Return-Path: <sentto-279987-1648-998920568-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.1.0) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Mon, 27 Aug 2001 06:57:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 12884 invoked by uid 510); 27 Aug 2001 13:56:12 -0000 Received: from n35.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.85) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 27 Aug 2001 13:56:12 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-1648-998920568-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.4.53] by mu.egroups.com with NNFMP; 27 Aug 2001 13:56:08 -0000 X-Sender: fc@big.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2); 27 Aug 2001 13:56:06 -0000 Received: (qmail 6103 invoked from network); 27 Aug 2001 13:54:55 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 27 Aug 2001 13:54:55 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO big.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta3 with SMTP; 27 Aug 2001 13:54:54 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by big.all.net (8.9.3/8.7.3) id GAA04596 for iwar@yahoogroups.com; Mon, 27 Aug 2001 06:54:54 -0700 Message-Id: <200108271354.GAA04596@big.all.net> To: iwar@yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: <9mdgme+b390@eGroups.com> from "ellisd@cs.ucsb.edu" at Aug 27, 2001 01:07:26 PM Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL1] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 06:54:54 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [iwar] Re: Why 'conventional' terrorist groups Not utilizing Cyber Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Per the message sent by ellisd@cs.ucsb.edu: ... > Definitely indicative that leadership is paralyzed with incompetence. An easy thiong to complain about - a hard thing to change. ... > Maybe they have developed more advanced tools and are just waiting for > a special occasion. Or maybe they are developing more sophisticated > tools and realize that they don't know how to control it. Is either a > likely scenario? Not in the norm for such groups. They tend to use all they have - they are in a struggle for their existence most of the time. > As for available budget, what kind of budget is > necessary to develop offensive weapons? A few million will do a great job of it. A few thousand if you are desperate. Both well within the budget of any identified group. > I suggest that a small lab of > half a dozen PCs, a couple of staff years, an internet > connection--easily under the $40k mark for developing countries. I > don't think budget is the limiting factor. Exactly my point. Even high end stuff is well within the budget. ... > I agree that bombs are more effective than web defacements. But I > don't think they are more effective than more sinister attacks. More sinister attacks are far more complex to carry out as the level of sinister and fear induction increases. This raises the cost, likelihood of getting caught, and likelihood of failure. All things identified groups avoid for the most part. ... > As for intent... I don't believe at all the idea that some of these > militants have refrained from executing absolutely devastating attacks > because they just didn't want to. As far as hatred goes, there is > more than enough to destroy the world several times over. Intent includes more than just desire to do harm. The question is why they would choose to spend their time and effort this way rather than some other way. A pipe bomb is simple, cheap, easy, and very effective at spreading terror as opposed to a large-scale information attack. I wish it were not so - because information attacks may effect more people but they kill fewer. > As for effect... There may be something here. I think they know the > effect that they want to achieve (fear, anyway possible). As for what > attacks will bring about that effect is a harder question. Web > defacements have obviously fallen short of terror. Are there more > sinister attacks that could have a greater effect, produce more > terror, than a well-placed bomb? I think so. Are they cheaper or > easier to execute than placing a bomb? I don't know. But I don't > think they are an order of magnitude more expensive or harder to > execute (assuming the proper expertise is in place). Dissensions > welcome. Several to many orders of magnitude more expensive for a strong IW attack than a pipe bomb. Which is not to say that they do not do it - only that it turns out to be more useful for propaganda than as a target. ... > Conclusion: if terrorists want to perform very sinister attacks, they > need to: > -understand what effect they want (terror) > -what large system needs to be broken to achieve that effect > -somebody who domain knowledge and knows how the system works and how > to break it > -somebody who can provide the low-level operations to do that This assumes that they only want to use IT for creating fear. There are lots of other useful things for these groups to do with it. FC --This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended to serve-- Fred Cohen Fred Cohen & Associates.........tel/fax:925-454-0171 fc@all.net The University of New Haven.....http://www.unhca.com/ http://all.net/ Sandia National Laboratories....tel:925-294-2087 ------------------------ Yahoo! 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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-09-29 21:08:40 PDT