I just read (part of) an article about how hackers from foreign countries are stealing more proprietary military technology from the United States than ever. Wow, that's terrible! What can we do about this?
Oh, hey; I know: Let's build a special separate internet for military use that doesn't permit any remote access whatsoever (no modems, no mobile access, no satellite communications, nothing: you have to physically plug into it with a specially designed ethernet-style cable plug that itself is classified technology, use a secret type of biometric dongle (which can't be hacked into because it's a separate physical device that requires the biometric passcode information, like DNA, and is an output-only device), and only workstations with previously assigned accounts may enter at all). And then, once the weapons systems are designed and built (builders also must strictly adhere to this military-only internet system), for their use in the field, the weapons systems can communicate by remote mobile transmissions and so forth, but they do not have the schematic plans for any of the equipment in that system: only what information is required for the systems to function and communicate, and all using a unique computer language known to nobody but the military, operating on proprietary hardware only owned and operated by the US military. And then let's make it a death penalty treason offense to ever put any of these weapons systems onto a computer that's connected to or accessible by the world wide web of the public internet. And the computers used on this dedicated military internet would be specially designed and constructed by a company absolutely dedicated to the United States military, with the US military as their only client ever, and these machines would run a new computer language code unknown to anybody else, created specifically for the US military's weapons development program (with a separate one, as indicated above, for the systems operations in the field).
There: that took me about 30 seconds to think up (although rather longer to write up), and I have thought up similar solutions long ago. And I'm just a lame comedy writer, so how come it's so hard for the military? (It is the issue of: "the right way, the wrong way, and the army way"?) Why didn't they think of this from the beginning? I did, but I assumed they did too or I might have sent them a suggestion to do it like this years ago. (I used to be a systems administrator in the VMS days.) But it's not too late to start, is it? Simply end all weapons systems projects, save the material on external storage drives that are disconnected from all computers and the internet, store them in a big impenetrable safe, delete all information about all of these systems from all computers and unplug them from the internet, and this would at least limit what access hackers could get to data they haven't penetrated yet, right? Then build the new internet for the military's use alone (keep it secret as much as possible, and it's a good time to do it, because soldiers are returning home from Afghanistan and they need jobs, so they could build it), and work on military technology on this system alone from then on (and to be sure everyone did so, the computer language and all the application programs used to design this stuff would be completely incompatible with every publicly used computer, so it not only wouldn't open the files at all on another kind of machine, but consumer grade computers wouldn't even recognize these files as files nor data at all, and would simply crash or claim there's no file to copy or open, etc.).
All we have to do is do it like this, and nobody could get access to any of this stuff unless they were a spy with a top security clearance and they physically smuggled it out (but to prevent this, simply use those airport scanning devices where weapons system designers and military officials have to stand with their legs apart, raise their arms, and get scanned, to make sure they don't have any hidden stuff they're smuggling out, and we'd be reasonably safe, with all security guards required to be trained in computer sciences just to be eligible for the job, and given courses on all new computer trends just to be up to date. Oh, and before this security checkpoint, everyone would get a pat-down by an MP officer just so that nobody could have accidentally brought anything with them, but rather, it would have to be intentional.). I know it would be hard because it would take some time to implement, but it would be completely worth it for our national security, and I really recommend we get on this and do things this or a similarly protected way from now on in the development of United States military weapons systems (unless we just want to develop cutting edge weapons systems for our enemies for free from now on). Because, just accept it: building another "firewall" will only be a fun challenge for hackers to breach, and it will only take them about five minutes to break in anyway. We need a new system of doing things that keeps everybody else out physically, or else it won't work at all, period.
And, just to top it all off to be sure that it's all secure, every company and every person who worked developing and designing advanced US military technology would have to live at special sequestered bases constructed for such a purpose, and nobody would be allowed to bring any work home with them at night. They would live in very nice houses and be paid extremely well, and it would be like living in a great upscale and safe community, but there would be virtually no outside contact whatsoever. There would be no telephones except what lines went through the dedicated military internet to talk to each other about work, and for the families to talk to each other socially (the internet has phone service now, like Vonage, so it would be like that, but only for people within that military network), and the only telephones that contacted the outside world would be through the commander's office, and one would be to the Pentagon, the other to White House, and a third a biometric-password-enabled general line directly to the operator, who would then dial and connect all calls from there after a second password was spoken with the appropriate voice. This commander would have a lieutenant whose job it would be to make all phone calls and redact all letters for anything suspect, and so life would be very much like it was in the early 1970s, with no cell phones or internet, limited TV viewing, and writing letters to friends and family (redacted as during wartime).
This may seem extremely limiting for the people involved, but this is very serious stuff here, and they would be well compensated for the inconvenience. Look, either we want to prevent hackers from foreign countries from stealing our latest military technology or we don't: it's that simple. And this is really the only way to prevent it: go old-school on them. You can't steal what isn't accessible whatsoever, and you can't try to steal specific things when you don't even know they exist, right? So that's why this system is necessary: it keeps everyone else in the dark, where we want them. And then, if they manage to hack into the weapons themselves, or capture something, they'll only have the older technology, and we'll already be making the next new thing that beats it.
(Or, hey; you don't suppose they're already doing what I've laid out above, and all these articles are just planted by the military to make foreign hackers think they're getting all the latest weapons systems, but that all the plans they actually get are all screwed up and wrong so they won't work, but appear legitimate and look plausible enough scientifically to trick our enemies into pouring tons of effort, time and money into building them for nothing and spinning their wheels? If that's what's going on {and I think the most advanced military in the world really should be capable of pulling this sort of thing off}, then that's wonderful. But I'm afraid it's probably just an unlikely hope on my part.)
