Lack Of Digital Security Makes Cities Vulnerable To Major Terror Attacks

Among other issues this is discussed in Marc Goodman's book, Future Crimes. Governments and corporations continue to encourage everybody and everything to be made internet compatible. Little to no concern exists about security. 

[From article]
Terrorists and rogue states are gaining the capability to bring a major city to a standstill with the click of a button, the Director of GCHQ has warned.
In a rare public appearance, Robert Hannigan said the risk to cities like London would increase as more physical objects, such as cars and household appliances, are connected online – the so-called “internet of things”.



Speaking at the Cheltenham Science festival, the intelligence chief warned that nation states were currently developing the kind of cyber programmes that could attack the UK, but that terrorist groups were also looking to take advantage of the technology.
“At some stage they will get the capability,” he said.
“There are certainly states and groups with the intent to do it, terrorist groups, for example, who have no threshold when it comes to the loss of life.
“We’re not quite there yet, but as the world becomes ever more connected that will become a greater risk.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/08/terrorist-groups-acquiring-the-cyber-capability-to-bring-major-c/

Terrorist groups acquiring the cyber capability to bring major cities to a standstill, warns GCHQ chief
Henry Bodkin
8 JUNE 2016 • 7:09PM

Has Perpetual War Arrived? U.S. Troops Returning To Iraq and Afghanistan

[From article] Departing U.S. commander Gen. John Campbell says there will need to be U.S. boots on the ground “for years to come.” Making good on President Obama’s commitment to remove all U.S. forces by next January, said Campbell, “would put the whole mission at risk.”
“Afghanistan has not achieved an enduring level of security and stability that justifies a reduction of our support. … 2016 could be no better and possibly worse than 2015.”
Translation: A U.S. withdrawal would risk a Taliban takeover with Kabul becoming the new Saigon and our Afghan friends massacred.
Fifteen years in, and we are stuck.

 

Nor is America about to end the next longest war in its history: Iraq. Defense Secretary Ash Carter plans to send units of the 101st Airborne back to Iraq to join the 4,000 Americans now fighting there,
[. . .]Vladimir Putin’s plunge into the Syrian civil war with air power appears to have turned the tide in favor of Bashar Assad.
The “moderate” rebels are being driven out of Aleppo and tens of thousands of refugees are streaming toward the Turkish border.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to be enraged with the U.S. for collaborating with Syrian Kurds against ISIS and with Obama’s failure to follow through on his dictate — “Assad must go!”
There is thus no end in sight to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, nor to the U.S.-backed Saudi war in Yemen, where ISIS and al-Qaida have re-arisen in the chaos.
Indeed, the West is mulling over military intervention in Libya to crush ISIS there and halt the refugee flood into Europe.
[. . .]



“Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security” said Dunford, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I would have to point to Russia … if you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.”
[. . .]
How do these tribal and territorial conflicts in the far east of Europe so threaten us that U.S. generals are declaring that “Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security”?
Asked to name other threats to the United States, Gen. Dunford listed them in this order: China, North Korea, ISIS.
[. . .]

 

how does China threaten the United States?
[. . .]Last fall, though, Sen. Ted Cruz reassured us that “the single biggest national security threat facing America right now is the threat of a nuclear Iran.”
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded,” wrote James Madison, “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
Perhaps Madison was wrong.
Otherwise, with no end to war on America’s horizon, the prospect of this free republic enduring is, well, doubtful.

http://buchanan.org/blog/how-republics-perish-124781

How Republics Perish
Friday - February 12, 2016 at 5:20 pm
Patrick J. Buchanan

Cyber Warriors Anonymous Threatens Israel For Palestinian Crimes, While Ignoring Terror Attacks on Israel

http://pamelageller.com/2015/03/anonymous-threatens-israel-with-electronic-holocaust.html/

Anonymous threatens Israel with ‘electronic Holocaust’
ISRAEL ISRAEL: THE REAL WAR, IGNORED BY JIHAD MEDIA

* * *

[From article]

The cyber activist group Anonymous has issued a chilling video statement threatening Israel with an 'electronic Holocaust' in response to what it calls 'crimes in the Palestinian territories'.
The clip is edited in the style of a television news report and features a masked and suited individual sitting behind a desk and reading from a pre-prepared script as he declares plans for a massive cyber attack on April 7 - one week before Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Declaring Palestinians youths a 'symbol of freedom', Anonymous says it will take down 'servers, government websites, Israeli military websites, and Israeli institutions' in a move that will 'erase [Israel] from cyberspace in our electronic Holocaust'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3018341/Anonymous-threatens-Israel-electronic-Holocaust-response-crimes-Palestinian-territories.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline

