Well, all defences, both physical and virtual have always had flaws. It's just that virtual defences can be attacked from anywhere, if on the Internet. So rather than you actually having to turn up to a place, and try and infiltrate it there, you can now do it from the comfort of a computer desk. And, with most companies out there, if you fail at hacking the system, they won't even know you're doing it.

Everything designed by man, can be broken by man. When you can do it from a million miles away, with very little risk of getting caught, and computers that can run through code at billions of calculations a second,  the breaking becomes a lot easier.

Really, the world of the 21st century will be very different from that of previous centuries. It's not just hacking: within decades, the knowledge will be out there so that anybody can create their own bioweapon for a couple of hundred dollars. Already, with the technical skills you can build  drones and such with a couple of trips to Radioshack.

Society, as a whole, is going to have to change now that the individual has many abilities that once was only reserved for the largest companies, and Governments.

Watch this: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ian_goldin_navigating_our_global_future.html

that's never ever ever going to happen (link).  i'm generally a pretty optomistic liberal person but i'm not naive enough to believe all people are angels.  some people are assholes and ain't nothing is going to fix that.

when he said that we'll have to change things to be more inclusive because an individual will have the power to destroy the world everything else becomes irrelevant.  it is imposible to make everyone happy.  the whole reason we moved from monoachies to democracies is that you can't put that much power into one person hands not expect them not to abuse it. the will of the many is more reasonable even if it isn't always great.

this is why i'm so scared of hackers - there is nothing in the world that can be done to make everyone happy all the time.  this only means that everything is going to be "marked" to be destroyed.  hacking of sony isn't just an "inconvience" to me, it's a warning of future catastrophy imo.

It makes sence since cyber attacks have been getting bigger and bigger.

Cyber warfare could do just as much damage on paper as a physical attack. Shut down a powergrid with a hospital on it and people could die. Yes hostipals have generators etc but you see what I mean. Attacks in the internet do have real-world ramifications.

It sounds like few people know of the hack that destroyed an Iranian nuclear facility a few months ago.

If you read about that, you'd know why the US is formulating such a stance. In the future, should a major war occur, it won't start by planes, soldiers, or naval vessels. It will likely be through a crippling cyber-strike. How would you feel if you couldn't goto the bank to withdraw money, nor use credit cards, nor be able to use your PC because an enemy nation had disabled such things? Would you not want your government to take such an attack as an act of war?

Its a much needed deterrent, as state-on-state hacking incedents are becoming more commonplace. Eventually, we'll see more things blow up like the nuclear plant in Iran.

Sometime, people forgot that not everything has to be connected to the interwebz.

Doesn't need to be.

The stuxnet attack against the nuclear facility in Iran was a hardwired intranet that had no external access points. They got in via an infected (from my understanding) USB key which was put into a local computer at the facility, which then infected the entire system and heavily damaged the facility.

Well I agree with the US's position if another country attacks the US's infastructure via the internet or any other means that attack is an attack on the US's soveriegnty hence an act of war. The only problem is that the US is going to have a hard time maintaining diplomatic relations if they classify all acts of cyber attacks as acts of war.

China for example has attacked the US several times and many of her allies like attacking the Canadian Government's servers and trying to steal classified information from the US and Canada. What's the US going to do? Send a missile down China's smoke stack?

I think the US Government is doing the right thing by classifying such attacks as acts of war. However the quote about responding with missile strikes, lol the US can't attack China with missile strikes for its cyber attacks that would be suicide.

I think what the article was trying to say was that the US will respond to future cyber attacks with retalitory measures. Essentially warning say China that an attack on the US will be met with a similiar attack on China. Not sending missiles but say China hacks the US Government network steals information and causes damage. Instead of the US sending China a sternly worded email demanding they don't attack again, now the US will hack the Chinese Government's network steal info and possibly do damage.

Essentially the US is saying it will start retaliating in cyber warfare if attacked. I think the US military quote was probably taken out of context. Though if the US power grid was taken out by another country, then a missile strike would be justified. I mean look how much damage an attack on the US power grid would have. It would be just as big of an attack as firing missiles at the powerplants and taking out US infastructure that way.

Also this signifies that the US may be expecting an attack on a large scale. In which case I hope they respond approprietly!

Isn't that due to employee negligence? You don't just plug any usb into your mainframe...

Oh my god, another "War on Terrorism" excuse....Great now more 'justifiable' reasons to U.S. to invade more neutral countries...