Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Q: Are we in the midst of cyberwar? A: Yes

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Q: Are we in the midst of cyberwar? A: Yes · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to you? Stuff you should
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  Speaker 1: know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me is always a
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  Speaker 1: child to be Chuck Bryant. We call him an authority
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  Speaker 1: on cyber security, the Internet, everything about it. An expert,
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  Speaker 1: you would say, it's right. Hey, should we say hello
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  Speaker 1: to our our latest celebrity fan who we just learned
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: today that miss Kristen Bell, the lovely and enchanting and
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  Speaker 1: nerdy Kristen Bell. Is she nerdy, very nerdy, like prides
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  Speaker 1: herself on. I mean, it doesn't surprise me that she
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  Speaker 1: listens to the show. Yeah, because she's on record as
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  Speaker 1: being a big nerd, which is one reason I like
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: her a lot. And she's curating um a newsweek page right, Yeah,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: like things she likes her kind of one of those
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: deals that they do the magazines now and she listed us.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: That's pretty how about that? Thank you very much for that.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of a party down when she
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  Speaker 1: was in and other stuff that she's been in forgetting
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  Speaker 1: Sarah Marshall, how's he going? And her you gotta see
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  Speaker 1: her sloth video online that she dode the Ellen Show.
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  Speaker 1: It's pretty funny, highly recommended. Okay, so that's all I got.
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  Speaker 1: That's all the sucking up I'm gonna do. Should we
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  Speaker 1: say hi to another fan, slightly less famous but pretty cool? Yes? Sam?
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  Speaker 1: Do you want to give a little a little backstory
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  Speaker 1: story here? Sure? We um. We had a live Um
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  Speaker 1: tribute event here in Atlanta a couple of years ago,
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  Speaker 1: and at the event was a little, uh teenage fan
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  Speaker 1: named Sam teenage you mean, like just post tween. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and his mom brought him and he's a big fan.
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  Speaker 1: He's just like really sweet kid. Mom was very sweet sweet. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: very flash forward a couple of years we got to
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  Speaker 1: south By Southwest there Sam again apparently mom drove him
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  Speaker 1: to Austin to come see our life podcast. Yeah, they
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  Speaker 1: weren't there to see I've spoke to mom afterwards and
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  Speaker 1: was like, so, what else are you guys gonna see?
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  Speaker 1: She's like nothing, We're going back crazy. I was like,
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  Speaker 1: what else did you see? She's like nothing. They came
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  Speaker 1: to see us. So then we were like, all right,
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  Speaker 1: we gotta think of something for Sam to do, because
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  Speaker 1: he's proved his metal and Sam wrote in and and
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  Speaker 1: sent his resume and like all the reasons we should
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  Speaker 1: put them to work, and it's just like, dude, if
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  Speaker 1: the future is secure, if kids are like Sam, for sure,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not worried about a thing anymore. Yeah, so we
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  Speaker 1: we racked our brains and we found out there's like
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  Speaker 1: a surprising amount of adult only tasks that we do
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  Speaker 1: like at any given time, and we're like, all right,
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  Speaker 1: we have to we have to figure out something that's
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  Speaker 1: age appropriate for Sam. That's right. So, long story short,
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  Speaker 1: I was getting kind of thin on podcast topics. I
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  Speaker 1: put Sam on the case and he sent me like
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  Speaker 1: a stellar, stellar list with reasons why we should do these,
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  Speaker 1: and uh, this is the first one. And he had
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  Speaker 1: a lot of overlap on once we had already recorded
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  Speaker 1: that aren't out yet. So that just goes to show
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  Speaker 1: you that Sam is like he gets the show right.
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  Speaker 1: And uh so, as Sam's picking these out, we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: let you know if this is a Sam one. But
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  Speaker 1: this is going down in the summer, We're gonna call
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  Speaker 1: this the Summer of Sam. That's right, Sam's choice. Alright,
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  Speaker 1: So that's the longest intro ever that wasn't even the
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  Speaker 1: intro man. Well, let's get to cyber worse than well,
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  Speaker 1: let's bossy. Well you know, Chuck, have you ever been
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  Speaker 1: to Bellingham, Washington? No? Okay, I have not. Have you
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  Speaker 1: been to Washington? Been Seattle? Isn't that where um Van
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  Speaker 1: Nostrin lives? Or is it Oregon? Now he's he's Washington.
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  Speaker 1: Um so uh in Bellingham, Washington on June at the
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  Speaker 1: Olympic Pipeline Company a system's control and data acquisition system.
