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United States Security Politics

Trump, Seeking To Relax Rules on US Cyberattacks, Reverses Obama Directive (wsj.com) 153

Posted by msmash from the for-the-record dept.
President Trump has reversed an Obama-era memorandum dictating how and when the U.S. government can deploy cyberweapons against its adversaries, in an effort to loosen restrictions on such operations [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], WSJ reports. From the report: Mr. Trump signed an order on Wednesday reversing the classified rules, known as Presidential Policy Directive 20, that had mapped out an elaborate interagency process that must be followed before U.S. use of cyberattacks, particularly those geared at foreign adversaries. The change was described as an "offensive step forward" by an administration official briefed on the decision, one intended to help support military operations, deter foreign election influence and thwart intellectual property theft by meeting such threats with more forceful responses. The Trump administration has faced pressure to show that it is taking seriously national-security cyberthreats -- particularly those that intelligence officials say are posed by Moscow.
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Trump, Seeking To Relax Rules on US Cyberattacks, Reverses Obama Directive More

Trump, Seeking To Relax Rules on US Cyberattacks, Reverses Obama Directive

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  • Oh, here we go ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Thursday August 16, 2018 @09:04AM (#57136944) Journal
    Oh, here we go ... Obama is apparently like an ancient Persian king; one cannot not simply reverse his dictates!

    • Oh, here we go ... Obama is apparently like an ancient Persian king; one cannot not simply reverse his dictates!

      He was more like Woodrow Wilson with his naïve "gentlemen do not read each other's mail" approach to national level espionage.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Except, you know, for all the minor controversies around snooping on Merkel's cell phone and whatnot.

        Politics is a bloodsport. None of these people are good. Some of them are less bad. But don't delude yourself into thinking Your Guy was an uncommon gentleman.

      • Re:Oh, here we go ... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Thursday August 16, 2018 @10:13AM (#57137398) Homepage

        That's hilarious. The scale of electronic collection operations increased dramatically under Obama. Or do you think the Utah Data Center [wikipedia.org] was built for shits and giggles?

        But regardless, this is not/should not be a partisan issue, and one of the most compelling reasons to limit offensive operations and strengthen vulnerability disclosure rules is that we all use the same shit. [technologyreview.com] If the NSA or other TLA is actively exploiting vulnerabilities in common platforms such as OSes, routers, or cellular infrastructure, then they are, by definition, leaving America's identical technology vulnerable to the exact same attacks by our adversaries. By leaving ourselves vulnerable, we are trading access to our own secrets -- from classified government information, to corporate trade secrets, to political party internals -- for access to information that we should reasonably be able to collect through other means. It's shooting ourselves in the foot and hoping the ricochet hits our enemies.

        • Yes they did. I suggest the OP at least watch Snowden for a very inside scoop on how that went down. But in fairness DOMESTIC electronic espionage was the biggest growth area under Obama while he put in policies reducing electronic espionage in foreign powers.

        • Or it may prevent some attacks just by announcing this new rule and not doing anything else different. From the perspective of an attacking nation with means and something to gain or lose, they may see removal of "be nice" rules as a slightly increased risk of retaliation.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's a good job America's cyber security is so famously top-notch, now that Trump has escalated and opened it up for retaliatory/preemptive attacks.

      Don't worry, I'm sure most critical systems have patched the leaked NSA/CIA vulnerabilities by now, so it's safe for the US to start deploying new ones. This time they won't lose control of them, for sure.

      • U.S. companies and government agencies already get attacked all the time. Sometimes its actions by foreign governments, sometimes criminals looking to make a buck, or occasionally even just some bored hacker in the country doing it for the thrill. If you're naive enough to think anyone was holding back because of some rules we had in place, I've got a router in bridge mode to sell you.
        • Yes, in the sense that your old malware scanner cleaned up THOUSANDS of infections!!!! Automated script kiddie attacks are what happen all the time. As a professional working in enterprise scale security I assure you, we have automated defenses and snake oil deployed and not in that order. The problem with tight security is that you'd need more dedicated security people than employees, they'd need to be experts on every single system of the dozens or hundreds deployed in your organization as well as with e

    • Re:Oh, here we go ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16, 2018 @09:21AM (#57137010)

      Oh, here we go ... Obama is apparently like an ancient Persian king; one cannot not simply reverse his dictates!

