Cyberwar vs Cyberintelligence
Ellen Nakashima and John Pomfret have an interesting article on China’s exploration of internet-based national security capabilities. But one unfortunate aspect of it is a tendency to run together intelligence activities with warfighting activities.
They open, for example, with the fact that the Chinese government appears to have intercepted confidential emails from the McCain and Obama campaigns and then write this:
American presidential campaigns are not the only targets. China is significantly boosting its capabilities in cyberspace as a way to gather intelligence and, in the event of war, hit the U.S. government in a weak spot, U.S. officials and experts say. Outgunned and outspent in terms of traditional military hardware, China apparently hopes that by concentrating on holes in the U.S. security architecture — its communications and spy satellites and its vast computer networks — it will collect intelligence that could help it counter the imbalance.
“In the event of war” both the United States and China are equipped with intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads. When the PRC already has the ability to destroy Los Angeles, worrying that in the future they may add the ability to read our email doesn’t make a ton of sense. By contrast, the ability to read email is a perfectly useful peacetime capability for a government that’s perhaps interested in what people’s emails say. But this is more or less on a par with longstanding signals intelligence as practiced by all majors countries—it’s not some kind of new superweapon that neutralizes our considerable military superiority.
26 Responses to “Cyberwar vs Cyberintelligence”
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November 12th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Not to get myself grouped with the “Ohnoes! All our base will belong to China!” camp, but I think there are probably multiple levels of conflict that fall short of “nuclear exchange” where “capabilities in cyberspace” might provide a distinct advantage. I won’t disagree, though, that it does seem to generally amount to a slightly different – but mainly not – kind of espionage.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I can guarantee you that the CIA and DOD are trying just as hard to read the private communications of the head honchos (military and civilian) of China as they are to intercept communications within the upper branches of the American government. Information is power, and its not just useful “in the event of war”. Intercepted communications can give you a necessary upper hand in diplomatic negotiations as well. This will be a game that both sides will take deadly seriously. And right now, it seems the USA might be losing?
November 12th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
It’s not the reading email part that’s alarming, it’s the hit the U.S. government in a weak spot thing that’s worrying. What constitutes a weak spot? I dunno, but a casual observer may worry about things like our banking and finance sector, electrical grid, air traffic control system, etc.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Satellites are a weak spot. Our military is quite dependent on them.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
MattY is right to identify it as the contemporary incarnation of signal intelligence. I don’t think you can usefully assess the relative state of such efforts based on coverage in print dailies, and I certainly don’t think presidential campaigns have proved themselves to be reasonable yardsticks for the national security practices of the country (or even a successful online retailer, frankly).
November 12th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
How much is pre-installed by Chinese manufacturers?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6666170/
Five years of PC installations could mean Chinese back door programming is pervasive. That is, if they built a Trojan Horse.
If we can’t keep out deadly pet food, tires, toothpaste, toys, milk products, and heparin, could we find malicious programming?
November 12th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I have McAfee security software at home. One of the things you can do is to look at a map representing the point of origin of all atacks against systems protected by McAfee software. Essentially, all attacks eminate from China. The percentage of hackers living outside of China is probably lower than the percentage of people of Chinese ancestry living outside of China.
While they might not be as big of a security threat as some people fear, they sure are an enormous pain in the ass.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
So how did the Chinese spy on the Dalai Lama’s computers, extracting sensitive documents?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7970471.stm
November 12th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
This sentence could be made stronger, as in fact all major countries do it even to their own allies. Yes, the US spies on other NATO countries, let alone China.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
On Bush’s watch, U.S. suffered electronic Pearl Harbor
LEWIS: Some unknown foreign power, and honestly, we don’t know who it is, broke into the Department of Defense, to the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, probably the Department of Energy, probably NASA. They broke into all of the high tech agencies, all of the military agencies, and downloaded terabytes of information.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/on-bushs-watch-us-suffere_n_352204.html
It depends on what the Chinese (or others) do with what they have.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Surely the concern is that having found ways to penetrate our “secure” computer systems then the Chinese could use those portals to wreck real damage on our entire infrastructure.
Does anyone doubt that the US military has worked on developing exactly those weapons?
Matty wants us to believe it’s like the Soviets learning that we were developing a super bomb when in reality it is more like the Soviets getting the blueprints for Fat Boy.