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  Speaker 1: There's systems twice in there. UM, but a scatta or
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  Speaker 1: skata system UM, which is basically like a computer program
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  Speaker 1: that like can make a valve turn or turn something
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  Speaker 1: off for just a mechanic right from from Digital binary
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  Speaker 1: instructions right. UM. This Olympic Pipeline Company system was operating
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  Speaker 1: on this this type of program, and UM, something went
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  Speaker 1: wrong and one of their pipes started leaking a lot
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  Speaker 1: like millions of gallons of gasoline UM, and part of
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  Speaker 1: it erupted into a fireball and killed three people injured
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  Speaker 1: many others. UM. And they went back and looked at it.
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  Speaker 1: They think it was just a system malfunction. But the
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  Speaker 1: fact that this came along, this happened because of this
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  Speaker 1: system control, and it happened as the dot com bubble
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  Speaker 1: was starting to grow and like the Internet was really
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  Speaker 1: becoming a huge thing. UM. People who are into cybersecurity
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  Speaker 1: now point to this as evidence of exactly what somebody
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  Speaker 1: could do during a cyber attack, even though they think
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  Speaker 1: this was just an accident, right, irrelevant, But they're they're
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  Speaker 1: they weren't like pointing to that as well. Okay, no,
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  Speaker 1: they don't think that had anything, but they were saying,
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  Speaker 1: this is what it would look like if somebody had
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  Speaker 1: wanted to attack, Like, this is what a cyber attack
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  Speaker 1: would look like. That makes sense because it's not just
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  Speaker 1: the Olympic pipeline company that's using these systems UM all
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  Speaker 1: over the United States, companies, law enforcement agencies, military, thanks, UM,
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  Speaker 1: public works. All of these things are all running on
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  Speaker 1: what amounts to Windows. It's as simple as that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Microsoft systems many of them, and UM. As Jonathan Strickland
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  Speaker 1: wrote this from tech Stuff the article, and as Strickland
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  Speaker 1: points out, UM a couple of things. Microsoft has been
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  Speaker 1: uh kind of chastise over the years for their security
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  Speaker 1: or lack of security in some of their programs and UM.
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  Speaker 1: The other thing he points out is internets grew so
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  Speaker 1: fast and everyone got on board so quickly that it
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  Speaker 1: kind of outpaced what we could even do security wise.
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  Speaker 1: It was all of a sudden. Government agencies and power
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  Speaker 1: grids and emergency services and weapons systems, water and fuel pipelines,
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  Speaker 1: all this stuff is running on on computers and a
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  Speaker 1: lot of it through the Internet, and we don't quite
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  Speaker 1: know how to guard against a cyber attack. No, And
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  Speaker 1: apparently even as far as like the knowledge of how
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  Speaker 1: to guard against cyber attacks goes to the United States,
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  Speaker 1: is is lacking, uh, compared to like China and Russia. Um,
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  Speaker 1: so we're kind of in this really weird position right
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  Speaker 1: now where we've realized that all of the ponies are
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  Speaker 1: hooked to a single basket of eggs, and all it's
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  Speaker 1: gonna take is a couple of black Cat firecrackers to
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  Speaker 1: scare all the horses off. That's the best analogy I
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  Speaker 1: can come up with. Did you just into that or
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  Speaker 1: did you I just thought my imagination is back. I
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  Speaker 1: can tell you where I time traveled to. Awesome where
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  Speaker 1: I can't think. Okay, um, all right, let's go back
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  Speaker 1: a little bit in time. I don't think we need
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  Speaker 1: the way back machine for this because we're just going
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  Speaker 1: to we can just like walk outside. Yeah, they'd be
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  Speaker 1: a waste of time for the way back machine. Um.
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  Speaker 1: Some pretty smart people caught on early that hey, we
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  Speaker 1: could be vulnerable to something like a cyber attack. So
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  Speaker 1: let's look into this. Let's put a red team on it.
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  Speaker 1: Red team is a our friends that act as enemies
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  Speaker 1: to try and you know how they hire these people
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  Speaker 1: to like break into your home. Yeah, those are red
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  Speaker 1: teams basically like um from Star Wars exactly. So let's
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  Speaker 1: get a red team. Let's let's uh name it this
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: mission something really cool out of a football playbook. Let's
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  Speaker 1: name it Project Eligible Receiver. Do you know how many
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: times I had to look at that before I finally
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  Speaker 1: sunk in what words I was looking at? Really it is.
