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Biden Warns That The Next Kinetic War Will Be The Result Of A Cyberattack, Which Is Stupid

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The cyberwar hype has been going on for nearly a decade now. And, while it is very much the case that cybersecurity to defend from international actors is very much a real need, it's also true that dangling the threat of cyberwarfare over the public's heads has been purposefully done to excuse governmental power grabs at the military and intelligence agency levels. It's also been true throughout this hype-fest that the US government has been practically begging for there to be a cyberwar in the first place... except that other nations mostly seem to play with this at the most minimal levels. And, in the past, the American government has indicated that real shooting wars may result from cyberwar activities.Now, none of the above is meant to suggest that there can't be a situation in which a foreign state actor engages in "cyber" actions so egregious that traditional military action would be warranted. Rather, the point is that such scenarios are both so egregious in their nature, and that they certainly haven't occurred to date, that to make threats of shooting wars as a result seems like a massive overreaction.Unless, of course, you're President Joe Biden, in which case you walk in front of the Office for the Director of National Intelligence and assert with certainty that the next kinetic war will absolutely start as a result of a "cyber breach."

“If we end up in a war, a real shooting war with a major power, it’s going to be as a consequence of a cyber breach,” the president said in a speech at the Office for the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees 18 US intelligence agencies.Although he did not say who such a war might be fought against, Biden immediately name-checked Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, alleging that Russia was spreading misinformation ahead of the 2022 US midterm elections.
This is quite stupid for a variety of reasons. Let's start with the most obvious: when politicians talk about conflicts between "major powers", you can simply replace "major" with "nuclear" and it's the same message. And if we're talking about suffering a "cyber breach" conducted by a "nuclear power", then proactively escalating the engagement rules into the kinetic warfare realm puts the entire world in a suddenly more dangerous place.And this doesn't even work from a level of deterrence either. First, nations like Russia and China have generally shown themselves to be largely un-deterrable in the cyberwarfare space. It's not even entirely clear that our intelligence services are fully buttoned up on any given breach when it comes to who the attackers are and what level of state action is involved. For that to result in a kinetic war is, again, very stupid.The statement also gives full permission to America's rivals throughout the world to put out their own statements in kind. And does anyone seriously doubt that we are engaging in cyber breaches at some level against our rivals ourselves? So, given Biden's stance, would it be morally correct for Russia or China to suspect America of some kind of intrusion... and start shooting? That's really where we want to end up?Somehow I doubt it. Instead, this appears to be good, old-fashioned American myopic thinking at work. We do entirely too much of this: try to put out deterrence or threats without understanding that the result will be nations throughout the world lobbing those same threats right back at us. And if all of that were to result in warfare, never mind nuclear warfare, that would be abhorrent.

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posted at: 12:00am on 04-Aug-2021
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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Oklahoma Deputies Steal $141,500 From Men Trying To Buy Land, Manage To Make $10,000 Of It Disappear

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Some regular, everyday highway robbery committed by an Oklahoma law enforcement agency is getting some airtime and additional scrutiny, which certainly isn't going to be beneficial to the Canadian County Sheriff's Office. (via Reason)Two businessmen from New Mexico were on their way to buy some land in Oklahoma when they were stopped by sheriff's deputies. After asking for the driver's license, the deputies began badgering the driver, Thai Nang, about the presumed existence of cash, hopefully lots of it.

“They keep asking like do I have cash, do we have cash, many times, many times. I say, ‘Of course we have cash,'” Nang told News 4.He said that’s when the deputy started searching their car and found the $141,500 in cash that they were going to use for the land purchase.“That’s our savings money to buy the agriculture land and he told me, ‘I’m 300% sure that’s illegal money,'” Nang said.
The deputies seized the cash and took Nang and his partner back to the Office for questioning. Several hours later they were released. But not their money. The $141,500 was confiscated by the Sheriff's Office, which obviously plans to forfeit it as illegally-obtained.On the way to the forfeiture proceedings, the Sheriff's Office made nearly $10,000 of it disappear.
According to the court documents, only $131,502 was seized, which is $10,000 short.The document also alleges that the money was “furnished, or intended to be furnished, in exchange for a controlled dangerous substance,” “traceable to such an exchange” or was “intended to be used to facilitate a violation of the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Act.”
Those allegations are going to be pretty difficult to prove. And even the minimal level of proof needed to successfully steal property from drivers is unlikely to be met here. Reporters from KFOR did what the Sheriff's Office refused to do. They went out and attempted to verify Nang's claim the money was being used to purchase property. They were successful.
A Caddo County property owner is standing behind two New Mexico businessmen who told KFOR they were attempting to purchase land with thousands of dollars that was seized from them by the Canadian County Sheriff’s Office.“Why didn’t they just send somebody out to ask me like you’re asking me? I’d have told them the same thing,” a Caddo County property owner, who wanted to keep his identity private, told News 4.
Not only did the property owner verify the story, he also provided documentation of the planned purchase, including the bill of sale. He also verified that dollar amount ($141,500) was accurate, stating that the land was being sold for $100,000 plus "$30-40,000 to upgrade the electricity and the water."Presumably these statements have already been converted into a notarized affidavit that Nang's lawyer will be bringing to court. Presumably the Sheriff's Office will be bringing nothing more than its speculative fiction about the money's innate illegality. And while it will be satisfying to see these badge-wearing crooks get their ill-gotten gains stripped away in a court of law, I imagine it would have been much more satisfying to Nang and his partner to be in possession of the property they were purchasing and putting their time and energy into that, rather than spending money righting a wrong that never should have been perpetrated on them.

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posted at: 12:00am on 04-Aug-2021
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