer systems and utilities, Internet security company McAfee said in an annual report.

Intelligence agencies already routinely test other states' networks looking for weaknesses and their techniques are growing more sophisticated every year, it said.

Governments must urgently shore up their defenses against industrial espionage and attacks on infrastructure.

"Cybercrime is now a global issue," said Jeff Green, senior vice president of McAfee Avert Labs. "It has evolved significantly and is no longer just a threat to industry and individuals but increasingly to national security."

remember... it's for your own good...

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The NEW war, brought to you by the Air Force Cyber Command

if you aren't on the "no-fly list," maybe you can have a good shot at being on the "no-internet list..."

[G]overnments are readying themselves for the Big One.

China, security experts believe, has long probed United States networks. According to a 2007 Defense Department annual report to Congress, China’s military has invested heavily in electronic countermeasures and defenses against attack, and concepts like “computer network attack, computer network defense and computer network exploitation.”

According to the report, the Chinese Army sees computer network operations “as critical to achieving ‘electromagnetic dominance’ ” — whatever that is — early in a conflict.

The United States is arming up, as well. Robert Elder, commander of the Air Force Cyberspace Command, told reporters in Washington at a recent breakfast that his newly formed command, which defends military data, communications and control networks, is learning how to disable an opponent’s computer networks and crash its databases.

“We want to go in and knock them out in the first round,” he said, as reported on Military.com.

i see this as yet another way to get us accustomed to endless war, regardless of the platform on which it's fought... it's a way to perpetuate massive spending on defense and national security, to insure that the population always has something to fear, and to prepare us for the possibility of giving up more of our freedoms - in this case, an internet fully accessible to everyone - to insure our safety... am i being too cynical here...? perhaps, but i think not...

november 2 last year...

Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne said the 8th Air Force would become the new Air Force Cyberspace Command.

"I am announcing the steps the Air Force is taking towards establishing an Air Force Cyberspace Command," the secretary said. "The new Cyberspace Command is designated as the 8th Air Force... under the leadership of (Lt. Gen. Robert J. "Bob" Elder Jr.) He will develop the force by reaching across all Air Force commands to draw appropriate leaders and appropriate personnel."

[...]

"The aim is to develop a major command that stands alongside Air Force Space Command and Air Combat Command as the provider of forces that the President, combatant commanders and the American people can rely on for preserving the freedom of access and commerce, in air, space and now cyberspace," Secretary Wynne said.

how fitting that the new responsibility gets assigned to the "air" force...

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