John Bolton, cyber warrior

[DonViejo]

Trump’s incoming adviser has said the U.S. should launch a ‘retaliatory cyber campaign against Russia’ and ‘use WikiLeaks for target practice.’

By CORY BENNETT 04/01/2018 07:00 AM EDT

John Bolton has spent years imploring the U.S. to go on the attack in cyberspace — a stance that some digital warfare experts caution could set up the nation for a conflict it would be better off avoiding.

President Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser has made this point in a series of op-eds, speeches and appearances on panels and television, arguing that America should deploy its “muscular cyber capabilities” to strike back against digital adversaries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. The point, he said, would be to impose costs “so high that they will simply consign all their cyber warfare plans to their computer memories to gather electronic dust.”

Starting April 9, Bolton won’t have to make these pitches in public. He’ll have Trump’s ear — every single day. And with the president preparing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a trade war looming with China, an expected Russian digital assault on the 2018 midterms, and a deadline nearing to recertify the Iran nuclear deal, Bolton’s cyber hawkishness could have significant ramifications.

While officials and cyber specialists agree with Bolton’s push for a clearly articulated digital strike policy, the government has hesitated to dive headlong into what Bolton calls “a retaliatory cyber campaign,” wary of blowback on American businesses and infrastructure, the lack of global rules for online warfare and the debatable effectiveness of digital strikes in the first place.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/01/john-bolton-cyber-hawk-russia-451937

[Lee-Lee]

1. Cyber warfare has the potential to be replay ugly for us here at home

Americans have largely been insulated from the effects of war on a population for many generations, to the point we forget what it means.

Cyber has the potential to drastically shift that.

Imagine if the power went off in the Northeast in January. No power in NY, NJ, CT, MA and other states all at once.

And it stayed that way for two weeks.

Most people in cities have no other way to heat homes. In the suburbs people may have a fireplace but it’s ddcorative and not for heating, if they even have wood.

Most people don’t have 2 weeks worth of food, much less a way to cook it.

How many people have less than a 2 week supply of essential medications?

Take what happened in Puerto Rico after the hurricane and make it 1000x worse, because there would be no warning, cold temps that kill, and 100x more people affected or more.

You would see casualty rates in the thousands, plus the ripple effects into the larger economy.