I seriously doubt that Iranian hackers would ever target hospitals and the healthcare sector, based on Islamic law (Sharia). Other critical infrastructure maybe, depending on the type of cyberattack the Outlaw US Empire launches on Iran first, but hospitals definitively no! In order of decreasing probability (from high to low):
Actually I think that the Pentagon and Wall Street would just about suffice. No need to harm plain folks on Main Street. That's how the Iranians think - even those who have been bereaved or wounded.
I'd be inclined to leave the White House and the Congress alone. No point in reducing the amount of chaos in the enemy's system. Once you draw their sting they are helpless.
Not sure about the CIA and the NSA. The latter may have some good people who know what they are doing, unless I'm out of date.
"No point in reducing the amount of chaos in the enemy's system". LOL! :D
"Not sure about the CIA and the NSA". Well... Iran targeted some CIA outposts in the Gulf, so why not targeting the mothership? ;) NSA is the US counter-intelligence agency. If you want to penetrate even further, you have to deal with it!
"[T]he Pentagon and Wall Street are well protected, of course..."
I really, really would not count on that. Not for a moment. Do you believe that the Pentagon, which cannot even run its own core business of killing people competently, has taken the trouble to instil security into its many, many computers ranging from huge mainframes to smartphones and watches? Of course not. Moreover, the ethos of computer security is directly incompatible with that of military discipline and procedure. Few really good security people would be prepared to work for military officers who have no inkling of their world or the way they have to think.
As for Wall Street... the same in spades. Who is going to get promoted on Wall Street for fixing or improving - or even instituting - computer security? No one who matters. And why would anyone else care?
I used to lecture on computer security, and some of the basic axioms are fundamentally alien to both institutions. Read Cliff Stoll's classic 1989 book "The Cuckoo's Egg", take time out to weep briefly (or laugh uncontrollably, depending on your personality) - then ask yourself how likely it is that things have got better or worse, or stayed the same, in the intervening 37 years. I would guess "much worse" - and that's a very high bar.
Many years ago - decades, actually - I used to cite a story from the 1950s about a top-secret DoD system designed to protect against missile attacks. It was specified with the absolute maximum of everything - processor, memory, peripherals - because performance was hyper-critical. Then, when all that had been specified and actually tested, another department insisted that maximum security be added. Of course performance vanished into a black hole, and there were furious rows. Meanwhile, the staff got kudos for fixing the problem and restoring the expected performance. How? They systematically removed or disabled every single one of the expensive security features.
Today's computers are hopelessly insecure and cannot be made secure. The very processors and RAM chips, the network cards, the wireless systems, the firmware, the underlying libraries - everything is suspect and even if OK today may be subverted tomorrow.
I would bet big money that the Iranians already have a network of fine wires around the Pentagon's testicles - and Wall Street's too - ready to tug at a moment's notice.
It's the perfect deterrent against a nation with thermonuclear deterrent and powerful navy and air force. No need to go there to wreak havoc - just type in a few commands. They might even manage plausible deniability. "How could we have done all that, with our backward technology and complete lack of know-how?"
While it's somewhat off topic, the recent utter chaos on train services in and out of Manchester, supposedly due to a ninety second power outage frying some piece of network switching equipment, is a relatively trivial but illuminating case study in the cascading effects of very minor, and to be blunt completely expectable, failures.
I smell the faint scent of Revolution in the air. It can be set off with a spark. It can happen anywhere in the world, perhaps simultaneously. Keep your popcorn ready.
The USA as we currently know it will die. Crony and Patrimony Capitalism will die along with it. From the ashes of the Republic a Phoenix will rise. It's a New America, a good neighbor with concern for Her People.
In the face of all these known and foreseeable vulnerabilities, TPTB mandate electrification of everything. It’s almost like they want to ensure we fall into societal collapse once an event takes down the grid. I wouldn’t fault the Iranians for pulling the trigger; it is our “leadership” who put us in the line of fire without cover.
