The URL shortening industry would have been devastated.

Sooo...depriving the enemy of Fark is a war crime? I don't get it.

I'm wondering how effective it would have been. Any military worth it's salt would have a manual back-up for the computerized system, using radios or perhaps just old-fashioned telephones, and would occasionally practice with it. So you might make it a bit harder for them to operate efficiently, but it might just be more effective to go ahead and just destroy the radars and the fixed SAM sites anyway, and deal with the mobile ones on an as-needed basis.

Black Lotus ?

Happy Hours: Diogenes: "But administration officials and even some military officers balked, fearing that it might set a precedent for other nations, in particular Russia or China, to carry out such offensives of their own..."

I'm sure the idea never occurred to them.

Perhaps a more likely explanation is we didn't think it worth it to show our capabilities on a nation that really doesn't pose a threat to us. Also doing so would allow others to study the method of attack and develop countermeasures.

Exactly that. I would say you gave the primary reason why it wasn't done. Its not like Libya's military is modernized to the level where it would make a whole lot of difference. Conventional electronic countermeasures in that theater would be far more worthwhile. The second reason is the legal precedent and its not even a good one. We already know China wages cyberwar on various countries because we have caught them doing it. In terms of precedent its already there because they don't seem to give a wit whether its truly legal or not. Our doing it would be sort of a tacit acknowledgement that its ok, but wouldn't change all that much in the world.

Who cares? We're already basically at the cold war equvalent of a cyberwar anyhow (stuxnet worm, the drone virus, china's exploits, etc..)
It's assumed the larger nations have EMP weapons too, which would have been a complete waste against libya..

Slaxl: ^ The perils of postin on Fark when your boss is walking around the corner behind and you press add comment instead of fixing errors. I don't know why I felt the need to rush that...

Just tell him it's a matter of national security.

****carrier lost****

How many Farkers actually know what that means, let alone having seen it, anymore? Maybe someone should update this meme:

connection closed by remote host

LoonieCobber: ****carrier lost****

How many Farkers actually know what that means, let alone having seen it, anymore? Maybe someone should update this meme:

I've used a 300 baud modem. I know what it means.

dittybopper: I'm wondering how effective it would have been. Any military worth it's salt would have a manual back-up for the computerized system, using radios or perhaps just old-fashioned telephones, and would occasionally practice with it. So you might make it a bit harder for them to operate efficiently, but it might just be more effective to go ahead and just destroy the radars and the fixed SAM sites anyway, and deal with the mobile ones on an as-needed basis.

I would think that any carefully-planned military network would avoid connection to the greater Internet anyway, preferably in the physical sense (as opposed to just not routing to it). I mean, even then there's the chance of the enemy sending some guy in to get a physical connection, but better make them do that than allow the chance of them breaking in from many a different continent.

dittybopper: LoonieCobber: ****carrier lost****

How many Farkers actually know what that means, let alone having seen it, anymore? Maybe someone should update this meme:

I've used a 300 baud modem. I know what it means.

Ditto. Although IIRC the word "lost" usually didn't even come into play. It was just...

NO CARRIER

linuxpyro: dittybopper: I'm wondering how effective it would have been. Any military worth it's salt would have a manual back-up for the computerized system, using radios or perhaps just old-fashioned telephones, and would occasionally practice with it. So you might make it a bit harder for them to operate efficiently, but it might just be more effective to go ahead and just destroy the radars and the fixed SAM sites anyway, and deal with the mobile ones on an as-needed basis.

I would think that any carefully-planned military network would avoid connection to the greater Internet anyway, preferably in the physical sense (as opposed to just not routing to it). I mean, even then there's the chance of the enemy sending some guy in to get a physical connection, but better make them do that than allow the chance of them breaking in from many a different continent.

Actually, you can do that sort of thing with social engineering. Drop a thumb drive in a parking lot, that sort of thing. Distributing free porn dvds might work really well in a country like Libya. It's not that hard to gain entry into computers that aren't connected to the internet, but you have to be careful, and patient. After all, the Iranian computers running the centrifuges that got farked by the Stuxnet worm were almost certainly not connected to the internet: They were probably infected by someone plugging a USB drive into one of the machines, and the worm then copied itself over the internal network.

Wthrwyz: dittybopper: LoonieCobber: ****carrier lost****

How many Farkers actually know what that means, let alone having seen it, anymore? Maybe someone should update this meme:

I've used a 300 baud modem. I know what it means.

Ditto. Although IIRC the word "lost" usually didn't even come into play. It was just...

NO CARRIER

And it wasn't asterisks, it was plus signs: +++NO CARRIER+++

dittybopper: Actually, you can do that sort of thing with social engineering. Drop a thumb drive in a parking lot, that sort of thing. Distributing free porn dvds might work really well in a country like Libya. It's not that hard to gain entry into computers that aren't connected to the internet, but you have to be careful, and patient. After all, the Iranian computers running the centrifuges that got farked by the Stuxnet worm were almost certainly not connected to the internet: They were probably infected by someone plugging a USB drive into one of the machines, and the worm then copied itself over the internal network.

That's a very good point, but I would imagine that the smart move would be if the missile/centrifuge/whatever control workstation were not networked with desktops used for things like Email and general productivity (where it seems the average peon would be tempted to run his porn DVD or new flash drive). Unless they combine the two, which would be kind of dumb.

