Re: [GZG] [HIST] Military Hackers

Allan spake thusly upon matters weighty: 
> I disagree, for the same reason that military ground transportation
isn't
> separate from civilian ground transportation. What is obvious is that
you can
> cripple a nation without even TOUCHING it's military data
communications
> systems. Collapse the US economy, and it won't matter how good the
military
> is. If the hackers are terrorists in a nation that does not condone
the
> activity, there isn't much you can do militarily anyway.
> 
> No, I think in the future a general hardening of the infrastructure
will be
> needed. Unfortunately, governments have to realize for this to happen
> companies and individuals need strong crypto. I fear it will take a
failure on
> a massive scale for this to become obvious...

The US government has several branches that have undertaken studies 
to this effect (CERT and others) and there exist plans to do just 
that. Global infoterrorism and corporate espionage now make this a 
real concern. 

And yes, I agree with Allan, disable the civilian side of a country, 
and the military won't last long.  

> >I could see a "commando" type unit raiding one of these commo points
to
> >break into their network.  It would make an interesting scenario in a
SGII
> >campaign game, at the very least.  If you succeed in getting your
> >"specialists" into a comms bunker, the enemy force suffers in the
next
> >couple of games from poor command-and-control - all kinds of game
effects
> >you could use...
> 
> Hmmm. I see this as too easy to cut off. If I knew my comms bunker was
about
> to fall, I'd just cut that node off the network. Stop taking anything
from it.
> I suspect that this would be a small, special forces operation (or an
> intelligence op) ala Cyberpunk-like activities. I don't see this being
an
> overt militarty operation on the scale used in SG2.

Of course, you can run such ops in SG2. The problem is once you know 
you've been compromised, then you take steps to limit the damage. 
It's only if you don't know you've had the virus inserted that you 
have a real exposure risk. 

Read War in 2020 (from an author whose afterward is APPAULING in 
sentiment - you'd think everyone in Europe was a write off, every 
Muslim was a nutbar, and America was the only bastion of 
civiilization in existence ever... - Don't get me wrong, a great 
country, but this guy was over the edge). It features a commando raid 
to get access to a theatre mainframe to insert a virus before central 
command can realize to destroy worldwide computer assets and an SDI 
network. Again, this only works because one gains access ot the 
system in such a way that the other nodes are not warned and cannot 
take counter actions.  

> I personally think that Infowar will be so different from conventional
warfare
> as to be impossible to game with current miniatures rules.

Or any rules ('cept maybe a copy of SJG Hacker) that we have 
available today. 
 
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Thomas Barclay		     
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Fax: (613) 831-8255

 "C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot.  C++ makes
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