November 12th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Another question, of course, is: why couldn’t they hack into our nuclear weapon system? Or our defense systems (a la Israel)?
November 12th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Or our Congress (a la Israel)?
November 12th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Seems to me the Chinese and Europeans have moved into a post war world where the idea of fighting a real war as opposed to skirmishes here and there is ludicrous. As in, “Fight the Americans? Why the fuck would we do that?” The email reading can prove very lucrative in business and technology espionage though.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
kid destroyer: “Another question, of course, is: why couldn’t they hack into our nuclear weapon system? Or our defense systems (a la Israel)?”
My understanding was that firing nuclear weapons required the physical intervention of 2 or more human operators with synchronized keys, and cannot be done solely by electronic means.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Or our nervous systems! Hell, did you see what Jeff Goldblum did with a lone mac laptop in Independence Day? Somebody spread around some cybersecurity grant money, quick!
Actually, though, your rhetorical question has real answers. Note that all of the examples in this articles concern non-government systems. Are government systems wholly secure? Of course not — look at NASA (the more employed geeks capable of setting up a server at your agency, the more it’s likely to be hacked). But people who work on serious systems take them, well, seriously, and they tend to avoid hooking firewall-less Windows ME boxes up to our missile silos.
Critical networks are not connected to the internet in such an incredibly naive manner. Put simply: you can’t get there from here.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
MY “When the PRC already has the ability to destroy Los Angeles, worrying that in the future they may add the ability to read our email doesn’t make a ton of sense.”
China’s window for destroying Los Angeles is closing fast, Matt. It may have already closed already.
Japan ALONE will soon have the capability to knock out China’s entire land based ICBM force should the Chinese attempt a first or second strike launch. Working with Raytheon out of the New Mexico desert, the Japanese just finished conducting two successful surface to space missile intercepts using their own, new, PAC 3 version of the Patriot STS missile system.
This means Japan will be able to immediately and confidently deploy their own land based PAC 3’s to augment their growing array of American sea-based (Aegis) SM-3 ICBM/killer missiles.
Taiwan, as well, has been working with Raytheon, since 2007, to construct its own PAC 3 anti-ballistic missile system. South Korea, after many decades, really, of dithering, recently reached an agreement with the United States to deploy on their soil SM-3 and PAC 3 batteries by as early as 2011. I think their northern brothers recent psychotic missile tests finally changed their mind.
Matt, China is surrounded. In the very near future, it seems highly unlikely if not impossible that China could get one of its 80-120 land based ICBM’s all the way to Los Angeles without Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan destroying each and every one before they even entered subspace orbit.
The United States would not likely have to lift even a finger to stop an ICBM attack originating from the Chinese mainland. The US would only have to concentrate on stopping the launch of a nuclear volley from a Chinese submarine or surface ship, a highly unlikely scenario considering we have an overwhelming numerical and technological edge on the open seas.
By no further out than 2015-18, then, only with extreme luck will the Chinese be able to strike the American heartland, at all. PERHAPS, 1 or 2 relatively small-payload nukes, launched from a sea platform, might get lucky and find their way through -to Los Angeles, or Buffalo. Still, this hardly represents a credible retaliatory capability on their part, does it?
What would you do, Matt, if you were China, and facing these long odds. You must have a credible response, if attacked. Correct?
I know what I would do. I would develop the ability to knock out America’s entire electric grid from within, whenever I felt like it. I would seek to possess the ability that if attacked, I could damage the enemy’s grid so utterly that it could never function in any modern sense again.
That, in opinion, is China’s only future realistic second strike option, to posses the ability to send the US back to the Stone Age, and to let US know that they have that capability.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
All those anti-missile systems require working satellite systems.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
The odds that either side will use nukes are vanishingly small. The future (the present, too) is about novel means for achieving advantage (war by other means.)
My guess is that the US remains inside China’s decision loop, i.e., that we can gather and respond to new information much faster than they can, just as we are superior along every other dimension of military capability. We certainly need to keep it that way.
Another thought: China has, for thousands of years, been a nonfactor as a military power. They’ve been successfully invaded over and over, and have never created anything like an “empire”, unless you count Tibet and Xinjian. Could they even conquer Taiwan without destroying it? Their history is of merchants and scholars, not warriors.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
YA CAN’T HIT ME!!
