JOHN ENTINGH - 26 MARCH 2012
Mankind has no greater enemy than itself. Despite the clever and innovative machines that strong warriors devise, it is the small things the warrior overlooks that eventually win out. When Europeans came to the Americas, they did not land on a sparsely populated shore. Although there is no pervasive agreement between scholars, the population in the Americas when Christopher Columbus set sail is estimated between 60 to over 100 million people.[1] When the Spaniards and Portuguese arrived in South America archeological evidence suggests that 15 million people populated the Aztec Empire and six million in the Inca Empire alone. It was not superior weapons or even military prowess that allowed a boatload of Europeans to conquer such vast empires, it was microscopic organisms the invaders had no knowledge of, yet carried every where they traveled. It was Eurasian diseases such as smallpox, influenza, bubonic plague and pneumonic plagues that devastated the Native Americans who had never developed immunity. Even the most conservative estimates hold that the Native American death toll due to these diseases was at an astonishing 80% by the end of the 17th century, eight million people in 1650 alone.[2] Surprisingly the warring Europeans that had been devastated by the “The Black Death” between 1348 and 1350 failed to make the connection. The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60 percent of Europe's population, reducing world population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in the 14th century.[3] However, the ever clever man did not miss the potential biological agents had for waging war as technology grew.
By World War I (1914–1918), the Imperial German government developed what they termed biological sabotage using anthrax and glanders (an infectious disease that occurs primarily in horses, mules, and donkeys). Although the results were not as devastating as hoped,[4] world powers still gathered to take strong measures by banning bioweapons in the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (that nearly every country ignored).[5] By the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and World War II (1939–1945), biological weapons were in full use. The Japanese launched biological warfare on the Chinese, and shortly thereafter Nazi Germany was openly producing biological weapons. The new danger with Germany was that the prior loss of life by intentional biological weapons had been limited due to poor delivery systems, but the Nazis had developed rockets to overcome that drawback. This gave the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada a justification to initiate their own biological-warfare development programs in 1941 that resulted in the weaponization of anthrax, brucellosis, and botulism toxin (Fear of the German program turned out to be vastly exaggerated.).[6] This is how mankind’s clever mind works: We take something we know little about, turn it into a weapon that kill most of the world’s population, and say it’s for our own protection.
That statement is not as facetious as one may think. Step back and take a look at how nuclear weapons have played out. Perhaps the first nuclear weapons were justified to end World War II. But in any case, the point is, that the United States spent a great deal of resources to produce this weapon, for our own protection, and has been consumed ever since with protecting us from the very weapon they developed. Of course we have to recognize the argument that nuclear weapons were going to be made anyway. Regardless, the same situation applies to all nuclear states. We have yet to exclude Russians, Chinese, Israelis, Koreans, or Iranians from mankind. I hold my ground; mankind has no greater enemy than itself.
Case in point, a computer worm was discovered in June 2010 that is called Stuxnet. The malware is spread via Microsoft Windows, and targets Siemens industrial software and equipment. The Siemens industrial software and equipment infected is literally the equipment that runs the world as we know it. These industrial systems run everything imaginable, traffic light systems, subway systems, power generating systems (including the grid and nuclear plants), food processing plants, warehouses, emergency alert systems, every form of manufacturing, hospitals, police and fire departments, and even the air traffic control systems. The danger from this worm is that it preys specifically on industrial systems and has a very complex programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.[7] That means it can be programmed to target a specific operating system and take over the running of the program unbeknownst to even the most observant operator.
CBS 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft did a piece on Stuxnet[8] that revealed some startling information. One of the interviews was with Liam O’ Murchu, an operations manager for computer virus security company Symantec. O’ Murchu was one of minds behind figuring out Stuxnet and explains how the worm was programmed to target industrial systems such as that the Iranians use to enrich fuel cells for nuclear weapons. The target of the worm, along with the sophistication, leaves little room for speculation that this is anything other than state sponsored technological warfare. Evidently, the program was spinning centrifuges too fast for the enrichment to work properly and at the same time was burning the equipment up. To the plant operators, everything seemed okay, their diagnostics and readings were on point. Stuxnet has the ability to run the equipment at one speed, but report to the operators another speed. The danger of this worm is that any manner of equipment could be taken over the same way and the operators have no idea. Kroft also interviewed Sean McGurk, one time leader of the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to secure U.S. systems from cyber attack. McGurk emphasized that very point: "You can download the actual source code of Stuxnet now and you can repackage it [and] point it back to wherever it came from." McGurk stated the biggest fear now was that a terrorist group or a rogue country could refashion the programmable malware to attack U.S. infrastructure like the power grid, adding: "They opened the box. They demonstrated the capability...it's not something that they can put back."