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  Speaker 1: It does look kind of funny. It looks like eleanor
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  Speaker 1: Rigby when you glance at it. At least I think, so, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it doesn't to me. I was thinking more of like
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  Speaker 1: a radio receiver or something like. I think it just
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  Speaker 1: means about football. No, it's totally just saying like I
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  Speaker 1: read this many times before I was saying, oh, okay,
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  Speaker 1: so a lot of this is still classified, so we
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  Speaker 1: don't know everything. But basically they hired some hackers, which
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  Speaker 1: is what you do to test your security, they being
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  Speaker 1: the Department of Defense. Yeah, yeah, Department Defense saying hey,
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  Speaker 1: can you nerds hack into the Pentagon system and afterwards
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  Speaker 1: we won't assassinate exactly, And the nerds were like, just
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  Speaker 1: watch this. And it took three days before the Pentagon
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  Speaker 1: even knew that they were being cyber attacked by the
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  Speaker 1: Red Team. Like pretty successful and very sobering. Yeah, so
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  Speaker 1: um they they it was I guess kind of an
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  Speaker 1: eye opener for the d O D and they I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure you used it to step up security. Not fast
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  Speaker 1: enough though, as after this Red Team attack UM operation
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  Speaker 1: Knowledgeable Receiver an actual attack which they later came to
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  Speaker 1: call what was at Moonlight Maze. Yeah, this is one
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  Speaker 1: year after that the tests. A year after UM, somebody
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  Speaker 1: launched an attack and it was a I guess, what's
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  Speaker 1: probably the most typical kind of cyber attack where you
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  Speaker 1: insert some sort of software to basically spy and get
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  Speaker 1: files and gather data and download sensitive materials. Right, And
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  Speaker 1: apparently took two years before NASA, the Pentagon, UM and
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  Speaker 1: other agencies in the US government noticed that UM accidentally
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  Speaker 1: noticed that this that they were being spied on cyber wise. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they got data like strategic maps, troop assignments, and positions.
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  Speaker 1: Not good, right, very scary. And they traced it back
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  Speaker 1: to Russia. Doesn't necessarily mean that it came from Russia
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  Speaker 1: and in its origin, but at least that's where they
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  Speaker 1: traced it to. Uh. And this is cyber warfare, like
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  Speaker 1: it's happening. It's been going on since the nineties pretty much. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's not is a cyber war coming. It's like, how
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  Speaker 1: do we prevent like a cyber war from bringing us
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  Speaker 1: all down? Pretty much? And it's apparently from looking into this,
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  Speaker 1: there's like two camps. There's like a gloom and doom
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  Speaker 1: camp where it's like, yeah, somebody really wants to mess
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  Speaker 1: things up, they're gonna be able to it's gonna be
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  Speaker 1: pretty easy. And the sunny optimistic camp is kind of like, no,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we know we're looking for now, like sure
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  Speaker 1: they could launch an attack, but we'll we'll be able
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  Speaker 1: to stop it in time for before we can do
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  Speaker 1: like a lot of damage. So we'll see, we'll lay
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  Speaker 1: out everything for you can decide who's right, that's right. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: So we've already mentioned that on the defensive side of things,
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  Speaker 1: the US is sorely lacking UM. But on the offensive
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  Speaker 1: side of things, we've actually done this ourselves more than once.
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  Speaker 1: UM during the Coast of a Wars Clint points out
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  Speaker 1: we used computer attacks to compromise Serbian air defenses, basically
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  Speaker 1: kind of scrambling their information so they had bad I
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: guess coordinates, wasn't wasn't apt okay or appropriate? Did you
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  Speaker 1: see that one? So we did this, We launched it
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and it and it worked. So, uh that's a good thing,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: but it's also a bad thing if you're like, was
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: it Bush the first or Clinton? In Bush the second?
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Bush the second in the rock and Clinton, Well, they
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: were both like, we don't think we should be doing
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  Speaker 1: much of this because a couple of reasons. A basically
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: opens us up. It's like, hey, they did this, so
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  Speaker 1: we can do it right back and be I think
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  Speaker 1: they could have drained some banks of terrorist cells. And
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  Speaker 1: they said, we kind of depend on the integrity of
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  Speaker 1: the banking system worldwide, like we don't want to start
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  Speaker 1: messing aroun with us. So apparently with with UM cyber warfare.