Now, Max424 puts out a pretty good well written idea that the other guy The [PDRC] Peoples Democratic Republic of China are a bunch of dummies, with little or no common sense;
Max424 Says: By no further out than 2015-18, then, only with extreme luck will the Chinese be able to strike the American heartland, at all. PERHAPS, 1 or 2 relatively small-payload nukes, launched from a sea platform, might get lucky and find their way through -to Los Angeles, or Buffalo. Still, this hardly represents a credible retaliatory capability on their part, does it?
Triathlon Replys: Never say Never, The Chi-Com, held the American-Israeli Empire to a draw in Korea, and help defeat it in Vietnam, with Chinese Volunteers, and are the New Economic Power House of the [21st] Century with the Empire do to complete collapse within [10] ten year, a decade.
The Empire couldn’t stop a [9/11] from a Non-State Power but is going to prevent it from a [21st] Century Power House, State, that doesn’t pass common sense or the smell test.
The Japanese will never be able to hit Hawaii or sink the battle ships moored there, December 7th, 1941.
But, it was a very well written and taught thru idea.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
[DAUNTING CHALLENGES]
Now, once again we have found an interesting article worth notice on [www.TheGlobeAndMail.Com], by Mark S. Smith posted from WASHINGTON — The Associated Press Published on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 12:56PM EST Last updated on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009 12:57PM EST, entitled [Obama faces daunting challenges during Far East tour], but what caught my eye was one of the return comments of the many intelligent ones posted by recommend if your reading the article and joining in on the commentary.
[Louis Robert]
“The US ambassador to Afghanistan has dramatically intervened in the debate about troop reinforcements, warning President Obama against committing tens of thousands of extra troops to the country.” (timesonline.co.uk)
“Obama fails to resuscitate the Middle East peace process. ” (guardian.co.uk)
1.Iraq is still on.
2. Guantanamo is still open.
3. Rendition program is still flourishing.
4. North and South Korea are at it again.
5. Helping colored “revolution” in Iran.
6. Unemployment at home is still rising [17%] Seventeen Percent Actual.
7. Economy is still crawling at best, Stock-Market [30%] Thirty Percent over rated, and the [S&P 500] Standards and Poor, [40%] Forty Percent over rated.
Sohu, China – Why Should China Reassure the U.S.?, by Zhang Zhixin:
The U.S. has demanded that China provide “strategic reassurance,” but what kind of “reassurance” can the U.S. provide for China?
With regards to issue concerning Taiwan, Tibet and China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity: on the one hand, the U.S. is constantly unwilling to abandon its sale of arms to Taiwan, and tries to impede the peaceful unification of the two; on the other hand, the U.S. makes eyes at radical separatists, making pretences of preserving religions, human rights and freedom in order to intervene in Chinese domestic policy. With regards to trade, the U.S. uses the excuse of protecting its industries and jobs to engage in trade protectionism. With regards to military communications, the U.S. continues to call on China to be open and transparent; however, using congressional legislation as an excuse, the U.S. has continually obstructed substantial contact between the two countries.
… when the U.S. demands that China provide “strategic reassurance,” what kind of “reassurance” can the U.S. provide for China? If the U.S. holds a reasonable hope of being able to build a strategic foundation for the long-term and stable development of China-U.S. relations, then it must not only provide “strategic reassurance” on the question of China’s core concerns, but it must feasibly act on this provision.”
“Daunting challenges”?
[DAUNTING CHALLENGES]
LOUIS ROBERT ASK: The U.S. has demanded that China provide “strategic reassurance,” but what kind of “reassurance” can the U.S. provide for China?
TRIATHLON REPLYS: With the end of American-Israeli Empire comes the end of the [MIC] the Military Industrial Complex of the Empire, the [Strategic Reassurance] that must be demanded by [PDRC] The Peoples Democratic Republic of China, a membership nation of the [BRIC] Brazil, The Russian Federation, India, and [PDRC] The Peoples Democratic Republic of China, the [21st] Century Spheres of Global Community Influence, is that within this decade not later than [2012] ALL [MIC] forces be removed from Taiwan [Nationalist China], Korea. That the [ROK] Republic of Korea be united with the [PDRK] Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea and Taiwan accept its role as a providence state of the [PDRC], under peaceful terms, under the Hong Kong example.