      The problem isn't so much that Trump is reversing a policy of Obama.

      The problem is that Trump makes policy by shooting from the hip, with no consideration for the ramifications of it. Nobody does any analysis or planning, just suddenly there is a bad policy dumped one everyone.

      Now while saying there was no foreign interference, Trump is protecting us from foreign interference. Which is it? It never happened and we don't need to be protected? Or it did and Trump is still lying about it?

      The problem is other countries might decide this is an Unfriendly Act (which is diplomat speak for 'we don't like what you're doing and we're monitoring it'), and if escalates to a Hostile Act (which is diplomat speak for 'now we're really pissed off and things are going to get messy').

      Trump is essentially authorising hostile actions against foreign entities without oversight and planning.

      Shit like that can get dangerous in terms of relations between countries.

      The problems happen when Trump makes policy without consulting with the people who know what they're talking about (you know, 'elites') and instead relies on his own feels and stupidity.

      • Re:Oh, here we go ... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Thursday August 16, 2018 @09:29AM (#57137058) Homepage

        Trump is essentially authorising hostile actions against foreign entities without oversight and planning.

        More like Trump is explicitly telling other countries that it's OK to try and hack us. Because it goes both ways. It's like Net Neutrality. Before it existed, there might have been some general intellectual agreement about what was OK and what was not OK. After it was repealed, that's an explicit statement that doing the formerly banned things is explicitly OK. It doesn't revert back to undefined or there would be no motive to repeal.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          ok so by relaxing rules for cyber attacks Trump invites attacks? so if i load my shotgun and point it at you i'm inviting you to attack me? ( i do not own a shot gun )

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by omnichad ( 1198475 )

            Those rules made it clear we were classifying it like an act of war. Going back and saying it's OK implies that we are going to be aggressive and make offensive attacks. Put two and two together and we are the crazy third world country with an unstable dictator.

            • But since we all know that the NSA (and presumably other agencies among the alphabet soup) can make any attack look as if it was carried out by any chosen foreign nation, any foreign nation can now attack the USA in the certainty that no one can prove it was them - rather than the NSA trying to frame them with a false flag. (Although of course you could take the US government's word for it, because it never tells lies).

              They think they're clever, but they're not.

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by GregMmm ( 5115215 )

        I'll preface this comment by I'm not a huge President Trump supporter. But people need to know how to look at things objectively, outside their views.

        People are tired of the same rhetoric which is doing nothing. Yes this change can be dangerous, and yes it can be "messy". What was happening before is also dangerous and messy. Do nothing, and allow the bullies to have their way. Then we will say stop and the bullies laugh all the more.

        Why do you think President Trump was voted into office? It wasn't th

        • Re:Oh, here we go ... (Score:5, Funny)

          by snapsnap ( 5451726 ) on Thursday August 16, 2018 @10:00AM (#57137294)

          > he just changed a policy and now he's going rogue

          This is /. so we need a car analogy. So, by refusing to buy a new car, I'm obviously against the entire car industry.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Why do you think President Trump was voted into office?

          Because he hoodwinked people into believing he was going to magically make everything better, and instead has installed his own cronies who spend thousands in unauthorised money on furniture or use their sirens to commute to work. He also put his kids into positions of power bypassing all relevant laws and vetting. He's completely surrounded himself with other crooks. Trump is the fucking swamp.

          By the way, I like your vast assumptions in your comment

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          That logic is simply flawed though.
          If you have a bad CEO you don't hire someone with no experience in your business to be the new CEO...

          • You do if every CEO comes out of a set of ivy league CEO factories that churn out as many flavors as there are McNugget shapes. Trumps purpose is to be steel wire tossed into the CEO stamper, his purpose is to break the damn machine and thereby disrupt the stranglehold of not only the shapes but the factory as well. We don't have to beat them entirely, we just have to disrupt their system enough to screw up their plans.

            I didn't vote for Trump but I do understand the people who did... the 49% of the country

        • I'll preface this comment by I'm not a huge President Trump supporter.

          Anyone who is a huge "President Anyone" supporter needs serious medication.

          • I'll preface this comment by I'm not a huge President Trump supporter.

            Anyone who is a huge "President Anyone" supporter needs serious medication.