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  Speaker 1: It's very much like UM. When you build that virus,
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  Speaker 1: it's out there and it can be captured and studied
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  Speaker 1: and redeployed against you. Yeah. So what they were saying
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  Speaker 1: with Clinton and Bush who were saying like, no, we're
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  Speaker 1: not going to use a virus to UM to drain
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  Speaker 1: those bank accounts because they could be it will eventually
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  Speaker 1: come back on us, and our banking industry is not
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  Speaker 1: secure enough to withstand something that we ourselves make, because
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: apparently the US is pretty good at making viruses. I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure should we talk about some of the different ways
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  Speaker 1: that this can go down? Yeah, the Pearl Harbor attack, Yes,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I had the feeling strictly might A name this one himself,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: but it's not true. He went to a lot of
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: trouble to explain why it's called the Pearl Harbor strategy,
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  Speaker 1: and I think he could have just left at that.
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  Speaker 1: The idea here is that it's it's pretty much in
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  Speaker 1: your face. It's a massive cyber attack where they infiltrate
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  Speaker 1: and then they sabotage systems. UM much like Pearl Harbor
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  Speaker 1: was a big surprise and a big attack, wasn't I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it was sneaky, but it wasn't quiet by any means,
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  Speaker 1: right or stealthy. I guess the word um. The other
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  Speaker 1: ones are pretty much stealthy. Part of a Pearl Harbor attack.
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  Speaker 1: I believe UM could be a distributed denial of service attack,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: which is basically, you know, like when you UM try
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: to get onto a website or whatever, you're sending a
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  Speaker 1: request to the server to let you on ping right now.
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  Speaker 1: If you assault that one server with millions of pings
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  Speaker 1: and it's trying to accommodate everybody as is appropriate an
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  Speaker 1: act um, it'll basically they crash. Is the point you
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  Speaker 1: can crash a server by hitting it with millions of
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  Speaker 1: pings all at once, just slows it down to the
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  Speaker 1: point either where it doesn't work or it crashes. Yeah,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and that's that's what Anonymous likes to do with like
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: master Card during the whole wiki leaks thing when they
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: was a master Card Vista crash. Cannot remember, um, I
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: remember when that happened. Though. It's basically just launching a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: bunch of server requests at a specific server in the
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: service like no, no, and this falls over? Is that
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: why people say ping by the way, say let him? Yeah,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: I hate that it's better than java storm. I don't
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: even know what that is, drinking coffee while you're having
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a brainstorm, Like, let's go get coffee and brainstorm something
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: javas to people say that, Yeah, I don't say it.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I've never heard of that. That ping and meta or
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the three things that I will never say maybe the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: worst to call something epic. I don't mind epic. Oh man,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I hate epics. At least it's a real word, especially
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: epic fail. Well yeah, sure, okay, back to it. Viruses uh, code, red, Slammer, NIMDA.
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  Speaker 1: These are viruses that Strickland has mentioned that spread very
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  Speaker 1: quickly across the Internet. And there's a up low ways
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  Speaker 1: this can go down. You can either um, you can
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: set up you can do it immediately and release a virus.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: You can have all these other computers deliver the virus.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: You can put sort of like a delay timer on
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: your virus for it to go off in two years
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: automatically or manually whenever you want to. It can be
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: waiting for you to hit the button and then launch
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the virus that way, or I think, um for the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: user of that computer to do like say control all delete,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: well we'll trigger it or something. Yeah, that's pretty scary. Yeah,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I don't don't press those three puts all the time.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I'm my PC. Oh my god, chuck. I think we
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: should talk about right about here is I think we're stucks.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: That fits in. Who stucks net? Say it stucks? I
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: don't know what that is. You know it's stuck in. Yeah,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: it's the Iranian um. It's the virus that the US
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: and Israel leashed on Iran. It's a perfect example of
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: this it is. You're right, So let's talk about stuck
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: s net. Stuck snet. It's a great name. It was offensive,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: a cyber attack. Offensive in two thousand and ten, they
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: thinking maybe it was the first one ever, the US
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: launched like a strictly for sabotage attack. Basically, they wanted
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to disable Iran uh Iran's UH centrifuges so they could
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: not enrich uranium. And they did this through the UH
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the new Air Force based out of Texas, right, Texas
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and Georgia. Yeah, what's the Warner Robbins Robin's Air Force space. Yeah,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Robin's Air Force Space. Yeah. Those two places are where