One bright side of the mobile network going down is not hearing the many inane conversations I hear daily; it might be fun to watch the zombie army walking around looking for bars, and I don’t mean watering holes.
"A small-town water utility or a regional cargo rail network cannot afford super expensive cyber security".
The USA is hopelessly blinded by its obsession with money. It spends about as much on armaments as the rest of the world combined, but it can't defeat Iran. Its super-duper military toys are hugely expensive, but most of them just don't work. Take the F-35, for instance. It has cost at least $1 trillion (literally) yet it isn't safe or reliable, and its operators don't dare risk it near any really good air defence system or enemy fighters.
Good computer security is not a matter of spending money. It's a process, not a product. Something you have to do incessantly - an obsessive state of mind - not something you can buy. In other words, something neither the Pentagon nor Wall Street can possibly understand.
It's quite simple in principle. Everything has to be checked and verified, every day. From the chips used in all the equipment - including smartphones, pagers, etc. - to the open-source libraries used in the operating system and the other tens of millions of lines of code. Nothing must be capable of being connected to the Internet unless it absolutely must be - in which case plans must be made urgently to find a way of doing without the Internet.
I was once told, along with some colleagues, that it's very simple to create a secure computer system. You put it in a windowless concrete blockhouse lined with a Faraday cage, and with absolutely no possible way of accessing the Internet. There must be only one entrance, with an armed guard standing inside where he can see anyone approaching from a distance.
Then all you have to worry about is the hardware, the firmware, and the software.
The government security expert who told us this added that there is a simpler alternative if you want a really secure computer. And he opened his briefcase and took out a brick, which he laid on the table. "It doesn't do a lot of computing", he said. "But it's fairly secure".
Why wouldn't they? A fairly simple trick, if the Zionists could manage it. But the Iranians are kinder; they would not like the danger of collateral casualties among civilians.
That depends entirely on what you think is better: to suffer harm, or to do it.
I think civilised people prefer to suffer harm - up to a point. There is an increment of harm - especially when accompanied by cruel laughter - that provokes anyone but a saint to retaliate.
Christianity and Islam agree on that, I think. And it is one of the most disturbing features of the present situation that the Iranians and many of their friends (such as the Chinese) behave in a more Christian way than almost any of the hundreds of millions of alleged Christians in the West.
Any novelist or scriptwriter worth his salt could imagine a smartphone rigged to send a specific message at a specific time to some computer suitably prepared with "special" software.
Just one question, Julian - how confident are you on this overall assertion - scale 0 - 100%? You're telling me that the Iranian target - DIRECTLY - is DaUS public?
It doesn't fit their pattern!
Did you get into your cat food? And I'm not trying to be funny!
The one thing I've learned from this Iranian fiasco - the Iranians are not SHTUPID!
Fortress America established by its geography is history . Don’t think the over confident Genocidal Goons realize America will be hit at home. Its people are worried now .
I seriously doubt that Iranian hackers would ever target hospitals and the healthcare sector, based on Islamic law (Sharia). Other critical infrastructure maybe, depending on the type of cyberattack the Outlaw US Empire launches on Iran first, but hospitals definitively no! In order of decreasing probability (from high to low):
1. electricity
2. communication
3. logistics
4. water and wastewater
5. healthcare
Actually I think that the Pentagon and Wall Street would just about suffice. No need to harm plain folks on Main Street. That's how the Iranians think - even those who have been bereaved or wounded.
On the whole, Iranians, and just about everyone else these days, puts us to shame.
What we have done, or has been done by our allies and tolerated by us, is pretty much unforgivable.
We are fortunate, in that our 'enemies' are better people than us.
Yep. If I were an Iranian hacker, I would target Pentagon, White House, Congress, CIA, NSA, etc. first. No need to target the commoners.
Many of us Commoners are rooting for Iran. I do! I root for the Houthis' Ansar Al Islam, Hisballah and Hamas too!