The most distressing point of the Stuxnet fiasco is the attitudes from the governmental bureaucrats. Kroft also interviewed retired Gen. Mike Hayden, former head of NSA and CIA, but denied being in office when the Stuxnet attack occurred, and denied knowing who was behind it. However, Hayden’s sentiments might well be an indicator of his colleagues. When Kroft asked him if it was a good idea to unleash something so dangerous to all: "This was a good idea, alright? But I also admit this was a big idea, too. The rest of the world is looking at this and saying, 'Clearly, someone has legitimated this kind of activity as acceptable.'" That sounds an awful lot like the justification for using nuclear weapons on Japan. Even worse, Hayden admits knowing “… there are those out there who can take a look at this...and maybe even attempt to turn it to their own purposes." That acknowledgement in and of itself shocks the conscious. The power brokers on high have no misunderstanding of how this type of cyber weapon can be turned back on the entire world, and simply shrug it off. Ralph Langner, another expert in industrial control systems, and who also was instrumental in analyzing Stuxnet, drove home the point about how easily this program could be reversed: "You just need a couple of millions…and it wouldn't take the resources of a government to find the right people…if I would be tasked with assembling a cyber force, yeah, I would know whom to approach. So that's not a real secret." Clearly the Iranian nuclear threat pales in comparison to that of U.S. and Israeli leaders that “legitimated this kind of activity as acceptable.”
Mankind has no greater enemy than itself.
[1] Alan Taylor (2002). American colonies; Volume 1 of The Penguin history of the United States, History of the United States Series. Penguin. p. 40.
[2] La catastrophe démographique (The Demographical Catastrophe), L'Histoire n°322, July–August 2007, p. 17.
[3] Austin Alchon, Suzanne (2003). A pest in the land: new world epidemics in a global perspective. University of New Mexico Press. p. 21.
[4] Koenig, Robert (2006), The Fourth Horseman: One Man's Secret Campaign to Fight the Great War in America, PublicAffairs.
[5] Ken Alibek and K Handelman (1999), Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World Trade From the Inside by the Man Who Ran It, New York, NY: Random House.
[6] Covert, Norman M. (2000), A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland, 4th Edition: 2000.
[7] Last-minute paper: An indepth look into Stuxnet. Virus Bulletin. http://www.virusbtn.com/conference/vb2010/abstracts/LastMinute7.xml.
[8] Kroft, Steve, (March 4, 2012), Former CIA head calls Stuxnet virus "good idea." http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57388982/fmr-cia-head-calls-stuxnet-virus-good-idea/
Mankind has no greater enemy than itself. Despite the clever and innovative machines that strong warriors devise, it is the small things the warrior overlooks that eventually win out. When Europeans came to the Americas, they did not land on a sparsely populated shore. Although there is no pervasive agreement between scholars, the population in the Americas when Christopher Columbus set sail is estimated between 60 to over 100 million people.[1] When the Spaniards and Portuguese arrived in South America archeological evidence suggests that 15 million people populated the Aztec Empire and six million in the Inca Empire alone. It was not superior weapons or even military prowess that allowed a boatload of Europeans to conquer such vast empires, it was microscopic organisms the invaders had no knowledge of, yet carried every where they traveled. It was Eurasian diseases such as smallpox, influenza, bubonic plague and pneumonic plagues that devastated the Native Americans who had never developed immunity. Even the most conservative estimates hold that the Native American death toll due to these diseases was at an astonishing 80% by the end of the 17th century, eight million people in 1650 alone.[2] Surprisingly the warring Europeans that had been devastated by the “The Black Death” between 1348 and 1350 failed to make the connection. The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30–60 percent of Europe's population, reducing world population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in the 14th century.[3] However, the ever clever man did not miss the potential biological agents had for waging war as technology grew.
By World War I (1914–1918), the Imperial German government developed what they termed biological sabotage using anthrax and glanders (an infectious disease that occurs primarily in horses, mules, and donkeys). Although the results were not as devastating as hoped,[4] world powers still gathered to take strong measures by banning bioweapons in the Geneva Protocol of 1925 (that nearly every country ignored).[5] By the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and World War II (1939–1945), biological weapons were in full use. The Japanese launched biological warfare on the Chinese, and shortly thereafter Nazi Germany was openly producing biological weapons. The new danger with Germany was that the prior loss of life by intentional biological weapons had been limited due to poor delivery systems, but the Nazis had developed rockets to overcome that drawback. This gave the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada a justification to initiate their own biological-warfare development programs in 1941 that resulted in the weaponization of anthrax, brucellosis, and botulism toxin (Fear of the German program turned out to be vastly exaggerated.).[6] This is how mankind’s clever mind works: We take something we know little about, turn it into a weapon that kill most of the world’s population, and say it’s for our own protection.
