Why WWIII will be fought on the internet

[rightwinger]

Why World War III will be fought on the internet - The Week

Within the last 100 years, the face of warfare has evolved dramatically, and rapidly. In the First World War, soldiers were dragging themselves through muddy trenches and dodging mortars. In the Second World War, V-2 rockets and atom bombs made the news — and in Russia, Italian soldiers faced off against Russian troops for the last significant cavalry charge in history. The Gulf Wars brought us long-range missiles and, ultimately, drones. Today, we're facing an entirely different kind of battlefield and a different brand of weaponry.
Over the course of history, war has become more and more abstract, not just in terms of its aim, but the weapons used. Close-quarters fighting has grown unusual, as have battles fought over obvious and tangible resources like land. Today, wars are about politics, and the tools we use to fight them distance warriors from each other — a soldier in Arizona can command a drone strike in Pakistan, while a hacker in Russia can execute code thousands of miles from a target.
We have lost the immediacy of warfare, which, in a way, seems to make it more inevitable. Isolation from the consequences of war is a one-way ticket to boosting confidence in waging it. In the case of cyberwar, those consequences could be huge. This isn't a matter of corporate hackings and embarrassingly leaked emails, accurately defined as "vandalism" by the Obama Administration. This is a case of oil pipeline explosions,shutdowns of power grids, nuclear reactor meltdowns, sabotage of weapons systems, and other events that could cause substantial damage, and significant fatalities.







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[rightwinger]

Cyberwar could open the world to possibilities like shutting down the power supply and record-keeping at hospitals — even though attacking hospitals, medics, and doctors is barred under international law. It would also represent an escalation of attacks on civilians, as when war is so distant, it becomes difficult if not impossible to distinguish combatants from ordinary civilians. Just as Brits feared the streets of London in the Second World War, citizens of a nation at cyberwar would have to fear every component of their lives that could possibly be exploited or manipulated through cyber means.
This is no small worry. For better or for worse, we live in a world where a substantial percentage of our lives is overseen electronically. The financial system, the grid, the water supply, medical facilities, and more are all at the mercy of cyberattacks, which is precisely why the prospect of cyberwar is so appealing to aggressors and so terrifying to defenders.
For those at the helm, it also involves minimal investment. Weapons systems can cost billions of dollars, with constantly escalating costs as other nations develop counterattacks. Storage, transport, and deployment of such weapons is also extremely costly. For the budget-conscious military — if such a thing ever exists — cyberwarfare is the perfect opportunity to produce maximum damage with minimum spending. In fact, a country's own weapons systems could be used against it, in what may be the most cruel and ironic attack of all.

 

[aplcr0331]

As someone who was in the field of Cyber Warfare, the war is already being fought and has been for almost a decade. People will wake up when Facebook and Youtube go down. Until then the Chinese and others can just sustain their daily (hundreds daily) attacks on our network infrastructure.

 

[rightwinger]

As someone who was in the field of Cyber Warfare, the war is already being fought and has been for almost a decade. People will wake up when Facebook and Youtube go down. Until then the Chinese and others can just sustain their daily (hundreds daily) attacks on our network infrastructure.

I think it will go much deeper than that

Financial and tax records whiped out. Shutting down the entire internet for lengthy periods of time. Power and communication grids

 

[whitehall]

Barry Hussein has been killing alleged enemies of the state including U.S. citizens and other unfortunate collateral bystanders for years. There will probably be no WW3 shooting war despite cliches distributed by pop-culture idiots and left wing hate mongers but elected officials might decide to eliminate their political enemies with remote controlled junk run by pop-culture educated kids who watched more internet violence in their short years than most of the previous generations had ever dreamed of. The real danger is in how much propaganda the low information pop-culture educated lefties will tolerate if a democrat has his finger on the button.

 

[9thIDdoc]

In the end wars are still won or lost by boots on the ground just as they have always been.

 

[Abishai100]

Ninja Intrigue


The Christian Bible states that at the time of the fearful apocalypse, two armies will face each other, Gog and Magog.

Up until now, we could have said that Gog was the Allied Forces of WWII (1939-1945), and Magog was the Axis Powers.

However, the Cyber-Age has created a new landscape of sociological and pointilistic analysis (i.e., intellectual property, hacking, manmade Internet viruses, information encryption, etc.).

Maybe Gog is Microsoft, and Magog is Samsung.

The science/economics behind such a model is rather well-established: electric field theories, circuit redundancy, signal interference, software and gadget inflation, etc.

If the Biblical harlot of Babylon is a corrupt airline stewardess involved in a diabolical international narcotics ring, then the archangel Michael who fights her is a 'machine-like mermaid.' Traffic is everything, and traffic is cyber.








Microsoft


Samsung

 

[there4eyeM]

A physical, material war could be provoked through the Internet, perhaps.

 

[Frankt]

In the end their boots may indeed be on "the ground", but their gloves are on the keyboard!!!