One would think that they'd have some draconian policies in place, when it comes to this sort of thing. Then again, stupidity is very good at finding a way.

linuxpyro: dittybopper: Actually, you can do that sort of thing with social engineering. Drop a thumb drive in a parking lot, that sort of thing. Distributing free porn dvds might work really well in a country like Libya. It's not that hard to gain entry into computers that aren't connected to the internet, but you have to be careful, and patient. After all, the Iranian computers running the centrifuges that got farked by the Stuxnet worm were almost certainly not connected to the internet: They were probably infected by someone plugging a USB drive into one of the machines, and the worm then copied itself over the internal network.

That's a very good point, but I would imagine that the smart move would be if the missile/centrifuge/whatever control workstation were not networked with desktops used for things like Email and general productivity (where it seems the average peon would be tempted to run his porn DVD or new flash drive). Unless they combine the two, which would be kind of dumb.

One would think that they'd have some draconian policies in place, when it comes to this sort of thing. Then again, stupidity is very good at finding a way.

You can attempt to do that kind of thing, but there will always be a bored soldier or tech who wants to look at titties or play some game, on an idle machine on the midnight shift, and that's all it takes. Only way to prevent that is to completely shut off the capability to access the machines via removable media, which then means the only way you can upgrade the software is to install new machines.

dittybopper: LoonieCobber: ****carrier lost****

How many Farkers actually know what that means, let alone having seen it, anymore? Maybe someone should update this meme:

I've used a 300 baud modem. I know what it means.

I still remember pranking newbies to call atdt9111234. Christ, I must of been 12

By the way, does anyone remember a prank to blow someones modem with a bell generator on the other end of the line? Would that actually work?

Wicked Chinchilla: Happy Hours: Diogenes: "But administration officials and even some military officers balked, fearing that it might set a precedent for other nations, in particular Russia or China, to carry out such offensives of their own..."

I'm sure the idea never occurred to them.

Perhaps a more likely explanation is we didn't think it worth it to show our capabilities on a nation that really doesn't pose a threat to us. Also doing so would allow others to study the method of attack and develop countermeasures.

Exactly that. I would say you gave the primary reason why it wasn't done. Its not like Libya's military is modernized to the level where it would make a whole lot of difference. Conventional electronic countermeasures in that theater would be far more worthwhile. The second reason is the legal precedent and its not even a good one. We already know China wages cyberwar on various countries because we have caught them doing it. In terms of precedent its already there because they don't seem to give a wit whether its truly legal or not. Our doing it would be sort of a tacit acknowledgement that its ok, but wouldn't change all that much in the world.

So we shouldn't test new drugs on lab rats first? You know, make sure they work.

dittybopper: You can attempt to do that kind of thing, but there will always be a bored soldier or tech who wants to look at titties or play some game, on an idle machine on the midnight shift, and that's all it takes. Only way to prevent that is to completely shut off the capability to access the machines via removable media, which then means the only way you can upgrade the software is to install new machines.

If you have a machine for which the only purpose is to launch a missile or whatever, you could strip it down a lot. Might not even need a real desktop, or any sort of removeable media. Rather, you work on setting up a good software configuration and leave it as long as you can. It's not like you'd always need new hardware to accomplish the basic goal. And if you did, you could always remove the drive and work on it in another machine. There are still holes here, but the opportunities for an attack are minimized. That said, it is questionable as to how much of this a country like Iran would think about.

dittybopper: Wthrwyz: dittybopper: LoonieCobber: ****carrier lost****

How many Farkers actually know what that means, let alone having seen it, anymore? Maybe someone should update this meme:

I've used a 300 baud modem. I know what it means.

Ditto. Although IIRC the word "lost" usually didn't even come into play. It was just...

NO CARRIER

And it wasn't asterisks, it was plus signs: +++NO CARRIER+++

I don't remember getting any plus signs. Either nothing, or a few characters from the ASCII Grab Bag when the noise of somebody picking up the phone got demodulated. The +++ was an escape sequence to break out of sending data and switch to telling the modem to do stuff, e.g.
Ahh fark it.
+++
OK
ATH0
OK

As compared to the +++-less unintended disconnection:

Oh crap, I think my mom wants to use the pho#{;z!NO CARRIER

Of course, that could vary by modem manufacturer. Things may have been less standardized back in the 300 baud days than what I got used to (2400 and up).

Professor Science: dittybopper: Wthrwyz: dittybopper: LoonieCobber: ****carrier lost****

How many Farkers actually know what that means, let alone having seen it, anymore? Maybe someone should update this meme:

I've used a 300 baud modem. I know what it means.

Ditto. Although IIRC the word "lost" usually didn't even come into play. It was just...

NO CARRIER

And it wasn't asterisks, it was plus signs: +++NO CARRIER+++

I don't remember getting any plus signs. Either nothing, or a few characters from the ASCII Grab Bag when the noise of somebody picking up the phone got demodulated. The +++ was an escape sequence to break out of sending data and switch to telling the modem to do stuff, e.g.
Ahh fark it.
+++
OK
ATH0
OK

As compared to the +++-less unintended disconnection:

Oh crap, I think my mom wants to use the pho#{;z!NO CARRIER

Of course, that could vary by modem manufacturer. Things may have been less standardized back in the 300 baud days than what I got used to (2400 and up).

Yeah, I think that's right. It's been a while.

dittybopper: I'm wondering how effective it would have been. Any military worth it's salt would have a manual back-up for the computerized system, using radios or perhaps just old-fashioned telephones, and would occasionally practice with it. So you might make it a bit harder for them to operate efficiently, but it might just be more effective to go ahead and just destroy the radars and the fixed SAM sites anyway, and deal with the mobile ones on an as-needed basis.

Aiming anti-aircraft missiles based off voice guidance? Seems pretty foolish to me since it's going to come down somewhere if you miss.