To that end the American-Israeli Empire must stop all sales of arms to the Nationalist Chinese Government on the Providence of Taiwan, which is impeding the peaceful re-unification of the providence with mainland China.
The American-Israeli Empire must immediately cease its interference in [PDRC] internal domestic affairs and its dealing with those states within its Political, Military, and Economic Sphere of Influence.
Japan should make its own demands that within this decade occupation troops of the American-Israeli Empire be removed from Japanese Territory.
There is a cost to the end of the American-Israeli Empire
HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN
November 12th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
While interning at a not-to-be-named intelligence agency, I was talking with a co-worker there.
He said that if you sent an e-mail over NIPRNet or SIPRNet, you might as well CC the e-mail to Chinese intelligence.
November 13th, 2009 at 1:53 am
@18 wiley: “All those anti-missile systems require working satellite system”
Actually they don’t, wiley. The Pac 3 and the SM-3 missile batteries tap into land and sea based radar systems, not satellites. 10 missiles per radar installation, preferably the new X-band Radar, which, according to the sources I’ve read, can identify the laces on a softball out to 2,500 kilometers. If an enemy ICBM reaches subspace and acquires a flat trajectory, satellite information for mid course correction of the PAC and SM-3 missile hunters might be required. But the idea is to knock out the ICBM, using only radar, before it reaches subspace.
The X-band Radars are expensive. The sea based version is close to $1 billion, but that hasn’t stopped us from floating a half/dozen of these babies in the North Pacific already. The land based version is much cheaper. I believe it’s in the $200-300 million range. The land based version is popping everywhere -all over Eastern Europe, Norway, Greenland, the Aleutians, Japan, Taiwan, and Iraq. Afghanistan? I don’t know. It’s perfect spot for this new and powerful technology. Most of China’s missile silos are located in their western provinces. From the northeast corner of Afghanistan, you could skip a stone and hit a Chinese silo. It’s a perfect spot for an X-band.
The missiles themselves are dirt cheap, in the $10-15 million range. That means, for $10 billion, we get 700 or 800 of these things. For $100 billion, we would have such an overkill capacity that the missile boys -for fun and sport- could target jackrabbits and kangaroos.
November 13th, 2009 at 2:17 am
I hate to say this, but the US Navy stands the most to gain from the physical removal -due to Global Warming- of the Arctic ice cap. Aegis warships and other vessels capable of launching the sea based SM-3’s will become permanent floating missile platforms in the Arctic Ocean.
Once the Arctic is covered, so to speak, Eurasia will be completely surrounded, at close range, by thousands of anti-ballistic missiles. The US will have the ability to deliver the old one-two. One, nuclear first strike. Two, attack any ICBM that survives the strike -basically destroy every single enemy nuke while it is still firing up in its launch pad.
November 14th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Max424 – interesting idea, but the SM-3 and PAC-3 are not capable of intercepting actual ICBMs. They’re meant to be used against short and medium range ballistic missiles. While it’s not out of the question that an SM-3/PAC-3 defense could take out a few incoming ICBMs, it’s highly unlikely that an all-out barrage would be stopped, even considering the rather limited inventory of ICBMs in China. There’s an article at Global Security that discusses SM-3 and PAC-3 capabilities, if you’re interested.
Regarding the utility of intercepting e-mail: yes, this is not a radically new threat. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth addressing. Recall that the Battle of Midway was a success for the US, in large part because we had hacked into Japanese communications. Even very significant advantages in capability can be neutralized if the enemy knows what you’re planning.
November 14th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Also: I’m not sure where you’re getting your data about X band radars. 1) There are not “half a dozen of these babies in the North Pacific”. There’s count ‘em, one – the SBX-1, which is a huge X-band system built into a self-propelled oil platform. The good news is that you only need one. There’s a similar system, known as COBRA JUDY, installed in USNS OBSERVATION ISLAND, but this does not operate in the X-band. Similarly, to my knowledge, there’s only one big ground-based X band radar in place, in Alaska (although there are apparently some smaller “transportable” ones in the inventory). You can find more information on all of these topics at Wikipedia (which has a good SBX article) and Global Security.