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the twenty four station. Yeah, and this is the first
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: all cyber unit. Pretty much pretty cool, right. Their whole is,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: their whole task is to wage cyber warfare, and I
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: imagined to be defensive against cyber attacks, but I don't.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they had to do with stuck stent,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: but they probably would have. Um. I think it was
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: being developed before was ordained in two thousand nine. I
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: think it went back to two thousand seven when it
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: was started. But basically, the they the CIA got their
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: hands on centrifuges that they knew Iran was using, and
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: they had just as many as Iran did of the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: same kind, and they studied it and they built this
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: virus based on this configuration of centrifuges running windows and
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: semens switches right, and then they built a virus to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: go infiltrate it. I thought it was called Operation Olympic Games.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: It was, but the malware, the virus itself. Okay, that's
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: what I couldn't but you're right. It was called Operation
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Olympic Games. And this whole operation was this huge, sweeping, awesome,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: massive secretive but basically imagine like the CIA. Do you
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: remember uncommon valor? Oh yeah, okay, do you remember when
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: like they're training at that replica of the camp. Yeah, okay,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the CIA did that with Iran's centrifuges in the nuclear program,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and they figured out exactly how it worked, and then
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: they figured out the best way to break it. Was
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Gene Hackman bank rolling the whole thing. Oh yeah, he
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: was there to get his son out. He he was
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: just staring at this menu of guns and silhouette that
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: he wanted to order. Remember that. Oh yeah, dude that
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I thought that was so bad. That. Yeah, but that
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: was a huge, huge movie for like dudes, our age. No,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I'm saying bad isn't like good? Okay, Yeah, gotcha. UM
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: so stucks and at Olympic Games happened, and like you said,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: it was the first offensive cyber attack. Most of the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: other ones have come in the form of UM sneaking
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: in and lying around and watching and waiting and spying. Well,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: stuck and had that too. That the initial There was
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a companion program called Flame that somehow. This is the
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: part that's the biggest mystery. The m Iran's nuclear program
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: is not connected to the Internet, so somebody got that
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: in on thumb drive, infected their local system. UM and
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Flames set there and basically just studied everything, told the
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: US how the configuration was set up, and then they
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: built it, and then they inserted stucks net and basically
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: it made all of their data look like everything was
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: operating normally, but it was telling their centrifuges to spin
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: out of control and basically break themselves, like Oceans eleven
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: when they built the replica Bault exactly the replica video.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: There's nothing going on. So basically the Pentagon has been
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: watching a lot of movies. But this is a hugely
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: successful attack um, if not at the very least for
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: American cyber warfare UM because it's supposedly set Iran's nuclear
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: program back by at least a year, if not more.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: That hopes that this would let us continue talks and
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: if think it said one of the aims was to
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: make them feel stupid, and they said it worked like
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: they that they've done something wrong and that's why this
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: these systems were failing. It's pretty scary, man. But the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: point is now is Okay, that's out there. Stuck Snut
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: is out there for anybody who can get their hands
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: on it. And that's the name of it. It's a
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: great name, alright, stuck Snut within with an X with
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the new Gutas Center. But it's out there and the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: US is now basically just the the computer equivalent of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Hiroshima was just launched by the United States. Yeah, and
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: nice little set up there. A lot of people are
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: comparing these days of the early days of cyber warring
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: to the early days of of nuclear bombs, and that
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: there's not a ton of defense. Not anyone really knows
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: what they're doing. It's sort of a chaotic mess that
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: everyone's trying to get their finger in the pie though. Yeah,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and the other countries like China believe Russia, who are
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: apparently better equipped to defend against a cyber attack than
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: the US. So basically the US is really playing with fire. Well,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and that's why Clinton and Bush we're declining to use
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: these is one of the reasons where like, you know,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: this opens us up to counterattacks and just may not
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: be the smartest way to like we wouldn't go out
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and just drop a nuclear bomb on a country, right,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Oh did all? Right? Oops? Twice? What else you got?
