[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [dvd-discuss] Hackers = terrorists, an analysis



On Wed, 26 Sep 2001 Michael.A.Rolenz@aero.org wrote:

> Other than being "networks" it's not obvious what the parallels are or how 
> once could exploit them. Elaborate upon the "DOS attacks, man in the 
> middle attacks, worms, all have realworld parallels for attacking an 
> organization like this." 

I wasn't going to elaborate too much since it seemed offtopic.  But since
you ask :).  A man in the middle attack might take the form of getting an
agent integrated into the orgniaztion who speads misinformation in a way
that disrupts the network (or serves as a spy, etc).  Basically it is
putting somebody in between legitimate communications and hijacking them
to some advantage.  

The DOS attack metaphor comes down to attacking communications
infrastructure that they use.  Unfortunately most of the DOS attacks would
also likely destroy communications infrastructure used by other
people.  Another possible interprtation is to flood their channels of
information with so much crap that they aren't sure what is true and what
is false.  I'm not sure how exactly you would implement such a plan but
it's a thought.

Admittedly the worm metaphor is a bit of a stretch :).  It gets back to
the notion of spreading misinformation and would be seeded into the system
by a man in the middle type attack.  How that information would spread
through an organization would be wormlike (hopefully).  Basically you give
some member of an organization usefully incorrect informtion and hopefully
that information spreads through the organization.  This might be
information indicating betrayal within the ranks, etc.

Another possible parallel is in how the RIAA dealt with Napster.  Napster
was effectively destroyed but since the overall motivations that created
napster are still there, other channels for that activity flourished and
have (debatably) become bigger than napster originally was.  Furthermore
the new form is actually much harder to deal with because it is
decentralized.  

If we get rid of Bin Laden, will we see the same thing happen?  That
because the anger that lead to his growing power is still there we will
end up fighting an endless series of increasingly nastier and hard to
track down Bin Laden's.  This implies that the way to really solve the
problem is to treat that anger, not attack a specific incarnation of it.

One final thought on this metaphor.  If you look at the Internet there are
key break points.  If you can take out enough key points you can, at the
very least, hurt the efficiency of the network (even if you can't destroy
it).  On the scale of human networks, routing updates, if you will, take
much longer and are less efficient.  So the effect of having key
distribution points eliminated is more signficant.  This could get back to
the notion of DOS attacks as well I suppose. 

Admittedly these are not particularly new concepts in the realm of
intelligence, but the metaphor does provide useful (IMHO) clues as to what
will actually work and what won't.