espionage Archives

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Exolymph creator Sonya Mann's active website is Sonya, Supposedly.

September 13, 2016

Cyber Arms Racing

Cybersecurity researcher Bruce Schneier published a provocatively titled blog post — “Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet” — which can either be interpreted as shocking or blasé, depending on your perspective. The gist is that sources within high-level web infrastructure companies told Schneier that they’re facing increasingly sophisticated DDoS attacks:

“These attacks are significantly larger than the ones they’re used to seeing. They last longer. They’re more sophisticated. And they look like probing. One week, the attack would start at a particular level of attack and slowly ramp up before stopping. The next week, it would start at that higher point and continue. And so on, along those lines, as if the attacker were looking for the exact point of failure.”

Schneier goes on to speculate that the culprit is a state actor, likely Russia or China. So, I have a few reactions:

1) I would be very surprised in the opposite case, if Schneier asserted that no one was trying to figure out how to take down the internet. Just like the executives of public companies have a fiduciary duty to be as evil as possible in order to make money for their shareholders, government agencies have a mandate to be as evil as possible in order to maintain global power.

When I say “evil” I don’t mean that they’re malicious. I mean they end up doing evil things. And then their adversaries do evil things too, upping the ante. Etc, etc.

2) Schneier’s disclosure may end up in the headlines, but the disclosure itself is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Venkatesh Rao said (in reference to Trump, but it’s still relevant), “It takes very low energy to rattle media into sound and fury, ‘break the Internet’ etc. Rattling the deep state takes 10,000x more energy.”

3) I don’t expect whoever is figuring out how to “DDoS ALL THE THINGS!” to actually do it anytime soon. Take this with a grain of salt, since I’m not a NatSec expert by any means, but it would be counterproductive for China, Russia, or the United States itself to take the internet offline under normal circumstances. “Normal circumstances” is key — the expectations change if an active physical conflict breaks out, as some Hacker News commenters noted.

I suspect that being able to take down the internet is somewhat akin to having nukes — it’s a capability that you’d like your enemies to be aware of, but not necessarily one that you want to exercise.

I also like what “Random Guy 17” commented on Schneier’s original post: “An attack on a service is best done by an attacker that doesn’t need that service.”

March 26, 2016

Surveillance Status Quo

“Every country knows [that telecoms networks are] vulnerable, but no one wants to fix the problem — because they exploit that vulnerability, too.” — Robert Kolker in a Bloomberg article about StingRays

Here we’re confronted with the problem of incentives. Police are incentivized to spy on citizens, whether innocent or guilty. The success of law enforcement is measured by arrests, not by the population’s peace and happiness. Definitely not by how well civil liberties have been protected. None of that fits in a spreadsheet! Nation-states are incentivized to spy on each other, for the sake of regular ol’ espionage as well as obtaining commercial secrets. It’s desirable to keep an eye on the neighbors. What are they up to? When and where are they going to sell their newest invention?

Photo via Thierry Ehrmann.

Maybe this sounds paranoid, but it’s not. The US increasingly relies on its information economy, which means that data and insight are both especially valuable. Other developed countries are similarly beholden to ideas and intellectual property. One of the profound dangers posed by China is its disregard for patents and copyrights, and its subsequent explosion of innovation. Being surpassed is America’s direst fear. We need to make ourselves great again, right?!

I’ve written about apathy before. It’s the enemy of the entrepreneur and the activist. In a world full or products and causes, it’s tough to cajole someone into caring. Who has the time? And, more crucially, who has the correct incentive structure? Mister Average Joe doesn’t need to worry about surveillance — it doesn’t impact him immediately or concretely — and consequently he simply doesn’t bother himself with the subject.

Every time I say something like this, I’m accused on complacency. And I guess that’s fair. I’m resigned to reality, and I don’t try to agitate against the status quo. Selfishness makes me more interested in surviving and excelling than in overturning power structures.

“I said yes to the mandatory government implants […] because I, like everybody else, just wanted to be safe.” — short story by Maverix75

January 24, 2016

Tiny Friendly Robots

Nanobots were first developed for medical purposes, of course. That’s where the funding was — both pharmaceutical companies and government grants supported the initial research. Army surgeons used the earliest models in the field, and eventually big hospitals could afford fleets of little medbots. Before long nanobots could do more than clear internal blockages and seal wounds. They could purify bodily fluids. Dispense chemicals. Stimulate particular areas of the brain.

That last application was tricky to develop. Predictably, as soon as the tech was ready, Congress wanted to futz around with legislation. For a while, people who could afford it traveled to less-regulated parts of the world for treatment. Neither mental illness nor cancer were solved, exactly, but they were a lot easier to deal with.

Artwork by psion005.

The original nanobot swarms had to be injected into the patient’s bloodstream. But the programming rapidly became more sophisticated, and the info-storage hardware was engineered to be extremely tiny. Third-generation nanobots could be swallowed. They’d swim to the area where they were needed. Or, to be more precise, where they were directed to go.

The espionage possibilities were obvious — spike a plate of salmon crostini at a party and hack all the guests’ pleasure receptors. Making someone too happy was a good way to disarm them, literally and figuratively. Nanobots were a drug and a scalpel combined. Anyone who thought they were worth targeting became very cautious about what they consumed.

Ordinary people, however, were thrilled. It took a little while, naturally — ten years had to pass before commercial nanobots really took off. When mothers give something to their schoolchildren, that’s when the big money starts rolling in! The grind of daily life and the respite of entertainment were both impacted. Nanobots regulated your emotions during the workday. When you got home, they made whatever you wanted to do better than it had been a decade ago.

VR enviros were touted as immersive in the 2020s, but now your brain didn’t need to be tricked — the holo scenes and the nanobots had integrated instructions. You really felt the sensations that you were supposed to. What a relief!

Tag: espionage

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