Monday, March 5, 2012

New Era of Warfare

In the "Fluff and Stuff" article, the author describes how the "video game universe aims to make players into acute and swift economists of attention." This combined with the "real-life military training migrating into electronic theater, as well as military weapons poses some interesting possibilities. Apparently, the combination of sophisticated information, gaming (in a sense) and military warfare is already happening.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57390124/stuxnet-computer-worm-opens-new-era-of-warfare/?tag=contentMain;contentBody

Stuxnet: Computer worm opens new era of warfare

By the fall of 2010, the consensus was that Iran's top secret uranium enrichment plant at Natanz was the target and that Stuxnet was a carefully constructed weapon designed to be carried into the plant on a corrupted laptop or thumb drive, then infect the system, disguise its presence, move through the network, changing computer code and subtly alter the speed of the centrifuges without the Iranians ever noticing. Sabotage by software.

O Murchu: Stuxnet's entire purpose is to control centrifuges. To make centrifuges speed up past what they're meant to spin at and to damage them. Certainly it would damage the uranium enrichment facility and they would need to be replaced.

Kroft: If the centrifuges were spinning too fast, wouldn't the operators at the plant know that?

O Murchu: Stuxnet was able to prevent the operators from seeing that on their screen. The operators would look at the screen to see what's happening with centrifuges and they wouldn't see that anything bad was happening.

We know from reverse engineering the attack codes that the attackers have full, and I mean this literally, full tactical knowledge of every damn detail of this plant. So you could say in a way they know the plant better than the Iranian operator.

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