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Let's see, yuh. We talked about the system controls and
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: um that acquisition systems. Yeah, that was um. Basically that
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: is the Achilles Heel of Infrastructure and the United States.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: One of the reasons why we're not set up to
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: defend against um a cyber attack is because we are
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: so connected to the internet. Everything is Iran North Korea. Yeah,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: not quite as bot because a lot of their stuff
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: is off the grid just by default because they don't
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: have the infrastructure that we have. So just the robustness
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of our own infrastructure is one of the one of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: its vulnerabilities as well. Yeah, that's a good point as
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: far as defense goes to I forgot about this stuff.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Um Strickland says that, like the first step is education,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: as far as educating consumers over you know, antivirus software
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: and how they search the Internet and stuff like that.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: So I give that a medium. But uh, this guy
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Richard Clarke, he's a security expert. He blames things on
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: companies like Microsoft too. He feels like rushes through programs
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: before they are fully security tested because they want to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: make you know, they want a few coins to rub
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: together by selling this stuff, and the consumer doesn't want
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to wait, and the stockholder don't want lots of testing
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: because they want those new products on the market. So
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: it's a bit of a rough position, and um, you know,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: private companies run most of the net, you know, it's
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: not like this big government thing. So he contends Clark
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: does that it's up to these private companies who own
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: the Internet's infrastructure to really make it more robust in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: a defensive sense, right, Which is good in one sense,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: because then you have a dollar amount in the form
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of lost profits attached to UM a security breach, right,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: so company is going to try to protect it UM,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: which is good. Yeah, But at the same time, it's like, yeah,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: if you're putting out products though, and you have competition,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and your competitors products are safer UM, and you're just
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: rushing stuff to market, then you're gonna lose out ultimately
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the same economic forces. And Jonathan also points out to that,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: you know, a scary way that can be implemented is
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a a one two punch with a physical attack. So,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is the one that wakes me up
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. Is a cyber attack
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: is launched and the electric power grid is shut down,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and gas lines and waterlines start going haywire, and then
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden incomes the Red Dawn team parachuting
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: in well that's what we did to a rock in
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: two thou three. We sent a cyber attack that messed
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: with their UM I guess their air defense systems, and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: then we invaded. So that's happened before we've done it,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me. Yeah, cyber war, we're in the midst
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: of it. We're in the midst of it. Pretty crazy stuff.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: Get your to what Norton anti virus. That'll just solve everything. Yeah. Education, education,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: that's all. That's the only thing. That's all we can
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: do to prevent cyber war. Um. If you want to
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: learn more about cyber war and read this article by
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, you can type cyber war one word in
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the search bar stuff works dot com and will bring
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: it up. I said Jonathan strick clam which means it's
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: time for a listener. Mayo, he's started for a lot
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: more than that. Uh, I'm gonna call this beer and fire. Hi, guys.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: I'm a professor of history and a long time act
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of your show. I use a podcast in my college
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: classes to talk about how we use history and entertainment.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I'm writing about the Great Chicago Fire podcast, especially as
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: it relates to my research. See I study the history
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: of alcohol, and I teach a class on the history
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: of beer. Uh, that's pretty cool. We study the economic, social,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and cultural history of beer, and we make beer in
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: class into weekly beer tastings. What anyway, Aside from the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: stuff you mentioned the show, the Chicago fire is important
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: because it wiped out about three quarters Chicago's breweries. Uh.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Something like eighteen breweries were destroyed by the fire. Of course,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: people still want a beer, uh, Chicago and Upper Midwest,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: as was pot wait about a lot of Germans at
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the time. This gave birth to the beer industry in Milwaukee.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Before the Great Fire, Milwaukee was a beer town, but
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: not a major supply center. Schlitz, especially as a good
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: example of called the Milwaukee beer industry, reacted to the fire.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Joseph Schlitz, the founder it, first, donated thousands of barrels
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: of beer to Chicagoans and the weeks after the fire.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Been Sensing an opportunity, he then opened a distribution point
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: in the city. After all, there were still hundreds of
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: thousands of thirsty Chicagoans. He opened Schlitz Tiede Saloons. By
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties he was selling about fifty thousand barrels
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: of beer in Chicago alone, which is about seventeen percent
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: of their total. And the slogan, yeah, the slogan for Schlitz,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the beer that made Milwaukee famous, came out of this period,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and it is because of the beer sold after the fire,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: So that's where they got the name. By nineteen o two,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Schlitz was the largest brew in the world, a title
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: it would trade back and forth with Budweiser until the
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. And he goes on to point out that
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: blats and passed while with similar trajectories, stucks that stuck
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: to that, and uh, the Chicago brewing industry sadly never
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: recovered from the fire, although beer drinking remains steady. And
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I don't have Professor Beer's name, so we'll just call
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: him Professor Beer. Oh, I'm sure he'd appreciate that. Yeah,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that's what the students call him. Thanks, Professor Beer. Yeah,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: And if you want to write it, I'll say your
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: name on one a later show. Okay. Um. And if
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: you teach, especially something interesting or you stuff you should
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: know to help you teach, We're always interested in hearing that.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: We want to know about it. Okay, You can tweet
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: it to us at s y s K podcast and
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: put it on Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: or you can send us an email like Professor Beer
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: did to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. For more
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: works dot com. MHM brought to you by the reinvented
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you