In the LA Times today, we see a report that major U.S. government web sites were recently "attacked" by some 50,000 private computers infected with a virus; the virus caused these thousands of private computers to continuously contact said government websites in an effort to overwhelm them.
Apparently the private computers were located, not domestically, but in either North or South Korea! However, most U.S. officials and computer security experts have dismissed the idea that this "attack" was some kind of effort at electronic warfare vs. the United States by North Korea.
I won't speak directly to this story, but I will guarantee you this much: If the U.S. government ever has seriously heavy-duty computer problems as the result of some kind of colossal electronic attack by agents or citizens of a foreign power, then you, me and the rest of the general public in the U.S. will be the absolute last people to know about it!
Let's face facts: the U.S. government isn't in the business of panicking and giving the bad guys a lot of free press when said bad guys manage to "dunk" on the security protecting U.S. Government computers.
If everybody at, let's say, the Pentagon finds that their respective computers have been compromised, they'll probably just grab some coffee and start writing all of their calculations and analysis on paper. Then they'll use messengers to convey these papers by vehicle and on foot to their people throughout Washington, the U.S. and overseas.
But they absolutely will not call the Washington Post and scream and yell about how all the computers at the Pentagon, The Department of Defense, or the Department of Homeland Security are now disabled as the result of an "electronic attack."
I say that if we the public hear about an alleged attack on U.S. government computers, it is because the Federal Executive Branch has a reason for wanting us and/or Congress to know about it. That's it.
I'd speculate that that "reason" probably has to do with money; specifically, it's likely a "manufactured" effort to get the general public to call their elected representatives and get said elected representatives to initiate or support legislation that provides additional funding for computer security within the federal executive branch. And this, itself, is probably a "fortification" effort -- defense, if you will, to buttress cyber-attacks perhaps initiated by, well, ...the U.S.
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