Blows Against the Empire

Okay, so at least we know the dimensions of the problem.

NASA has admitted that their computers are riddled with hackers, having logged over 5400 intrusions over the last couple years.  The most spectacular of these, originating in China, actually seized control of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s systems, “gaining the ability to install malware, delete or steal sensitive data, and hijack the accounts of users in order to gain their privileged access . . . “

On another occasion, the algorithms used to control the International Space Station were stolen.  Hijackers can now enact Blows Against the Empire and take the station crew for a joyride.

(And, in an unrelated story, two Toyota Land Cruisers packed with our super-top-secret Duke jammers rolled out of a base in Kabul the other day, never to be seen again.)

To which I can only say, Doesn’t anybody take this shit seriously anymore? Actually “anymore” is probably an exaggeration, and assumes that they took it seriously at some point in the past.

I mean, we could at least try to make it a little harder for intruders and thieves.

But of course hackers are massively organized now.  Whole legions will work on a single site until they find a vulnerability.

I’m assuming that NASA is not the sole agency with this problem.    After all, it took only one pissed-off corporal to send hundreds of thousands of the Pentagon’s and the State Department’s secrets to the whole world.  I suppose it could be hoped that our secret agencies are better at hiding their goodies, but of course they’re secret agencies and we wouldn’t know.  If they were hacked, they’d just tell everyone they weren’t, and there’s no check on that, at least until memos start appearing on Wikipedia.

I’m thinking that things were better in the days of ARPAnet.  One way of dealing with the threat is simply to create your own Internet, the way the Zetas are doing in Mexico.  That’s okay so long as you have enough line-of-sight relays and private groundline, but for something of any size you’ve just got to go dark.  Go into the Deep Web, set up your own Island in the Net, and hope that nobody notices it.

Run silent, run deep.  Make sure your routers can’t be found by browsers.  Use one-time pads and encrypt every damn thing.  If you don’t use TCP/IP, so much the better.

And for Chrissake don’t use Windows.  I mean, really.

Still, even a darknet is vulnerable.   If your data is 1) on a computer, 2) connected to the Internet, and 3) operated by a human being, anyone who wants it badly enough will find it.

We may end up with David Brin’s transparent society after all.  And not because we choose it through some kind of rational process, but because it’s inevitable.