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United States

Federal Report Warns US is Unready For a Cyberattack (axios.com) 39

The U.S. should take a slew of steps today to prevent a major cyberattack that could wreak wide-scale devastation on the U.S., a year-long study mandated by Congress reported Wednesday. From a report: "A major cyberattack on the nation's critical infrastructure and economic system would create chaos and lasting damage exceeding that wreaked by fires in California, floods in the Midwest, and hurricanes in the Southeast," the report predicts. What they're saying: "This is like doing the 9/11 Commission before 9/11 happens. We want to avoid that situation," Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), a co-chair of the panel, said at an Axios event Monday. At the same event, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), the other co-chair, said the U.S. does not currently have an effective deterrence policy in place to discourage hostile cyberattacks. "We are getting killed by a thousand cuts," he said.
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Federal Report Warns US is Unready For a Cyberattack

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @04:40PM (#59819340)

    That's how you ended up with fucking Trump after all.

  • by hAckz0r ( 989977 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @04:43PM (#59819348)

    Fake News! We are Ugely prepared for everything. You could not believe just how prepared we are. People are just saying, we have never seen someone so prepared like this.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      With Trump in charge for 3 years now, he has made the US unready for every possible disaster. Chemical, Biological, Nuclear, and Natural. His ineptitude knows no bounds.
  • by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @04:43PM (#59819350)
    Screaming about immanent danger that can only be fixed if you give us more money. No but it's true this time!
    • Re:How original (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @05:02PM (#59819410) Homepage

      1) It's true EVERY time. Doctor screams at people for not getting your broken leg fixed, it will only cost a little money. Cities scream at citizens for not paying for firemen, it will only cost a little money. England screamed at englishmen for not paying for a solid air force in the 1930, it will only cost a little money.
      2) Asking for money does not = lying, doing it just for the money, or anything else.
      3) Screaming does not mean stupid, liar, or misinformed, it means that the idiot being screamed at is ignoring you unless you scream.

      The way you tell if someone is wrong is not by judging their tone, nor by judging what they are asking for.

      Instead it is by asking independent (i.e., get no more cash either way) experts (i.e. people with years of experience studying the issue from other people with years of experience).

      Your complaint is simply the statement of a cynical fool that was fooled before and never learned how to tell when someone was fooling them.

      • Firstly to the article we are under cyber attack often. Not perhaps intended to do maximum harm but none the less.

        A lot of screaming for money is for crap we don't need. What we do need from the federal govt is a strong Military, what we don't need well how about funding for ... I will leave it blank because all the things that come to my mind are probably controversial and would therefore miss the point. Do we need money for cyber attack defence, I would say yes but just because they are screaming does
        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          Keep in mind that "strong defense" != "most expensive military in world history", especially since after 18 years of occupation goat herders with Kalishnikovs control most of Afghanistan and the suburbs of Kabul.

          • To be fair, that's more how said military is used. We could have reduced that country to more rubble than already exists and never lost a soldier on the ground. But such things are generally frowned upon these days.

            If you use the military as a police force, things don't go overly well. The military is designed to kill people not police them, and they do it well when allowed to prosecute the destruction.

            • by cusco ( 717999 )

              Frowned upon, and in the case of Afghanistan, useless. No one since the time of Alexander the Great has managed to keep that area under their control for more than a generation, and several of them have "reduced the country to rubble" in the attempt.

        • Repeated and simplified for you:

          I don't disagree that a lot of screaming for money is for crap we don't need. Lots of liars scream for money all the time.

          Instead I am saying that honest people ALSO scream for money and neither the screaming nor the money means anything.

    • Every bureaucratic manager has a critical yearly duty to increase the number of subordinates under his supervision every year to justify the increase in his department funding every year ... no mater what.

      I learned that back in 1965 working for the State of CA while at school. We had 100 boxes of a 10 dozen hack saw blades in the shop in the "Power Plant." I counted them and said "We don't need anymore next year."

      The answer was "No. If we cut the order for blades or didn't raise the number, the controlle

  • No surprise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stevez67 ( 2374822 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @04:43PM (#59819352)

    The administration hasn't prepared for much of anything that wasn't already prepared for by previous administrations, and has even degraded some preparedness (i.e. the pandemic preparedness). When everything bad that happens is a hoax, no preparations are made for anything.

  • by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @04:49PM (#59819366) Journal

    Most countries are kleptocracies, and the thieves keep their money safely in the US. Take it when they let it happen.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @04:53PM (#59819374)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • ... defunding public education at all levels, ...

      The US is number 2 globally in terms of per capita spending.
      https://nces.ed.gov/programs/c... [ed.gov]

      The resistance over additional spending is over the fact that much of that money does *not* make it to the classroom. We need serious education reform not simply more money.

