North Korean Cyber Attack- i told you so

Yesterday while the planet was mesmerized by the spectacle in Staples Center, the news media slowly put our a story that caught my attention, about how the South Korean government, and ours, had been targeted for a cyber attack. I suggested maybe it was the North Koreans (duh) Today i was proved correct:

"WASHINGTON – U.S. authorities on Wednesday eyed North Korea as the origin of the widespread cyber attack that overwhelmed government Web sites in the United States and South Korea, although they warned it would be difficult to definitively identify the attackers quickly.

The powerful attack that targeted dozens of government and private sites underscored how unevenly prepared the U.S. government is to block such multipronged assaults.

While Treasury Department and Federal Trade Commission Web sites were shut down by the software attack, which lasted for days over the holiday weekend, others such as the Pentagon and the White House were able to fend it off with little disruption.

The North Korea link, described by three officials, more firmly connected the U.S. attacks to another wave of cyber assaults that hit government agencies Tuesday in South Korea. The officials said that while Internet addresses have been traced to North Korea, that does not necessarily mean the attack involved the Pyongyang government"

OK, wait a minute

Our government is saying that the attack probably came from North Korea, but it wasn't the North Korean's??

That is possible, with IP spoofing and redirection of traffic, but how likely is it that the MOST paranoid nation on the planet would allow such a thing to happen? I sense a apology coming forth..from US!

"The widespread attack was "loud and clumsy," which suggests it was carried out by an unsophisticated organization, said Amit Yoran, chief executive at NetWitness Corp. and the former U.S. government cybersecurity chief. "This is not the elegance we would expect from sophisticated adversaries."

OK, loud and clumsy still kicked serveral servers offline for DAYS.  Cyber espionage relies on elegance, loud and clumsy tells me they didnt care, the intent was to see what they could do.

Denial of service attacks: overloading a computer system so that it can no longer function. This is the method allegedly used by the Russians to disrupt the Estonian government computers in May 2007.

Chinese Cyber war tactics call for gaining the intiative early, crippling the target nation infrastructure, targeting agencies and institutions that are softer targets; as the targets go offline, the communication lines to them become saturated, slowing down the local Wide Area Network; as the WAN becomes congested, the traffic becomes re routed, cascading into other portions of the web. Eventually vast areas could experience the equivalent to a power brown out as internet traffic slows to dialup speed.

Just know that the Pentagon uses more than 5 million computers on 100,000 networks in 65 countries.

Sami Saydjari, who has been working on cyber defence systems for the Pentagon since the 1980s, told Congress in testimony on April 25 that a mass cyber attack could leave 70 per cent of the US without electrical power for six months.

Oh, but lets not worry ourselves, Obie will talk them out of it...yeah, right

Enough already...what About REAL NEWS

The "King of Pop" dies,  and is immediately deified by the MSM. MEANWHILE- major wire services are buzzing the cyber news, that major South Korean and America web sites are under attack.

People at my work site stop work to watch coverage on the breakroom TV, and ask why i dont join them; I explain that I never really liked his music..surely i jest, I must have liked some of his music, right?? No joy, i never really liked any of it. Really.So this is the extent i will mention this here: Rest In Peace

Meanwhile-

WASHINGTON – A widespread and unusually resilient computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several government agencies, including some that are responsible for fighting cyber crime, The Associated Press has learned.

The Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week, according to officials inside and outside the government. Some of the sites were still experiencing problems Tuesday evening. Cyber attacks on South Korea government and private sites also may be linked, officials there said.

Others familiar with the U.S. outage, which is called a denial of service attack, said that the fact that the government Web sites were still being affected three days after it began signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

Web sites of major South Korean government agencies, banks and Internet sites also were paralyzed in a suspected cyber attack Tuesday. Ahn Jeong-eun, a spokeswoman at the Korea Information Security Agency, said the U.S. and South Korean attacks appeared to be linked.

The South Korean sites included the presidential Blue House, the Defense Ministry, the National Assembly, Shinhan Bank, Korea Exchange Bank and top Internet portal Naver. They went down or had access problems since late Tuesday, Ahn said.

According to Rushlo, the Transportation Web site was "100 percent down" for two days, so that no Internet users could get through to it. The FTC site, meanwhile, started to come back online late Sunday, but even on Tuesday Internet users still were unable to get to the site 70 percent of the time.

"This is very strange. You don't see this," he said. "Having something 100 percent down for a 24-hour-plus period is a pretty significant event."

He added that, "The fact that it lasted for so long and that it was so significant in its ability to bring the site down says something about the site's ability to fend off (an attack) or about the severity of the attack."

Last summer, in the weeks leading up to the war between Russia and Georgia, Georgian government and corporate Web sites began to see "denial of service" attacks. The Kremlin denied involvement, but a group of independent Western computer experts traced domain names and Web site registration data to conclude that the Russian security and military intelligence agencies were involved.

Canice Opinion: Targeting South Korea and the United States simultaneously may seem to suggest ...hmmm, North Korea?

July 6th, 2009

Nothing to write about, or too much..so instead, music.

From the movie "Henry Poole Was Here" Some say its just a nice story, others see a religious overtone (duh) but for me its an emotional movie, I cry every time I watch it..

