Cyberwar Dies for Lack of Targets

Steven Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists has an interesting sidelight to the cyberwar hoopla spawned by the Obama Administration over cyber attacks on Sony and the theft of security data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  He has an interesting point that is more disturbing than we really want to know.  [ http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2016/05/cyber-emergency/ ]. In spite of all the words put out by the White House, and the declaration of an "national emergency", Treasury issued a report saying no qualifying targets had been identified.  Bizarre.  I know a few people who could have helped them find some, but naming them would have been just the first step.

It is like all those nuclear weapons sitting in bunkers waiting to be used - but never used.  We talk about them a lot.  We know how to deliver them.  We don't like the results on either side when that happens.  These are all things that were discussed for years when the first bomb was dropped on Japan.  As people found out what the likely consequences of war would be with nuclear exchanges, even the crazy people of the world thought better of it.  It is the kind of thing North Korea talks about because it knows talking about it has some value.  This is completely different.

It wasn't targets that called this off.  The politicians and business leaders who know the Chinese got the security clearance records of almost 21 million people means the Chinese have a way of turning this cyberwar into a bloody battle that not many of the top echelon would find very satisfying.  The Chinese know more about our leadership than we know about them.  Heading into an election year, they also know that this kind of data could make quite a stir.