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It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the USA to take down the internet, as they benefit the most from it. A significant fraction of that economy is based o

by amalcon 10y ago

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the USA to take down the internet, as they benefit the most from it. A significant fraction of that economy is based on it, much larger than in the cases of China and Russia. It would be like the owner of a coal mine campaigning for a carbon emissions tax: maybe there's something we don't know, but from the information we have it seems unlikely. Note that this wouldn't rule out the USA as such. First, it could be a longshot preparedness thing, with no expectation that it would ever be used. Second, they could be red-teaming the thing (looking for weaknesses so that they can arrange for them to be shored up). In either of these scenarios, it's no less likely that the USA would be doing it than anyone else. If you assume that whoever is doing this is planning to use their knowledge, however, the economic argument makes the USA less likely to be involved.

falcolas 10y ago
For either of your cases, I can't imagine the value of having it last this long, or even be this severe. The impact on the economy and trust in a infrastructure company is too high. I'd be more willing to put my money on someone attacking an entity downstream who is normally immune to DDOS attacks of this size.
barkingcat 10y ago
There are many types of actors even within the USA nation-state / government. For example, if a particular part of the government got wind of a data dump about to be released by another nation-state or independent actor (for example, a leak of some kind) - I think some parts of the USA government that possesses the ability to do so wouldn't hesitate to take down dns to the entire internet to avoid another similar data leak to the Snowden dump. Be really wary of attributing intent: you do not know who will benefit the most from taking down certain services. To claim that the US benefits from the internet so much that it wouldn't do certain actions to protect itself from certain types of harm is shortsighted. Even my example could be really wrong, but the idea is that nobody really can say - "oh the internet is too important to xyz, they'll never do anything!"
- omni 10y ago
  > wouldn't hesitate to take down dns to the entire internet to avoid another similar data leak to the Snowden dump. I don't understand how this would change anything unless you're assuming they would take down the Internet permanently
  - barkingcat 10y ago
    Or they could take it down for enough time for other parts of the government and/or international diplomatic system to do their work. Remember, a data leak is not just a technical issue. They can resolve it in any number of ways - get a small team incursion into another state's territory for extraction, etc. All the outage needs to do is to hold open that window for enough time for all the different parts of the entire threat response chain to do each part's job. A lot of technical people think tech is the end, but no - if you get a small team to go knock on the person's door, and get your internet response team to shut down dns, or to get someone on site at the telco to perform certain actions at the router/switch level, etc all portions working together is a powerful way to resolve or to accomplish certain goals. Think bigger, especially with state actors - the resources are there, and this line of thought is probably really basic stuff that people came up with in the 1960's or 70's (even when the arpanet was being created, there was probably already a team tasked with taking such actions - it only make sense to have 2 teams working on such goals in tandem - one to create the network, the other to take it down)
  - Zancarius 10y ago
    I'm probably wrong, but this is how I see it (not sure about the OP). News cycles happen fairly rapidly, so if you could take down a number of sites that might be friendly to the dissemination of potentially damaging information just long enough such that it's forgotten about, or the attack is so large the media talks about the attack instead, then you might be able to successfully avoid widespread public knowledge of such information. Though, this would be best aided with collusion or cooperation (intentional or otherwise) from the media. Toss in a few unrelated services as a bonus for collateral damage, and you might be able to avoid scrutiny or, at the very least, shift the blame to an unrelated state actor. It won't prevent the release of information, but that's not the point--you want to prevent the dissemination and analysis of that information by the public at large. This is all hypothetical, of course, and not likely to work. It also comes with the associated risk that if you were discovered or implicated, public outrage might be even worse than if you allowed the release of the information you hoped to distract from in the first place! As such, I can't imagine anyone would be stupid enough to try. I'll take my tinfoil hat off now.
maw 10y ago
It would be like the owner of a coal mine campaigning for a carbon emissions tax Not necessarily so strange. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists for instance.
a3n 10y ago
Total and absolute speculation follows: If the US wanted reliable take-down capability, they might want to test it first, and it would be least provocative if they tested here in the US. As for the length of the "test," they might want to see how the US would react to such attacks in the future, and shake out anything critical. "Oh, these two agencies can't talk to each other. Good to know." I hate the way modern times makes me look.

by amalcon 10y ago

falcolas 10y ago

For either of your cases, I can't imagine the value of having it last this long, or even be this severe. The impact on the economy and trust in a infrastructure company is too high. I'd be more willing to put my money on someone attacking an entity downstream who is normally immune to DDOS attacks of this size.

barkingcat 10y ago

There are many types of actors even within the USA nation-state / government. For example, if a particular part of the government got wind of a data dump about to be released by another nation-state or independent actor (for example, a leak of some kind) - I think some parts of the USA government that possesses the ability to do so wouldn't hesitate to take down dns to the entire internet to avoid another similar data leak to the Snowden dump. Be really wary of attributing intent: you do not know who will benefit the most from taking down certain services. To claim that the US benefits from the internet so much that it wouldn't do certain actions to protect itself from certain types of harm is shortsighted. Even my example could be really wrong, but the idea is that nobody really can say - "oh the internet is too important to xyz, they'll never do anything!"

omni 10y ago
> wouldn't hesitate to take down dns to the entire internet to avoid another similar data leak to the Snowden dump. I don't understand how this would change anything unless you're assuming they would take down the Internet permanently
- barkingcat 10y ago
  Or they could take it down for enough time for other parts of the government and/or international diplomatic system to do their work. Remember, a data leak is not just a technical issue. They can resolve it in any number of ways - get a small team incursion into another state's territory for extraction, etc. All the outage needs to do is to hold open that window for enough time for all the different parts of the entire threat response chain to do each part's job. A lot of technical people think tech is the end, but no - if you get a small team to go knock on the person's door, and get your internet response team to shut down dns, or to get someone on site at the telco to perform certain actions at the router/switch level, etc all portions working together is a powerful way to resolve or to accomplish certain goals. Think bigger, especially with state actors - the resources are there, and this line of thought is probably really basic stuff that people came up with in the 1960's or 70's (even when the arpanet was being created, there was probably already a team tasked with taking such actions - it only make sense to have 2 teams working on such goals in tandem - one to create the network, the other to take it down)
- Zancarius 10y ago
  I'm probably wrong, but this is how I see it (not sure about the OP). News cycles happen fairly rapidly, so if you could take down a number of sites that might be friendly to the dissemination of potentially damaging information just long enough such that it's forgotten about, or the attack is so large the media talks about the attack instead, then you might be able to successfully avoid widespread public knowledge of such information. Though, this would be best aided with collusion or cooperation (intentional or otherwise) from the media. Toss in a few unrelated services as a bonus for collateral damage, and you might be able to avoid scrutiny or, at the very least, shift the blame to an unrelated state actor. It won't prevent the release of information, but that's not the point--you want to prevent the dissemination and analysis of that information by the public at large. This is all hypothetical, of course, and not likely to work. It also comes with the associated risk that if you were discovered or implicated, public outrage might be even worse than if you allowed the release of the information you hoped to distract from in the first place! As such, I can't imagine anyone would be stupid enough to try. I'll take my tinfoil hat off now.

maw 10y ago

It would be like the owner of a coal mine campaigning for a carbon emissions tax Not necessarily so strange. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists for instance.

a3n 10y ago

Total and absolute speculation follows: If the US wanted reliable take-down capability, they might want to test it first, and it would be least provocative if they tested here in the US. As for the length of the "test," they might want to see how the US would react to such attacks in the future, and shake out anything critical. "Oh, these two agencies can't talk to each other. Good to know." I hate the way modern times makes me look.