VICTORY TO THE RESISTANCE!!!
I think you should expand your horizons.
"The thousand-mile journey begins with a single step".
I'm too old and too busy supporting the children of Gaza and Palestinians in general.
I'd be inclined to leave the White House and the Congress alone. No point in reducing the amount of chaos in the enemy's system. Once you draw their sting they are helpless.
Not sure about the CIA and the NSA. The latter may have some good people who know what they are doing, unless I'm out of date.
"No point in reducing the amount of chaos in the enemy's system". LOL! :D
"Not sure about the CIA and the NSA". Well... Iran targeted some CIA outposts in the Gulf, so why not targeting the mothership? ;) NSA is the US counter-intelligence agency. If you want to penetrate even further, you have to deal with it!
"[T]he Pentagon and Wall Street are well protected, of course..."
I really, really would not count on that. Not for a moment. Do you believe that the Pentagon, which cannot even run its own core business of killing people competently, has taken the trouble to instil security into its many, many computers ranging from huge mainframes to smartphones and watches? Of course not. Moreover, the ethos of computer security is directly incompatible with that of military discipline and procedure. Few really good security people would be prepared to work for military officers who have no inkling of their world or the way they have to think.
As for Wall Street... the same in spades. Who is going to get promoted on Wall Street for fixing or improving - or even instituting - computer security? No one who matters. And why would anyone else care?
I used to lecture on computer security, and some of the basic axioms are fundamentally alien to both institutions. Read Cliff Stoll's classic 1989 book "The Cuckoo's Egg", take time out to weep briefly (or laugh uncontrollably, depending on your personality) - then ask yourself how likely it is that things have got better or worse, or stayed the same, in the intervening 37 years. I would guess "much worse" - and that's a very high bar.
Many years ago - decades, actually - I used to cite a story from the 1950s about a top-secret DoD system designed to protect against missile attacks. It was specified with the absolute maximum of everything - processor, memory, peripherals - because performance was hyper-critical. Then, when all that had been specified and actually tested, another department insisted that maximum security be added. Of course performance vanished into a black hole, and there were furious rows. Meanwhile, the staff got kudos for fixing the problem and restoring the expected performance. How? They systematically removed or disabled every single one of the expensive security features.
Today's computers are hopelessly insecure and cannot be made secure. The very processors and RAM chips, the network cards, the wireless systems, the firmware, the underlying libraries - everything is suspect and even if OK today may be subverted tomorrow.
I would bet big money that the Iranians already have a network of fine wires around the Pentagon's testicles - and Wall Street's too - ready to tug at a moment's notice.
It's the perfect deterrent against a nation with thermonuclear deterrent and powerful navy and air force. No need to go there to wreak havoc - just type in a few commands. They might even manage plausible deniability. "How could we have done all that, with our backward technology and complete lack of know-how?"
Iran probably hacked the Pentagon just waiting for the right moment. Iran has also destroyed Data Centers in the Gulf. Go Iran!🇮🇷❤️
While it's somewhat off topic, the recent utter chaos on train services in and out of Manchester, supposedly due to a ninety second power outage frying some piece of network switching equipment, is a relatively trivial but illuminating case study in the cascading effects of very minor, and to be blunt completely expectable, failures.
AI will be the death of the USA.
AI can kill us all!
All Data Centers must be destroyed!!!
I think this is true for the EU too.
We'll find out soon.
Cassandra
I smell the faint scent of Revolution in the air. It can be set off with a spark. It can happen anywhere in the world, perhaps simultaneously. Keep your popcorn ready.
You are right... I sense Revolution in the Air...
Time to sound the Drums...
->https://x.com/OccupySchagen/status/2086511818818691156/photo/1
Cassandra
Death and, possibly, rebirth are the only way out for most of the Banker-infested Collective West.
