Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

Fri Sep 6 21:26:24 UTC 2002

At 2:01 PM -0700 2002/09/06, Jeff Shultz wrote:

>  Said tube electronics were apparently more survivable against EMP
>  effects. Or was that the point you were making? I think the real
>  surprise was a toggle switch that Belenko said was supposed to be
>  flipped only when told over the radio by higher headquarters. It
>  changed the characteristics of the radar.... sort of a "go to war" mode
>  vs. the standard training mode.

	I wouldn't be too surprised.  The Patriot has a clock problem, 
and can't be left turned on for an extended period of time.  There 
are plenty of military systems everywhere in the world that have 
various operational issues that may not materially reduce their 
effectiveness in their official role, but which may make them less 
suitable for other roles.

>  An interesting, if not totally professional evaluation of something
>  like this is in Steven Coonts book "America" where terrorists take over
>  an American nuclear submarine armed with a new type of Tomahawk warhead
>  - an EMP warhead. One of the early targets is AOL HQ in Reston, VA., (I
>  almost cheered).

	These things exist.  I would be more concerned about drive-by 
attacks with HERF (High Energy Radio Frequency) guns, capable of 
generating an EMP field that can wipe out RAM on any computer device 
that is not suitably protected (Tempest shielding or being in a 
SCIF?).  These things can be made relatively portable and 
undetectable until such time as they are turned on -- unlike nuclear 
devices that can be detected by Geiger counters, etc....  A drive-by 
with a van would be a lot easier to organize than hi-jacking a 
nuclear-equipped submarine.

	BTW, AOL headquarters is in Sterling, not Reston.  It's not that 
far away, so I can understand why people not from that area would not 
be aware of the difference.

>  Coonts has an inflated idea of what an outage there would do the the
>  internet... but there is a lot of other stuff fairly nearby, isn't
>  there?

	What do you mean by "nearby"?  Do you count the "TerraPOP"?  Do 
you count Langley?

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

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