Contingencies

Does your job depend on the Internet? Does your day extensively involve the Internet? Bruce Schneier, long an Internet security expert, discloses a disturbing trend using Lawfare:

SR-71
Source: The Aviationist

Over the past year or two, someone has been probing the defenses of the companies that run critical pieces of the Internet. These probes take the form of precisely calibrated attacks designed to determine exactly how well these companies can defend themselves, and what would be required to take them down. We don’t know who is doing this, but it feels like a large a large nation state. …

It reminds me of the U.S.’s Cold War program of flying high-altitude planes over the Soviet Union to force their air-defense systems to turn on, to map their capabilities.

Thoughts go many different ways from here.

What would happen if the Internet went down for an extended period? Or, roughly equivalent, became unstable and undependable? A number of companies would be in deep trouble, although the larger corporations, such as Amazon and Alibaba, might have contingency plans in place. It’s a little difficult to imagine the content of such plans, beyond laying everyone off.

Who does not hurt themselves by introducing instability into the Internet? No doubt autocratic countries have less to fear, as control of the population may outweigh the virtues of the Internet.

And how about those defensive strategies? Bruce suggests the sites are being forced to show their entire arsenal. I wonder if there’s an attempt to vary the response over time, making analysis more difficult. I’m not a security expert, so I’m just guessing, but it seems to me the more variability you can show, the less certain an attacker can be of a specific approach working.

Finally, this may be the symptom of a contingency plan for the attacker. Understanding the vulnerabilities of potential enemies is the responsibility of the armed forces of any country. In fact, spying on friends is not unknown – although rarely appreciated. So it’s certainly possible this is merely a preparation for a Plan B or C.

It could even be American. Improbable, implausible – but not impossible.