The USA as we currently know it will die. Crony and Patrimony Capitalism will die along with it. From the ashes of the Republic a Phoenix will rise. It's a New America, a good neighbor with concern for Her People.
Lulz … we should be so lucky.
You nailed it - God doesn't do reform - He destroys and replaces! Biblical history!
In the face of all these known and foreseeable vulnerabilities, TPTB mandate electrification of everything. It’s almost like they want to ensure we fall into societal collapse once an event takes down the grid. I wouldn’t fault the Iranians for pulling the trigger; it is our “leadership” who put us in the line of fire without cover.
One bright side of the mobile network going down is not hearing the many inane conversations I hear daily; it might be fun to watch the zombie army walking around looking for bars, and I don’t mean watering holes.
"A small-town water utility or a regional cargo rail network cannot afford super expensive cyber security".
The USA is hopelessly blinded by its obsession with money. It spends about as much on armaments as the rest of the world combined, but it can't defeat Iran. Its super-duper military toys are hugely expensive, but most of them just don't work. Take the F-35, for instance. It has cost at least $1 trillion (literally) yet it isn't safe or reliable, and its operators don't dare risk it near any really good air defence system or enemy fighters.
Good computer security is not a matter of spending money. It's a process, not a product. Something you have to do incessantly - an obsessive state of mind - not something you can buy. In other words, something neither the Pentagon nor Wall Street can possibly understand.
It's quite simple in principle. Everything has to be checked and verified, every day. From the chips used in all the equipment - including smartphones, pagers, etc. - to the open-source libraries used in the operating system and the other tens of millions of lines of code. Nothing must be capable of being connected to the Internet unless it absolutely must be - in which case plans must be made urgently to find a way of doing without the Internet.
I was once told, along with some colleagues, that it's very simple to create a secure computer system. You put it in a windowless concrete blockhouse lined with a Faraday cage, and with absolutely no possible way of accessing the Internet. There must be only one entrance, with an armed guard standing inside where he can see anyone approaching from a distance.
Then all you have to worry about is the hardware, the firmware, and the software.
The government security expert who told us this added that there is a simpler alternative if you want a really secure computer. And he opened his briefcase and took out a brick, which he laid on the table. "It doesn't do a lot of computing", he said. "But it's fairly secure".
I see Iran’s position vis a vis the USA as somewhat analogous to Judge Roy Bean’s method of dealing with Bad Bob:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zPo253ePXM&pp=ygUOanVkZ2Ugcm95IGJlYW4%3D
Yeah, but do they have exploding pagers? Hmmm ??
Why wouldn't they? A fairly simple trick, if the Zionists could manage it. But the Iranians are kinder; they would not like the danger of collateral casualties among civilians.
Who is more fortunate in the fact that our alleged 'enemiesl' are more ethical?
We or they?
I think of the many extra lives Russia sacrificed to avoid killing civilians. Unheard of stupidity by the black lights of the Collective West.
That depends entirely on what you think is better: to suffer harm, or to do it.
I think civilised people prefer to suffer harm - up to a point. There is an increment of harm - especially when accompanied by cruel laughter - that provokes anyone but a saint to retaliate.
Christianity and Islam agree on that, I think. And it is one of the most disturbing features of the present situation that the Iranians and many of their friends (such as the Chinese) behave in a more Christian way than almost any of the hundreds of millions of alleged Christians in the West.
1000 up votes!!!
Any novelist or scriptwriter worth his salt could imagine a smartphone rigged to send a specific message at a specific time to some computer suitably prepared with "special" software.
Just one question, Julian - how confident are you on this overall assertion - scale 0 - 100%? You're telling me that the Iranian target - DIRECTLY - is DaUS public?
It doesn't fit their pattern!
Did you get into your cat food? And I'm not trying to be funny!
The one thing I've learned from this Iranian fiasco - the Iranians are not SHTUPID!
Fortress America established by its geography is history . Don’t think the over confident Genocidal Goons realize America will be hit at home. Its people are worried now .