Internet war?

[adventure_advocate]

I'm sure all of you have heard about the Sony hack, which the US is blaming North Korea for... Well, apparently there have been "internet disruptions" in North Korea in the last few days and they are blaming the US for these interruptions. Have any of you thought about what would happen in the US if our internet were to be attacked and go down? I just had a discussion about this with a coworker and we came to the conclusion that if the internet went down the effects would be just as bad as the electric grid going down. Virtually everything is connected to the internet in one way or another these days. Phones would go down, TV service would likely go down, Banks would go down (hope you don't have all of your "money" sitting in a bank account if the internet would go down, that would be tragic), hell, the power grid would possibly even go down due to an internet failure because I'm sure LOTS of their stuff runs off of the internet! I think you get the idea..... I don't have an awesome understanding of how the internet works, but it seems that if it were to go down it could very possibly mean disaster for this country... what are your thoughts on this? I don't really want this to be a discussion about Sony and North Korea, but a discussion about the effects of the internet going down and the likelihood of that happening in the US?!

 

[adventure_advocate]

Story about NK internet going down... details and reporting on the internet going down in NK are slim... imagine that!?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/27/north-korea-internet-shut-down-kim-jong-eun/20937855/

 

[1krr]

I thnk I would get more sh*t done around the house.

In reality, it would be a pretty big impact to some commerce and convienence and there would be some harm. I don't think it would be nearly as bad as power going out because with power, people would loose nearly all over their core infrastructure (refrigeration, water from well or municipal systems that use pumps, sewage treatment, etc).

Plus I think the definition of "internet" in the US is very different than in North Korea. NK only has a hand full of routable IP addresses (4 /24s iirc) and another couple netblocks resold to them from China. They have a pretty small and well defined entry and exit points from the country so it's easier to target a hand full of routers to take down. As far as the internet goes, the US looks more like a plate of speghetti with connections everywhere. You could attempt to target transoceanic nodes to take down connections between US and Europe or US and Asia but even that would be pretty difficult. Internally to the US, you would have to pull down every system operator there is.

Even my little rural operator is peering with 10 different other systems (networks, ISPs, etc). One of them is Cox for example so even if Cox lost everything except my isp, they could transit that network to get out. The more peers you take down, the more the remaining links become saturated which means that customers would experience ever increasing magnitudes of slowness but in a national emergancy, an ISP could null route heavy users like Netflix, Amazon, etc to ensure bandwidth is there for critical service components. Would suck since I only use streaming services but I could go without a Walking Dead binge and finish this damn baseboard install and the wifey would be happier for it!

 

[XDnut]

I'm sure all of you have heard about the Sony hack, which the US is blaming North Korea for... Well, apparently there have been "internet disruptions" in North Korea in the last few days and they are blaming the US for these interruptions. Have any of you thought about what would happen in the US if our internet were to be attacked and go down? I just had a discussion about this with a coworker and we came to the conclusion that if the internet went down the effects would be just as bad as the electric grid going down. Virtually everything is connected to the internet in one way or another these days. Phones would go down, TV service would likely go down, Banks would go down (hope you don't have all of your "money" sitting in a bank account if the internet would go down, that would be tragic), hell, the power grid would possibly even go down due to an internet failure because I'm sure LOTS of their stuff runs off of the internet! I think you get the idea..... I don't have an awesome understanding of how the internet works, but it seems that if it were to go down it could very possibly mean disaster for this country... what are your thoughts on this? I don't really want this to be a discussion about Sony and North Korea, but a discussion about the effects of the internet going down and the likelihood of that happening in the US?!

I have been looking at this myself and it is a back of the mind worry wart. Hackers have attacked our Nuclear Agency 3 times and I know one hack destroyed something that was in the enriching cycle I think it was? Power grid is my largest concern. Solar energy is my friend and WILL be used when we buy a house. I have connections in that industry as well as batteries, so I will be setting up something for sure. I hate the internet, SkyNet is here.........

 

[aviator41]

There are several portions of this hypothecital situation that don't hit the mark.

You could bring portions of the net down, but bringing it all down is impossible, barring simultaneous EMP's all over the earth. No critical system in the U.S. is totally dependent on the internet. We would temporarily lose a few things, maybe have unreliable power for a day or two, but it would not be the end of the world.

 

[XDnut]

There are several portions of this hypothecital situation that don't hit the mark.

You could bring portions of the net down, but bringing it all down is impossible, barring simultaneous EMP's all over the earth. No critical system in the U.S. is totally dependent on the internet. We would temporarily lose a few things, maybe have unreliable power for a day or two, but it would not be the end of the world.

I don't disagree, but our power grid is connected online and that is a big problem. My other concern is an all out physical attack on the grid, like the small one in the southwest last year I believe it was. All in all, I think our first worry right now is the disrespect and attack on our LEO's.

 

[aviator41]

The power grid can easily run in a disconnected state. Those that have a close and technical understanding of how these networks function agree that they can be sured up, but their exposure to evil forces is quite limited and they are designed to not have a single point of failure. They might be able to affect pieces, but not all of it at once.

It's not as big a problem as you may think. those of us in the know are not panicking.

 

[XDnut]

The power grid can easily run in a disconnected state. Those that have a close and technical understanding of how these networks function agree that they can be sured up, but their exposure to evil forces is quite limited and they are designed to not have a single point of failure. They might be able to affect pieces, but not all of it at once.

It's not as big a problem as you may think. those of us in the know are not panicking.

Reason I worry, is they destroyed millions of dollars in nuclear products at one of our facilities. Seems to me if they can hit that, our grid would be the same if not easier to cripple.

 

[SoonerP226]

I have been looking at this myself and it is a back of the mind worry wart. Hackers have attacked our Nuclear Agency 3 times and I know one hack destroyed something that was in the enriching cycle I think it was?

Unless you're an Iranian, I think you're thinking about the wrong nuclear agency. Although "we" have never acknowledged it, "we" destroyed (some of) "their" centrifuges (see "stuxnet"). I'm not aware of any incidents like that involving American nuclear facilities--and I'm pretty sure that'd have made the technical press if not the mainstream media.

 

[1krr]

Typically, critical networks are "air gapped" meaning there is no physical connection between those critical networks and the internet. To move data between those two networks requires a sneakernet (put on your sneakers and carry your data over to the other computer). Social engineering is the biggest payer in the game right now because promising some moron a million dollars or a new password if they just click that link is far easier than brute force penetration into some network.