4 ms·

While I don't doubt the motivation of such a naked power grab, it has almost no useful security effect.

handrous 5y ago
How so? Can't attack from abroad if non-trusted states have trouble even getting packets routed to the target state, let alone the specific network you're trying to breach. Very hard to attack from inside the "firewall" if access is, as a condition of being considered a trusted routing peer, gated by tying all traffic to a personal or corporate ID that would cause all kinds of trouble for the holder of same IDs should they route traffic on some bad actor's behalf (as, say, through Tor or other means).
- lallysingh 5y ago
  That's just a matter of finding a vulnerable ally county to hop through. That's SOP now to hide your tracks. It's not like current attacks from Iran to the US have Irani addresses in the IP header.
  - handrous 5y ago
    That's fine until it's nearly impossible to route a packet from (for example) Iran to any IP in any state that's legally unfriendly to hackers and scammers, or otherwise operates outside the broad legal jurisdiction of the hackers' target states.
    - viraptor 5y ago
      That's why we have technologies like Tor which will happily find a number of hops that do allow you to establish that connection. Also IP-level blocks will never be perfect. See Hong Kong proxies. Or people in traded IP ranges classified as coming from another country.
      - handrous 5y ago
        Yes, the Internet as currently structured is resistant to this. The Internet is not guaranteed to continue to have that structure. I'm saying that if our choices are "constant attacks such that the Internet is horribly dangerous" and "don't have the Internet", the popular (at the state level) solution will be "I choose neither—instead, we're changing the Internet".
    - lallysingh 5y ago
      It's not direct packets. You ssh into a box in, say, UAE, then Cuba, then Canada, then USA. You're just uploading and running scripts, so latency doesn't matter.
      - handrous 5y ago
        Yes, I know how the Internet works now. It doesn't have to keep working that way, and if attacks get really bad the result will not be that we just live with them. The Internet will be modified to reduce the threat to a tolerable level. There's already been some pretty serious work put into what this will look like, if/when it happens.
        accountofme 5y ago
        So all that will change is you use a wireless link (starlink?) to SSH into a box in another country that connects to a box to a box to a box. It will not change a lot, infact as starlink like satellites become common place you can use them as jump boxes....
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      Your random Iranian hacker might not, but states will find ways around it. Even smaller criminal organizations find ways around such limitations.
      - handrous 5y ago
        Security does not have to be perfect to be effective. If it did, we'd have no security, because none of it is both useful /practical and perfectly effective.
- trhway 5y ago
  That is basically KYC for internet traffic. Hasn't stopped big operators in finance, and i doubt that it will be different in Internet. A new crime of "traffic laundering", and mesh networks untraceable and unregulated like cash transactions.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  Because the problem is critical infrastructure with holes in it, not that someone might communicate with that infrastructure. Trying to change the environment to ensure there are no attackers on the net is not a feasible alternative to hardening the critical systems.

How so? Can't attack from abroad if non-trusted states have trouble even getting packets routed to the target state, let alone the specific network you're trying to breach. Very hard to attack from inside the "firewall" if access is, as a condition of being considered a trusted routing peer, gated by tying all traffic to a personal or corporate ID that would cause all kinds of trouble for the holder of same IDs should they route traffic on some bad actor's behalf (as, say, through Tor or other means).

lallysingh 5y ago
That's just a matter of finding a vulnerable ally county to hop through. That's SOP now to hide your tracks. It's not like current attacks from Iran to the US have Irani addresses in the IP header.
- handrous 5y ago
  That's fine until it's nearly impossible to route a packet from (for example) Iran to any IP in any state that's legally unfriendly to hackers and scammers, or otherwise operates outside the broad legal jurisdiction of the hackers' target states.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    That's why we have technologies like Tor which will happily find a number of hops that do allow you to establish that connection. Also IP-level blocks will never be perfect. See Hong Kong proxies. Or people in traded IP ranges classified as coming from another country.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Yes, the Internet as currently structured is resistant to this. The Internet is not guaranteed to continue to have that structure. I'm saying that if our choices are "constant attacks such that the Internet is horribly dangerous" and "don't have the Internet", the popular (at the state level) solution will be "I choose neither—instead, we're changing the Internet".
  - lallysingh 5y ago
    It's not direct packets. You ssh into a box in, say, UAE, then Cuba, then Canada, then USA. You're just uploading and running scripts, so latency doesn't matter.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Yes, I know how the Internet works now. It doesn't have to keep working that way, and if attacks get really bad the result will not be that we just live with them. The Internet will be modified to reduce the threat to a tolerable level. There's already been some pretty serious work put into what this will look like, if/when it happens.
      - accountofme 5y ago
        So all that will change is you use a wireless link (starlink?) to SSH into a box in another country that connects to a box to a box to a box. It will not change a lot, infact as starlink like satellites become common place you can use them as jump boxes....
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Your random Iranian hacker might not, but states will find ways around it. Even smaller criminal organizations find ways around such limitations.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Security does not have to be perfect to be effective. If it did, we'd have no security, because none of it is both useful /practical and perfectly effective.
trhway 5y ago
That is basically KYC for internet traffic. Hasn't stopped big operators in finance, and i doubt that it will be different in Internet. A new crime of "traffic laundering", and mesh networks untraceable and unregulated like cash transactions.
rsj_hn 5y ago
Because the problem is critical infrastructure with holes in it, not that someone might communicate with that infrastructure. Trying to change the environment to ensure there are no attackers on the net is not a feasible alternative to hardening the critical systems.