      ... turning their colleges into luxury debt traps ...

      Average tuition, fees, room and board at a US public 4 year college is $19.5K.
      https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/... [ed.gov]

      Average student debt at graduation is $29.2K
      https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/1... [cnbc.com]

      Note the debt is probably inflated by pri

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The US is a very interesting and somewhat unique example. No other hard-core capitalist country has done so well, all the other big economies are either social democracies of some form of un-democracy (e.g. China and Russia).

        But the US is extremely unequal. Many people have inadequate healthcare and are in poverty. Many more are only one cancer diagnosis or one financial disaster away from bankruptcy. Public services like schooling are in permanent crisis in many parts.

        So while the numbers like per capita s

        • by drnb ( 2434720 )
          If you are concerned about the price of medication in the US then stop other developed nation's free-riding on the cost of the research. Support price reforms like drug companies having the same price for all developed nations.

          If you are concerned about the disparity of schools support alternatives like charter schools. Such schools have had great results in failing school districts in underserved communities. As I said, we absolutely need to reform the existing system. The notion that it is simply under
          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            What does other nations using medicines developed in the US have to do with US companies jacking up the price of old meds from $40/dose to $40,000/dose?

            Anyway, I have actually argued for an international fund to do medical research. The entire world only spends about $35-40bn on drug research a year, very affordable for a group of countries to come together and fund themselves. Of course the problem will be politics, who gets the research facilities and associated jobs etc.

            • by drnb ( 2434720 )

              What does other nations using medicines developed in the US have to do with US companies jacking up the price of old meds from $40/dose to $40,000/dose?

              Those are quite the outliers. Yes such nonsense should be curbed with regulation, however that is not the core of overcharging.

              Anyway, I have actually argued for an international fund to do medical research. The entire world only spends about $35-40bn on drug research a year, very affordable for a group of countries to come together and fund themselves. Of course the problem will be politics, who gets the research facilities and associated jobs etc.

              $70B and that's just corporate R&D. Now go add university R&D which often gets patented and licensed to Pharma. There is also government R&D, not sure if that is licensed or public domain.

    • It's called what's called "Math's Law", which states that, "When you're at the top, you have nowhere to go but down."
      The corollary is true too: "When you're at the bottom, you have nowhere to go but up."

      Yeah, the US (who was at the top) allowed this to happen because we were driven by a race to improve the bottom line. We cheered as American companies outsourced every last fucking thing to China, woo hoo, another 4% in profit for our shareholders, yippee!

      Look around you- chances are that 98% of the stuff in

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Outsourcing manufacturing isn't in itself the problem. Most people are happy that certain jobs have been automated away or outsourced because they prefer to do other jobs.

        The problem is that the transition state, which is permanent now, is painful for many while only benefiting those with the capital to take advantage of it. Without help to adapt people get let behind.

        By help I mean start with excellent schooling that puts them in a good position to adapt and keep learning, and then offer continual support

  • I wonder where all that money used for health, cyber security, and infrastructure, is going.
  • Federal Report Warns US is Unready For a Cyberattack

    More accurately: US is Unready For a [insert mode here] Attack

    • by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian.bixby@gmail . c om> on Wednesday March 11, 2020 @06:15PM (#59819622)

      If the fearsome terrorists were what the press and gov't has been saying all this time we'd be under continual attack. If they wanted to they could shut the entire country down tomorrow simply by having a dozen people scattered around the country shoot up major substation and grid inter-ties with second-hand deer rifles. The electrical grid would crash, hard, and it would be weeks to get it back up and integrated again, at which point since there is almost no likelihood of catching the perpetrators they could just do it again.

      And yet it never happens. The thousands of illegal immigrants from Muslim countries that work in the food industries don't spread salmonella or botulism, no one releases anthrax in the subway station, no one sets off truck bombs in commuter tunnels at rush hour, no one derails trains carrying chemical or petroleum tanker cars, no one ever sinks a ferry.

      Could it be that the mighty terriers aren't actually what we're told?

  • But luckily, there are a slew of companies out there that'll bid on this job. /sarcasm

    • I would expect so, especially since most of us are under cyberattack every day, if your server is online you survived them all.

      I'd bid but government services is a PITA.

      • It was the "there's a slew of companies" part that was sarcastic. You won't bid on it because of the PITA. The PITA is there by design. There are a relatively small number of companies that will bid on this type of work.

  • What is going on or am I an old guy that isn't hip with the new lingo? How come they use this new word "unready" when it seems "not ready" rolls off the tongue better.
    • am I an old guy that isn't hip with the new lingo?

      The prefix un- came to Middle English from the Dutch on-.

      No, you are not that old.

  • Even a basic math quiz..
  • 1) Figure out who's doing it.

    2) Nuke their asses.

    Problem solved.

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