That statement is not as facetious as one may think. Step back and take a look at how nuclear weapons have played out. Perhaps the first nuclear weapons were justified to end World War II. But in any case, the point is, that the United States spent a great deal of resources to produce this weapon, for our own protection, and has been consumed ever since with protecting us from the very weapon they developed. Of course we have to recognize the argument that nuclear weapons were going to be made anyway. Regardless, the same situation applies to all nuclear states. We have yet to exclude Russians, Chinese, Israelis, Koreans, or Iranians from mankind. I hold my ground; mankind has no greater enemy than itself.
Case in point, a computer worm was discovered in June 2010 that is called Stuxnet. The malware is spread via Microsoft Windows, and targets Siemens industrial software and equipment. The Siemens industrial software and equipment infected is literally the equipment that runs the world as we know it. These industrial systems run everything imaginable, traffic light systems, subway systems, power generating systems (including the grid and nuclear plants), food processing plants, warehouses, emergency alert systems, every form of manufacturing, hospitals, police and fire departments, and even the air traffic control systems. The danger from this worm is that it preys specifically on industrial systems and has a very complex programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.[7] That means it can be programmed to target a specific operating system and take over the running of the program unbeknownst to even the most observant operator.
CBS 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft did a piece on Stuxnet[8] that revealed some startling information. One of the interviews was with Liam O’ Murchu, an operations manager for computer virus security company Symantec. O’ Murchu was one of minds behind figuring out Stuxnet and explains how the worm was programmed to target industrial systems such as that the Iranians use to enrich fuel cells for nuclear weapons. The target of the worm, along with the sophistication, leaves little room for speculation that this is anything other than state sponsored technological warfare. Evidently, the program was spinning centrifuges too fast for the enrichment to work properly and at the same time was burning the equipment up. To the plant operators, everything seemed okay, their diagnostics and readings were on point. Stuxnet has the ability to run the equipment at one speed, but report to the operators another speed. The danger of this worm is that any manner of equipment could be taken over the same way and the operators have no idea. Kroft also interviewed Sean McGurk, one time leader of the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to secure U.S. systems from cyber attack. McGurk emphasized that very point: "You can download the actual source code of Stuxnet now and you can repackage it [and] point it back to wherever it came from." McGurk stated the biggest fear now was that a terrorist group or a rogue country could refashion the programmable malware to attack U.S. infrastructure like the power grid, adding: "They opened the box. They demonstrated the capability...it's not something that they can put back."
The most distressing point of the Stuxnet fiasco is the attitudes from the governmental bureaucrats. Kroft also interviewed retired Gen. Mike Hayden, former head of NSA and CIA, but denied being in office when the Stuxnet attack occurred, and denied knowing who was behind it. However, Hayden’s sentiments might well be an indicator of his colleagues. When Kroft asked him if it was a good idea to unleash something so dangerous to all: "This was a good idea, alright? But I also admit this was a big idea, too. The rest of the world is looking at this and saying, 'Clearly, someone has legitimated this kind of activity as acceptable.'" That sounds an awful lot like the justification for using nuclear weapons on Japan. Even worse, Hayden admits knowing “… there are those out there who can take a look at this...and maybe even attempt to turn it to their own purposes." That acknowledgement in and of itself shocks the conscious. The power brokers on high have no misunderstanding of how this type of cyber weapon can be turned back on the entire world, and simply shrug it off. Ralph Langner, another expert in industrial control systems, and who also was instrumental in analyzing Stuxnet, drove home the point about how easily this program could be reversed: "You just need a couple of millions…and it wouldn't take the resources of a government to find the right people…if I would be tasked with assembling a cyber force, yeah, I would know whom to approach. So that's not a real secret." Clearly the Iranian nuclear threat pales in comparison to that of U.S. and Israeli leaders that “legitimated this kind of activity as acceptable.”
Mankind has no greater enemy than itself.
[1] Alan Taylor (2002). American colonies; Volume 1 of The Penguin history of the United States, History of the United States Series. Penguin. p. 40.
[2] La catastrophe démographique (The Demographical Catastrophe), L'Histoire n°322, July–August 2007, p. 17.
[3] Austin Alchon, Suzanne (2003). A pest in the land: new world epidemics in a global perspective. University of New Mexico Press. p. 21.
[4] Koenig, Robert (2006), The Fourth Horseman: One Man's Secret Campaign to Fight the Great War in America, PublicAffairs.
[5] Ken Alibek and K Handelman (1999), Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World Trade From the Inside by the Man Who Ran It, New York, NY: Random House.
[6] Covert, Norman M. (2000), A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland, 4th Edition: 2000.
[7] Last-minute paper: An indepth look into Stuxnet. Virus Bulletin. http://www.virusbtn.com/conference/vb2010/abstracts/LastMinute7.xml.
[8] Kroft, Steve, (March 4, 2012), Former CIA head calls Stuxnet virus "good idea." http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57388982/fmr-cia-head-calls-stuxnet-virus-good-idea/
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