John Stokes

Google’s decision to publicly confront the Chinese government over cyber attacks that have been hitting Google customers for the past year or so poses a difficult challenge for the Obama administration. The threat by Google to shut down its operations in China over the attacks is the first public acknowledgement by a major US corporation of the attacks which the US intelligence community has known about for almost a decade. The facts are that China has been waging a cyber war against the US government and companies that involve literally millions of attacks each day. Every major US corporation operating in China has been targeted, as have universities, research laboratories and other American companies that have intellectual property worth stealing.

The verdict is in and just about every part of the US intelligence community failed to perform. The Solomonic decision of President Obama is that no individual is at fault - no systemic leadership problems here - and so nobody will be held accountable. Instead, there will be improved processes and better technology. This was exactly the response after 9/11 when 3,000 people died. At that time, the man in charge of US intelligence, George Tenet, stayed in his job and was later given the Medal of Freedom - America's highest honor. This week's verdict was over the intelligence failures that led to a Nigerian boarding a flight in Amsterdam destined for Detroit, over Christmas, with explosives concealed in his underwear.

The failed terrorist attack on a North West Airlines plane last month has reignited the debate about just what can be done to improve the performance of America’s intelligence agencies. Despite spending close to $100 billion since the attacks of 9/11 nine years ago, it has become clear in the aftermath of the failed attack that all the old problems that were identified after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon still remain: Intelligence is not shared effectively and the analysis of available data remains weak. To the reformers inside the intelligence community, none of this is exactly news. As money poured in after 9/11 there was little thought about overall strategy.

At the headquarters of the Defense Intelligence Agency outside of Washington DC, there are no cardboard mockups of Iran’s nuclear sites that can be used for briefing the military on plans of attack. Instead, there is a very cool 3D map table that allows the viewer to fly into and through the many layers of the nuclear facilities. A movement of the hands can expand or contract the view from an image of an individual room to the perspective from an overhead satellite. On the basis of that briefing, an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites looks easy, right down to the dialing in of the depth at which a new line of bunker busting bombs would have to detonate to do the maximum damage. If only the reality of intelligence was so simple.

The latest revelations about the CIA’s prospective covert assassination program is yet another nail in the coffin of US intelligence and its willingness to take risks. Immediately after the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney called a meeting of intelligence chiefs to ask them what new powers they would like to fight terrorism. A whole laundry list was presented, including increased eavesdropping on Americans, the seizing of terrorists overseas and a torture program that evolved to include a number of foreign countries.

The CIA station in London is at the center of a bitter fight between different branches of the US intelligence community in Washington DC. For years, the CIA has had the right to appoint the station chief who runs US intelligence operations in London and liaises with MI6 and GCHQ. Now, the National Security Agency is arguing that they and not the CIA should run intelligence operations in the UK because they have more people on the ground and the work they do has far greater value to both countries. NSA have found useful allies in both Admiral Denny Blair, the Director of National Intelligence and General Jim Jones, the National Security Adviser who have been very receptive to the argument that intelligence form should follow function and reflect the realities of the 21st century.

The Obama administration is planning to rewrite the rulebook for warfare establishing new laws for war in cyberspace including a series of international agreements that will spell out just what actions are permissible and what will be considered an act of war. For the first time, countries like China, which launch millions of attacks every day will face the prospect of retaliatory action, including the use of a new arsenal of cyber weapons. As this blog predicted, President Obama announced last week a series of major new initiatives designed to secure cyberspace from attack. Much of the reporting has focused on the creation of a new office in the White House to coordinate cyber activity and the creation of a new Cyber Command in the Pentagon to manage offense and defense.

As North Korea continues to ratchet up the nuclear rhetoric, the US and its allies have publicly determined that ‘something must be done’. Barack Obama, in what is the first and most serious test of his Presidency, announced that the world must ‘stand up’ to North Korea. But behind the bluster from Pyongyang and Washington is a recognition on both sides that the opportunities for real action are very limited. For decades, as the North Koreans have developed their own nuclear weapon and then exported their technology to countries like Syria and Iran, the west has stood idly by, not least because they find out about new developments after they have happened.

The prospect of revenge and justice against the kidnappers and torturers of the Bush administration have been prime drivers for many Obama activists which explains the huge cloud of disillusionment that is spreading across Washington. The activists could stand a rollback on the Iraqi withdrawal, a troop build up in Afghanistan, even the unwillingness to seek the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. But the final straw has come with the confirmation hearing of Leon Panetta, the incoming head of the Central Intelligence Agency. It was the CIA who kidnapped people off the streets of foreign capitals, hid them away in secret prisons where they were tortured or sent them to third countries where other brutal regimes could do the torturing on America’s behalf.

Three major cyber attacks on America’s infrastructure from either Russia or China have sent shockwaves through the Obama administration. In the past few weeks, there have been penetrations of the nation’s power grid, the water supply system and the Air Force’s air traffic control network. All of which have heightened the fear of an “electronic Pearl Harbour”, whereby the US is brought to its knees via digital sabotage. While the latest attacks did not result in significant damage, they demonstrated just how easy it could have been to turn off the power across much of America or interrupt the water supply. The probe of the Air Force’s networks raised the spectre of jets crashing as both pilots and ground controllers lost control and visibility.

One of the most complex questions taxing the first days of the Obama administration can now be answered: The new President will be allowed to keep his beloved Blackberry that hangs permanently from his belt and is used dozens of times a day. The National Security Agency has come up with a technology package that will allow the President to communicate at the Secret level while satisfying legal requirements that all presidential communications must be kept and, when appropriate, made available to the public. Blackberries are routinely issued to government employees but there was a particular challenge for Obama in the potential embarrassment if any of his texts or voice calls were intercepted.

The Obama administration is set to appoint General Keith Alexander (pictured), the current Director of the National Security Agency, to be the new Cyber Czar. In a major departure from the past, Alexander, who will receive his fourth general’s star, will have an initial budget of around $8 billion and will control how it is spent within NSA, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. In effect, this will mean that the new head of NSA will report to him instead of to the Secretary of Defense on a huge area of business. In the past five years, President Bush has had five Cyber Czars, all of whom failed miserably to get to grips with the cyber security challenge, in part because they had no money to dispense.

The decision by the US military to ban the use of all flash drives, CDs or other mobile devices to fight a virus that has already infected thousands of government computers is yet another illustration of the cyber challenge confronting America. The Agent virus, a variant of the SillyFDC worm, infects networks and then automatically goes out to the Web to download various tools that can search for data or destroy hard drives.  The ban, which took effect last week and will last indefinitely, will present serious problems for the US military which relies on mobile storage devices to manage their data. However, there are much deeper issues at stake than managing the comparatively simple challenge of a single virus.