The Star Spangled Banner Story

This 11 1/2 minute narrative tells the story of what inspired the writing of the Star Spangled Banner By Francis Scott Key. Please take the time to listen...and remind yourself of what our forefathers gave to ensure this country survived... The oral history of the night that inspired our National Anthem, the Star Spangled Banner. Listen to this story of our great Veterans during the war of 1812. The Star Spangled Banner, like you've never heard it

Semper Fi Marines - 4 July 2009

Honey talked to other Veteran's today at the VFW close to the parade we went to...and as usual bought all sorts of drinks, shared cigar's (and stories) and bought a bunch of lottery tickets for the big 4th of July Harley give away, which he knows he won't win, but who cares...the money goes to help Vets...
When we got home, he asked me to put this on my blog, so here it is:

Semper Fi, Marines!

Your patriotism and devotion to duty is not unnoticed by your brothers (and sisters!) in arms back here stateside!
Reuters:

Some 4,000 Marines are moving through southern Helmand to take back Taliban-held territory and pinch the insurgents' supply lines. Bravo Company has seen a lot of walking but up to now little fighting, though other Marines in the operation have had extended battles.

So far, the worst danger facing Bravo is the heat. Temperatures are well above 100 degrees , and medics treated several heat casualties Saturday.

The Marines walk in columns down dusty dirt roads, and every couple dozen steps they bend over at the waist to give aching shoulders a break. During frequent breaks, medics go up and down the line, looking to see if their men are drinking water.

Lance Corp. Bryan Knight, a mortar man, carries one of the heaviest pack. The 21-year-old Cincinnati native weighs a slight 145 pounds - and his pack almost equals him.

He carries a 15-pound mortar base plate, four mortar rounds that weigh 10 pounds each, about 15 pounds of water and another 50 pounds of combat gear - ammunition, weapon and his body armor, in all about 120 pounds of equipment.

Unsurprisingly, he is drenched in sweat. "The only dry parts of my clothes are the pockets," he said.

Captain Drew Schoenmaker, company commander,  said the heat was affecting militants as well, noting there were few daytime attacks theater-wide and none on his unit. He said he doubted people back in the United States could understand how hard his Marines work.

"Someone back home might say, 'Oh, it's 100 degrees here, too.' But you're not trying to carry 60 or 90 pounds and people aren't trying to kill you," he said. "And you can always step out of the sun. You can't always do that here."

Have a HAPPY and SAFE 4th of July

I will be reporting later about the TEA Party today , and other 4th of July activities...

 

 

4th of July - Is the New York Times Anti-American?

Is the New York Times un-american??

No. They are the last bastion of free thought in this country (-10 pts)

 

 1

No, but they kind of suck (-5 pts)

 

 0

Not Sure (0 pts)

 

 0

Yes, they have gone off the deep end (5 pts)

 

 0

Yes, and anyone that believes a word they write is a moron (10 pts)

 

 0

NYT - rather use it to start my fireplace than read it (you are a patriot 50 pts)

 

 5

In high school and junior college, I took classes in journalism, and majored in broadcast communications in college. The big names in the industry have come and gone, but the really big newspapers, the ones that almost have that aura of greatness were papers like the New York Times...yet reading a opinion piece in that paper about flying the flag, and its significance,  and the comments posted by readers,  made my stomach turn and blood boil.
Here is a sample:

"...in the Bush years of sanctioned torture and war built on deceit, many Americans withdrew from overt displays of patriotism. Some said they were ashamed of their country."

"Obama, the candidate, tried to explain why he initially stopped wearing a flag pin in 2007. No doubt, he was speaking for a lot of fellow citizens. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly as we were talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism,” he said in 2007. “I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.”

Obama’s comment sounded like a more tortured version of Samuel Johnson’s aphorism about patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels... he neutered the public blowhards who costumed themselves in red, white and blue at the peak of the Bush presidency.

If your great-great-grandparents were bought and sold in chains at slave markets in the south, then perhaps you might have reason for mixed feelings about the flag.

If you were one of thousands of American citizens interned by your own government during World War II, then again, the flag would give you pause at times.

Or worse, if you were run off your land, the land of your ancestors, and not granted full citizenship until 1924 – American Indians, a storyline whose only changes are geographic – the flag can seem foreign, at best.

The challenge is to look at the whole of it – the awful history with the daring leaps of progress – and see something living, ever-evolving. "

My take on this narrative is that it suppose we as readers will agree and in solidarity with the oppressed among us NOT fly the flag....oh but wait, here is what NYT readers thought:
"Actually I think the real question to be asked here is: why do so many Americans (of any political persuasion) feel an urge to display their national flag outside their homes, businesses, on their lapels? Among democratic nations at least, this is a uniquely American behavior, which is baffling and frankly rather off-putting to foreign visitors."

"A 4th of July question? Is the US the best country in the world? Safest from crime? Fewest in jail? Most educated? Health care for all? Safest banks?Why celebrate?"
"

Yes, I bought two big flags last January on the day before inauguration day, and I put them up at my business on holidays.

To make it short: we got our country back."

[Canice note: I am so lucky to be an American! I have traveled extensively outside my home, the United States. The United States is still the beacon of hope for people around the world. Our freedoms, our all-inclusive open-ness, our culture that encourages and permits adventure and exploration, out lack of pretentiousness, our genuineness….is a gift to ourselves and the world. The Fourth of July is when we should pause and give thanks that with all our problems, we are the luckiest society in the world.
I am blessed to be a citizen of The United States! And I wish all my fellow citizens a Happy and Prosperous Fourth of July! ]