            I'm a huge supporter of ex French President- Francois Mitterand. Not because I liked him or his policies... it's just Francois Mitterand is the most fun name to same in the history of names... (if done correctly in a French Accent).

            I challenge anyone to come up with a more fun name to same than Francois Mitterand.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by lurcher ( 88082 )

              "I challenge anyone to come up with a more fun name to same than Francois Mitterand."

              Boutros Boutros-Ghali

              • "I challenge anyone to come up with a more fun name to same than Francois Mitterand."

                Boutros Boutros-Ghali

                His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr. Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE.

                Talk about compensating.

                'Course his name might be fun, but he sure wasn't. [wikipedia.org]

                • Whoops, forgot this last part:

                  His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.

                  He also claimed to be the uncrowned king of Scotland. Can you say 'unhinged?'

            • I challenge anyone to come up with a more fun name to same than Francois Mitterand.

              Challenge accepted.
              Guy de Loimbard

          • In the context of this thread, I meant "any US president".

            One good enough reason:

            https://chomsky.info/1990____-... [chomsky.info]

        • Re:Oh, here we go ... (Score:4)

          by Comrade Ogilvy ( 1719488 ) on Thursday August 16, 2018 @02:59PM (#57139316)

          By the way, I like your vast assumptions in your comment. I suppose you know for a fact how "Trump shoots from the hip" Talked to him lately? You know the man? Also how you took President Trumps action from changing a policy (which is his job) to saying he's "essentially authorizing hostile actions without oversight or planning" Yup, he just changed a policy and now he's going rogue. Sounds like the same policy and political BS we hear everyday.

          We have a president who very literally seems confused by what policies his own administration is following. That is not an exaggeration.

          Whether he goes "rogue" or not, a president who implements a great policy badly is probably going to be worse for the nation than a president to implements a mediocre policy reasonably well.

          The main effect of this Obama policy is to force the various departments to talk to each other before a significant change of policy that involves what is likely to be interpreted as a hostile action. I do not see why any competent president would find that a big burden. Of course, a completely incompetent president might find having to explain his own policy to people who are following trying to follow his directions a big burden -- that is clear.

        • People are tired of the status quo. So change came in someone outside the political system.

          I know, right. Last time I saw a rat I too burnt my entire house down.

        • I suppose you know for a fact how "Trump shoots from the hip" Talked to him lately? You know the man?

          Are you fucking kidding? Are you a Russian troll? Have you ever seen the man try to speak? Everything he does is "Shoot from the hip." If you think he makes calm, calculated decisions about policy, you've must have a screw loose, yourself, I'm sorry to say.

        • People are tired of the same rhetoric which is doing nothing.

          It's better than actively and shamelessly making things worse.

          Why do you think President Trump was voted into office?

          Hillary. Yes, that was the Democrats' own fault, but still... out of millions of people, that was the best they could offer?

        • I'll preface this comment by I'm not a huge President Trump supporter. But people need to know how to look at things objectively, outside their views.

          Objectively, he's lost the benefit of the doubt. He's started stripping people of security clearances for saying mean things about him. I have no confidence that any action he takes is for the good of the US, nor that he's given it any serious analytical thought.

          I see two main reasons for this policy, one it's reversing an "Obama policy", which seems to be a main objective in its own right. And second, some advisor said it was a good and necessary thing. The problem there is the advisor has their own possib

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        He was elected because he wasn't an insider. The people that voted for him love the cowboy attitude shoot from the hip. I for one love it. Watching the liberals squirm is awesome.

        • People love to watch professional wrestling too. Doesn't mean wrestlers make good leaders. Good politicians, maybe.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by ScentCone ( 795499 )

        Now while saying there was no foreign interference, Trump is ...

        That's NOT what he's said, ever. He's been - the whole time - referring to the lefty canards that either he worked with the Russians to interfere with something, or that Russian activity actually changed the outcome of the election. That's substantially different than saying that the Russians didn't, in 2016, do exactly the same sort of dicking around in our public discourse just like they always have here and elsewhere.

        The investigators working this have now said, more than once, that the Russian activ

      • Trump isn't completely random. Some people whisper into his ear first and then Trump shoots from the hip. Such as "hey, we could have stopped this Russian story before it began, if it weren't for the memo that Obama wrote", then Trump thinks "I can fix this!"

