Comments on: Gates’ China Choice

By: Robot.Economist

Robot.Economist — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:02:30 +0000

jvd — I obviously can’t get into the details, but the services are working on defenses for their information networks.
I met some of the Army’s “information assurance” scientists (read: white-hatted hackers) last spring. They were pretty young (one was even yonger than me and I’m only 24), but they really knew their stuff.
The lead scientist was pretty confident that the Chinese wouldn’t be able compromise any major DOD networks. He wasn’t able to answer questions about public networks or the IT resources of other agencies though.
He also dropped two interesting tidbits in conversation. First, U.S. info assurance experiments rarely occur in public nets because of privacy laws. This makes it difficult for the public to gauge network defense efforts without tipping our hand of capabilities.
Second, the interagency network defense process has been deadlocked for years. This has made it difficult for info assurance geeks in different agencies to work together. Even if the DOD generates solid defense systems, it may take a while to spread them to the rest of the government.

By: BT

BT — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:08:06 +0000

I doubt Gates will tackle the anti-China crowd directly in the Pentagon. His first priority is some face saving strategies in Iraq. Maybe he can divert some funds away from projects that don’t help the GWOT and other man power intensive CWOT operations. Unfortunately, Congress and their “build it in my district” projects won’t like that.In my opinion, the Army/Marines, deserves 70 percent of all procurement and operational budget for the next 30 years (minus the FCS porker).
The Middle East is the only region, and the last, that has a high probability of imploding into chaos; thus making that a priority. It will be up to the next administration to decide if we want China, and their one trillion USD reserves, to be an ally or an enemy. Please no more Neo-Cons, and Neo-Realists, this is the 21st century. What I wouldn

By: Francis

Francis — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 04:09:41 +0000

“Nearly $10 billion a year goes to ballistic missile interceptors originally designed to stop Russian missiles“
Bullshit.
1. That’s the entire MDA budget–not all of it is spent on the interceptors.
2. The interceptors were NOT “originally designed to stop Russian missiles”. GMD isn’t Safeguard. In fact, the OBVs are built by Orbital Sciences. The design is derived from their commercial launchers and was contracted in 2002. Interestingly enough, the design of PARTS of these systems is based on the Peacekeeper! So, the OBV ancestors went from threatening Russia with nukes, to commercial launch vehicles. Now the OBV carries a kill vehicle designed to intercept nukes. An ironic twist of fact indeed.
3. MDA’s stated purpose is to provide a limited defense. Your insinuation that GMD is the old Star Wars and is still trying to fight the Cold War is rather misplaced.

By: Fergie

Fergie — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 04:02:03 +0000

Ack.
Should your readers so desire, there is even more
background on this topic:
http://www.fcw.com/article94650-05–25-06-Web
[and]
http://news.com.com/Security+experts+lift+lid+on+Chinese+hack+attacks/2100-7349_3-5969516.html
…are good starters.
This is general “public disclosure” info — most
of the real details are still classified. But you
get the general idea…
– ferg

By: Noah Shachtman

Noah Shachtman — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:01:26 +0000

Of course. Fixing.

By: Fergie

Fergie — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 23:39:33 +0000

Actually, the mention was not of “tightened rein”, but rather “Titan Rain” — a codename given to suspect Chinese cyber penetration operations.
For background, see:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1098961,00.html
– ferg