Inside Cyber Warfare - Jeffrey Carr [121]
There are examples of synchronicity in both psychology and science. During one of Carl Jung’s many talks with Wolfgang Pauli on this subject, Jung described how a patient was relaying her dream of receiving a piece of gold jewelry in the shape of a scarab beetle and, in that exact moment, how a small goldish-green colored scarabeid beetle was repeatedly banging into the glass of Jung’s office window.[49]
A similar example in chaos theory, known as the butterfly effect, connects two seemingly disparate events:
The flapping of a single butterfly’s wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month’s time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn’t happen. Or maybe one that wasn’t going to happen, does.[50]
While both Jung and Pauli are from the early 20th century, Basarab Nicolescu is a contemporary theoretical physicist who believes that cyber-space-time is on par with organic systems:
The emergence of at least three different levels of Reality in the study of natural systems—the macrophysical level, the microphysical level, and the cyber-space-time—is a major event in the history of knowledge. The existence of different levels of Reality has been affirmed by different traditions and civilizations, but this affirmation was founded either on religious dogma or on the exploration of the interior universe only.[51]
Another important scientific theory, similar to chaos, is the complexity theory. Appropriately, both theories are children of the Computer Age because only computers are capable of performing the immense calculations needed to prove their existence. A complex system is one in which numerous independent elements continuously interact and spontaneously organize and reorganize themselves into more and more elaborate structures over time. The World Wide Web is a perfect example of complexity theory in action, evolving from Web 1.0 to 3.0 and whatever follows from there. The relationship that physics, psychology, and ancient Chinese oracles have with cyber warfare is that the terrain of cyber-space-time is not only chaotic and unknown, but unpredictable. Although network defenses stop millions of automated probes and drive-by attacks each day, we are always surprised by targeted attacks—which are the ones that really matter. Before we can design a superior plan to defend against the targeted attack, we need to understand how dependent we have become on this new networked and wired world.
The world’s militaries are struggling to cope with a new cyber battlefield because they are stuck in an old reality that no longer exists and are affected by a new reality they don’t understand. The following sections present a few examples of threat vectors that can cause significant havoc, yet which current cyber warfare doctrine ignores.
Anarchist Clusters: Anonymous, LulzSec, and the Anti-Sec Movement
Anonymous and the anti-sec movement have offered concrete proof of how effective chaotic attack clusters can be at defeating poorly defended organizations. Their victims have included the Atlanta Infraguard office, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Vanguard Defense Industries, HB Gary Federal, and the CIA’s public website. Although it’s not a security organization, Sony had its web properties attacked more than 20 times in 60 days, which must be some kind of record. Anonymous hasn’t only gone after US targets—other victims have included the Columbian Black Eagles Special Police Unit, the UK Serious Organized Crime Agency, and government websites in Brazil, Tunisia, Italy, Zimbabwe, and Australia.
Anonymous,