Anonymous threatens Israel with 'electronic Holocaust' in response 'to crimes in the Palestinian territories'
Cyber activist group has released a video threatening attacks on Israel
Warns there will be an 'electronic Holocaust' on Israeli websites on April 7
Means attack is planned for one week before Holocaust Remembrance Day
Video is subtitled in Arabic and appears to have been posted online by a group calling themselves 'Anonymous Arab'
By JOHN HALL FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 11:33 EST, 30 March 2015 | UPDATED: 11:35 EST, 30 March 2015

FBI Admits Cyber Crime Is a Challenge

After 20 years of rapidly expanding use of high tech electronic communications the FBI seems to be becoming aware of the potential for criminal abuses. Don't even think about local and state police agencies, which remain mostly clueless about how to respond to criminals using electronics. On Wednesday May 21, 2014 the new FBI director James Comey, testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He reported that he is visiting local and state police and all field offices of the FBI. He praised the Secret Service for helping to train FBI agents. So you think that the war on crime has also been lost like the war on drugs and poverty too? Mr. Comey is mentioned in the Frontline PBS two part United States of Secrets about the NSA collecting information on U.S. citizens. 

http://nypost.com/2014/05/21/fbi-admits-cyber-crime-is-an-enormous-challenge/

FBI admits cyber crime is an ‘enormous challenge’
By Associated Press
New York Post
May 21, 2014 | 7:28pm

Obama Promotes Health Care At Cyber Security Conference

[From article]
'That wasn't what we came for,' a vice-president of a company whose CEO attended told Mail Online. 'We really didn't care for a PR pitch about how the administration is trying to salvage its internal health care tech nightmare.'
One executive said that meeting participants were dead-set against straying from the principal focus of the meeting – the uncomfortable and legally untenable position they are in when the National Security Agency demands access to their digital records.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2525447/Obama-hijacks-tech-executive-meeting-changes-subject-NSA-surveillance-healthcare-gov-fixes.html

Obama 'hijacks' tech executive meeting to make 'PR pitch' on Obamacare website fix instead of dealing with NSA surveillance
'We didn't really care for a PR pitch' about Obamacare, said one executive
The White House telegraphed in advance that the president wanted to talk up his efforts to fix healthcare.gov, but no one in the room was interested
Tech executives gathered in the Roosevelt Room to discuss the NSA's overreach in seizing their digital records
A federal judge ruled Monday that the practice violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantees against unreasonable searches
By DAVID MARTOSKO, U.S. POLITICAL EDITOR
Daily Mail (UK)

PUBLISHED: 15:59 EST, 17 December 2013 | UPDATED: 17:16 EST, 17 December 2013

Civil Rights Attorney Harassed by Government Spooks, Liberal TV Propagandists

[From article]
“This case is based on Larry Klayman’s tin-foil hat paranoia about the NSA being after him. He had some fantasy that the NSA was after him. This case is not about Larry Klayman, it’s about the metadata program that affects everybody, but the idea that Larry Klayman is the representative is simply outrageous,” Toobin said. “He is a professional litigant and lunatic who should not be a representative of the very important issues of this case.”
This is a classic example of how liberals use personal attacks to discredit not only conservatives, but also anyone who disagrees with them. The first rule of propaganda is personal attacks. Socialists and Communists employ propaganda regularly. The dumbed down population of the U.S. is clueless about being skeptical about what politicians and advocacy journalists say. MSNBC is obsessed with leftists propaganda. Klayman showed enormous courage appearing on that misguided television propaganda outlet.  

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/larry-klayman-don-lemon-jeffrey-toobin-cnn-national-security-agency-101271.html

Larry Klayman in huge CNN smackdown
By TAL KOPAN

12/18/13 6:36 AM EST

* * *

[From article]
Larry Klayman, a WND commentary contributor and founder of Judicial Watch and, more recently, FreedomWatch, told WND that once his allegations that the federal government was violating the Constitution with its “watch-every-call” strategy hit the courts, he noticed problems with his email.
“People began receiving from me emails that I had never sent,” Klayman told WND, suggesting harassment in response to his work. “The government just wanted me to know they were watching me.”

Really??? And when I complain about computer tampering they say I'm paranoid.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/stunning-revelation-from-man-who-sued-nsa/

WND EXCLUSIVE
STUNNING REVELATION FROM MAN WHO SUED NSA
'The government just wanted me to know they were watching me'
Published: December 16, 2013

JEROME R. CORSI

Pentgon Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

[From article]
"The Pentagon has been fighting a desperate defensive battle against foreign hackers for years. Its networks, including the SPIRNET classified-internal communications system, are exposed to 360 million attacks a year -- and the military's Global Information Grid gets attacked 3 million times every day."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/welcome_to_the_cybertrenches_UdqfTxUU3SFSYV6nQ9QXzJ

Welcome to the cybertrenches
By ARTHUR HERMAN
New York Post
Last Updated: 4:29 AM, April 3, 2010
Posted: 12:27 AM, April 3, 2010