      • "The problem is that Trump makes policy by shooting from the hip, with no consideration for the ramifications of it. Nobody does any analysis or planning, just suddenly there is a bad policy dumped one everyone."

        And if there are problems you adjust the policy. People can't agree on anything and nobody is happy with the existing policy. He might have character flaws but he certainly hasn't actually done any worse than the last few. There is one thing different though, every good and bad move he makes is bein

    • Trump says he can recognize Crimea as Russian (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And the GOP House? Can Trump simply ignore *those* dictates? Because the McCain Defense Authorization Bill, requires he cannot accept Russian soverignty of Crimea, and the first thing he did was annul that clause with a signing statement.

      "President Donald Trump said in a statement he reserves the right to ignore the defense authorization law’s ban on U.S. recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, among 50 other provisions he says tread on his authority as president.,....Trump objected to four of

    • Re:Oh, here we go ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by snapsnap ( 5451726 ) on Thursday August 16, 2018 @09:58AM (#57137282)

      Like DACA that was an Obama EO? A judge recently ruled Trump couldn't undo part of it with his own EO. What a ridiculous double-standard.

  • Hack the planet (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16, 2018 @09:13AM (#57136970)

    Donald 1337 Trumpxorz

  • thwart intellectual property theft

    Really? Our military is going on the offensive to help Disney? Don't they have enough money and resources to take care of themselves?

    • The government has never hesitated to go on the offensive to protect the copyright cartels before... why would it be different now?
  • This is a load of horse shit. Everybody knows that Trump just wants to undo everything that Obama did (good or bad), because he hates that a black president was more successful and, more importantly, more popular that that piece of shit will ever be.

  • So next we can expect him to reverse rules that mandate we don't just go nuking countries because we don't like them. Oh wait, Obama didn't make those rules, so he's probably cool with it.

  • Meaningless (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Archtech ( 159117 ) on Thursday August 16, 2018 @10:41AM (#57137612)

    In the first place, all such self-denying laws and regulations are honoured in the breech. They look good to the peasants and the outside world, but the executive agencies simply ignore them when they are inconvenient. For many years there was a presidential policy against assassinating foreign leaders! During which period countless such plots were hatched and carried out - with occasional success.

    In the second place, there is only one real deterrent to using any weapon against foreign powers - retaliation. The USA has by far the biggest and most fragile house of cards when it comes to IT infrastructure. Americans are living in the largest, most elaborate glasshouse ever constructed, so it wouldn't be smart for them to start throwing rocks at people who live in mud huts or concrete blockhouses. (And who have plenty of nice big rocks to throw back).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dwpro ( 520418 )
      As always, reality is more complicated. US houses are not all glass and no-one has a concrete IT blockhouse (STUXNET anyone?). I see utility in small scale IT brush-backs. It's all part of the espionage chess match.

  • We are deceived by language and metaphor. (Score:3)

    by dweller_below ( 136040 ) on Thursday August 16, 2018 @01:27PM (#57138778)

    We use the words: cyberweapon, cyberwar, and cyberattack and think that we know the consequences of conflict. But our prior experience with conflict deceive us. Our instincts are wrong. Our sports metaphors delude us. We undervalue defense. We greatly overvalue attack. At the core, we still believe that Internet warfare is win-able. We believe that victory will go to the righteous aggressor. We believe that attack is sexy and desirable.

    The reality is, Internet attack is like poisoning all sources of water, and hoping that your enemy dies first. There is no "Win" in "CyberWar". We all have to defend the same stuff. None of us have functional defenses. Every successful attack weakens us all.

    It is easy to capture, analyze and reproduce somebody else's attack. If somebody drops a bomb on you, it is hard to reassemble all the bits, unburn the chemicals, and reuse it. But, if a government deploys an Internet attack, it is easy to copy the attack and repurpose it. When the US deploys an Internet attack, we give our enemies the motive, means, and opportunity to destroy us.

  • Too often that part of things like this is "intention" and not hard coded into the directives and policies. I want the rules to explicitly block the things the potential uses that aren't part the justification/spin tyvm.
  • i say anyone who tampers with the internet used in the U.S. should burn for it. That's how important it's become to regular every-day life...

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