Is this government cyberspace manual "spooky" or what?

Concerns me, sure. But its nothing new. We’ve been fighting a “cyber-war” ever since computers gained prominence. Literally for decades. Its just becoming more and more advanced as the technology does as well.

And I wouldn’t worry too much. Most of our “core” primary importance systems, are fully insulated from the web and would require someone to be there in person to gain access.

This has been pretty well documented and known for some time now. It’s not a surprise to me, but I’m glad that military commands are informing their users in ways such as you describe.

Am I the only one seeing a pattern here?
The terrorists are attacking us, so the govt needs to wiretap and spy on us to protect us.
The bankers are attacking us, so the govt needs to “stop the banks” to protect us.
The globe is going to soon be attacking us, so the govt needs to protect us from global warming.
The internet will be attacking us, so the govt will need to control the internet to protect us.

The spooky thing to me is that it seems like the only thing being attacked are our rights. The cyberspace war is really a war on information and truth.

The media has done a good job of making the American people think that the word terrorist only applies to Muslims. In countries such as Greece and France, the word terrorist is now being used towards people protesting against austerity measures, which is abolishing the rights of its citizens.

Here is an article which gives a different perspective on the “cyberwar.”

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The excuses being given for the increasing government intervention into the internet are essentially two: first, that the anonymity of the internet has permitted criminal behavior, fraud, pornography, and libel. Second is the security argument, that managing the internet is an integral part of the “global war on terror” in that it is used by terrorists to plan their attacks requiring governments to control those who use it. The United States government takes the latter argument one step farther, claiming that the internet itself is a vulnerable “natural asset” that could be seized or damaged by terrorists and must be protected, making the case for a massive $100 billion program of cyberwarfare. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) argues that “violent Islamist extremists” rely on the internet to communicate and recruit and he has introduced a bill in the Senate that will empower the president to “kill” the internet in case of a national emergency.

But all of the arguments for intervention are essentially themselves fraudulent and are in reality being exploited by those who favor big government and state control. The anonymity and low cost nature of the internet means that it can be used to express views that are unpopular or unconventional, which is its strength. It is sometimes used for criminal behavior because it is a mechanism, not because there is something intrinsic in it that makes it a choice of wrongdoers. Before it existed, fraud was carried out through the postal service and over the telephone. Pornography circulated freely by other means. As for the security argument, the tiny number of actual terrorists who use the internet do so because it is there and it is accessible. If it did not exist, they would find other ways to communicate, just as they did in pre-internet days. In fact, intelligence sources report that internet use by terrorists is rare because of persistent government monitoring of the websites.

The real reason for controlling the internet is to restrict access to information, something every government seeks to do. If the American Departments of Defense and Homeland Security and Senator Lieberman have their way, new cybersecurity laws will enable Obama’s administration to take control of the internet in the event of a national crisis. How that national crisis might be defined would be up to the White House but there have been some precedents that suggest that the response would hardly be respectful of the Bill of Rights. Many countries already monitor and censor the internet on a regular basis, forbidding access to numerous sites that they consider to be subversive or immoral. During recent unrest, the governments of both Iran and China effectively shut down the internet by taking control of or blocking servers. Combined with switching off of cell phone transmitters, the steps proved effective in isolating dissidents. Could it happen here? Undoubtedly. Once the laws are in place a terrorist incident or something that could be plausibly described in those terms would be all that is needed to have government officials issue the order to bring the internet to a halt.”

Now just think for a minute, if there is another terror attack, and the internet gets shut down, we will be forced to get all information about what is going on from the corporate media and no where else.

Chris6137. great answer. my concern, according to the manual, is hackers taking over electrical power grids throughout America. if you kill electricity, you kill computers and you kill Americas ability to survive. i am amazed this has not been attempted, before now. is America that vulnerable?

It seems very spooky but, I’ll be willing to read anything once.

It is that vulnerable. You are correct.
My answer to that is to redefine “energy independence.” It has been defined by the media and politicians as “being independent from foreign oil.” I would like to take that much further.
We have the ability to produce electricity locally, without a grid. I think energy independence should mean that every family should be producing their own energy. Independent from corporations, period. As an electrician, I understand that not all homes are positioned to produce electricity efficiently. My solution to that is to move towards localized grids, where towns, or sections of towns invest in renewable-energy electrical co-op’s, where the most ideal homes for producing energy may be used, while alleviating the burden of the costs that prevented them from doing so in the first place.
Germany is the most advanced country in the world when it comes to solar power, however, they are recently experiencing problems with overloading the grid. If we were to ever become as successful as Germany at using renewable energies, Im sure we will experience similar problems, which may be avoided through smaller, localized grids.

We need to identify the actual problem before coming up with solutions. The more we are controlled by fear, the faster the govt feels it needs to come up with solutions, without taking a step back and see what the real problem is.

Dangers we can foresee we should be able to deal with. It is the unexpected that is the problem, something we had not imagined or some unlikely combination of events.

@john65pennington I think you misread @chris6137‘s answer. If I read him right (I only skimmed) it seems that he believes the case for “internet attack” to be fraudulent, and a pretext for a possible government takeover / shutdown of the internet in case of what they may term “national emergency”.

I don’t think our government can afford to install, much less use, a “kill switch” in the internet, so I think the fear is somewhat overblown. But I believe the threats are real, even if not massively concerted and orchestrated by a single government entity. When we realize that “millions of attacks” can be launched by a single computer infected by a virus, then it kind of puts the numbers into perspective. Which is not to say that the attacks aren’t real, and don’t pose dangers. So as much as I hate to disagree with a fellow Lew Rockwell reader, I think the fear may be overblown on that.

I agree with @chris6137 that governments always inflate possible dangers and always set themselves up as ‘saviors’—and the possibility of our own equipment containing hardware with back doors to bad guys is one that I hadn’t thought about much until this year, so that is worth investigation and I do applaud the military’s awareness of that potential threat—but I think most knowledgeable users of the internet (and IT managers at sensitive locations) are fully aware that their biggest threats are their own users. And I don’t mean malicious users, either, but lazy ones who fail to make backups, forgetful ones who write down network passwords on desktop calendars, overly polite ones who violate their own internal security rules and open doors to strangers, etc.