The Air Force Is Up to Something
I work for a large media feed. Recently, I've noticed something. Not through the news articles, which rarely reveal anything beyond the obvious, but in the face of society's truest mirror: Advertising.
A few weeks ago, a division of the Air Force called Cyber Command bought up every single banner ad on three of the largest news websites in the country: WashingtonPost.com, Slate.com and Newsweek.com for a single day--Tuesday, February 26th. The ad itself showed a metroplex grid all lit up at night. The grid begins to go dark one ominous chunk at a time as words to effect of "What if a power failure was really an attack?" faded in. Clicking on the ad delivered the reader to a sub-page on the Air Force site that went into further detail on the danger of state-sponsored terrorists waging all out cyber-war on our national infrastructure. Remember how heinous it was when a sagging tree limb in Ohio caused a blackout in New York, much of the Northeast and even into Canada a few years back?
Frankly, I thought the ad was a pretty lame attempt at emotional manipulation. After seven years of government terror-spin (Get the duct-tape! We're all gonna' die!) most of us are somewhat hardened to that kind of thing. After a while, even machine gun fire starts to sound like a ticking clock. (Yes, I totally ripped that off from Metallica.) That is until later that day I caught a news story at the gym on CNN about a power plant in Florida going off-line for no apparent reason. The next day the Washington Post carried the following article:
Excerpt:
1. Why those websites - WashingtonPost.com, Slate.com and Newsweek.com?
A few years back when Lockheed Martin and Boeing were competing for the coveted Joint Strike Fighter contract from the Defense Appropriations Committee, each company ran hundreds of thousand of dollars of full page ads in The Washington Post newspaper. (WashingtonPost.com existed at the time, but the paper was still the big media feed.) Lockheed's ads were much more eye-catching, dramatic and just plain niftier than Boeing's. They were also more frequent. Both Boeing and Lockheed secured JSF contracts, but Lockheed got the big one. (I still kick myself for not having bought stock.) It all comes down to a single advertising principle that states if you want to sell something, you have to advertise. The secret to advertising is simply this: Get your message in front of the right people, the right way. And in the case of the JSF contract, if you wanted to get the attention of the decision-makers and influencers in Washington, you ran big ads in the Post.
Now, we're seeing the same principal through a slightly different feed. The concept, however, is exactly the same. If you want to get DOD dollars, you run scary ads on the websites that are most likely to get the attention of the decision-makers and influencers on Capitol Hill.
2. Why that day, Tuesday, February 26th?
I'm going to go with a couple of Defense Appropriation Committee hearings within a week of the incident. Wednesday, February 27th was the hearing for the Army's 2009 budget. And one week after the blackout, on Tuesday, March 4th, was the hearing for Fiscal Year 2009 for the Department of Homeland Security. (See the Senate's committee hearing schedule on OpenCongress.org for details.)
3. Why Florida and those cities in particular?
It could be as simple as proximity to the training center for Cyber Command's "Cyber Warriors" which is...wait for it....Florida! Hulburt Air Force Base to be exact. It could be several other factor's as well, not the least of which would be the air conditioner defense. You get to claim all kinds of electrical gremlins when the ol' AC's up just too darn high. Another factor could be the relative low level of danger to the rest of the country caused by a short blackout in Florida. New York goes dark for a day and the stock market shuts down. We saw it in 2003. Miami? People sweat a little more. But, because of the high public awareness value of a state like Florida any kind of incident there makes a loud bang, even if it's an empty one. Think about it: if there was a big power outage in Boseman, Montana and the surrounding area no one would give a shit. But Daytona Beach? Miami? Hell, we're talking race cars and bad 1980's cop shows. Florida holds a high place in the zeitgeist, no question about it. Florida's a destination in the American mind. Set off a firecracker there and people turn around, but maybe nobody really gets hurt.
And, here's the big question...
4. Why does the Air Force need to fundraise so badly for Cyber Command?
You know, I'm not sure. But me and my rat-seeking flashlight have an idea. The Chinese are the new Soviet Union only waaaaaay more dangerous in the minds of those in power in the US of A. Okay, pretend you're a hyper-paranoid conservative warmongering dickhead (Cheney). China is like the Soviet Union except with a hell of a lot more people and not nearly as many of them shitfaced on vodka. Combine that with a wealth-and-resources assimilation appetite that would make The Borg look peckish and you'd be kind of worried.
Resistance is εΎεγ
So here's this big enemy and so far they've shown themselves to be pretty adept at hacking your most important computer systems (FCW.com article: Cyber Officials: Chinese Hackers Attack 'Anything and Everything') and even shooting down spy satellites (WashingtonPost.com article: China Criticized for Anti-Satellite Missile Test). You figure the bad guys are coming after you with their clever yellow computers and you've got to hit them back.
I suppose the big counter argument might be that the Air Force wouldn't dream of trying such an obvious ploy. Run a big campaign about blackouts on the same day as a blackout? C'mon, how brazen do you think we'd have to be? Oh, I don't know. Being super obvious as a means to draw suspicion away from yourself is one of the oldest cons in the book. Know why it's so old? Because it works.
It's such a simple, old, depressing formula: The guys in the cave down the block have a bunch of clubs and sharp sticks, so we gotta' get some bigger clubs and sharp sticks. Well, how do we go about getting the rest of our tribe to take time and resources to make those clubs and sharp sticks? Wait, I know! We'll tell some stories around the fire about how we saw some of those other guys messing around with their clubs and sharp sticks. Then we (quietly, quietly) beat someone with a club and then stab him or her to death with a sharp stick and--here's the beauty part--we leave the corpse in front of our cave. We don't gotta' say nothin'. Our tribe'll start whittling away the same day.
A few weeks ago, a division of the Air Force called Cyber Command bought up every single banner ad on three of the largest news websites in the country: WashingtonPost.com, Slate.com and Newsweek.com for a single day--Tuesday, February 26th. The ad itself showed a metroplex grid all lit up at night. The grid begins to go dark one ominous chunk at a time as words to effect of "What if a power failure was really an attack?" faded in. Clicking on the ad delivered the reader to a sub-page on the Air Force site that went into further detail on the danger of state-sponsored terrorists waging all out cyber-war on our national infrastructure. Remember how heinous it was when a sagging tree limb in Ohio caused a blackout in New York, much of the Northeast and even into Canada a few years back?
Frankly, I thought the ad was a pretty lame attempt at emotional manipulation. After seven years of government terror-spin (Get the duct-tape! We're all gonna' die!) most of us are somewhat hardened to that kind of thing. After a while, even machine gun fire starts to sound like a ticking clock. (Yes, I totally ripped that off from Metallica.) That is until later that day I caught a news story at the gym on CNN about a power plant in Florida going off-line for no apparent reason. The next day the Washington Post carried the following article:
Excerpt:
"Florida Power and Light officials could not readily explain how the minor glitch could cause extensive outages as far away as Tampa and Daytona Beach. Safeguards built into the electrical system, they said, should have contained the trouble."
The article reports that the trouble all started at a small substation just outside of Miami when a minor fire caused a cascade of shutdowns throughout the grid. The damage was repaired and the power was back on-line late that same evening. A lot of people were inconvenienced and there was some "widespread panic" but nothing more.
There! Over in the corner! Shine the flashlight! Today's rat:
So, this brings up several questions.The article reports that the trouble all started at a small substation just outside of Miami when a minor fire caused a cascade of shutdowns throughout the grid. The damage was repaired and the power was back on-line late that same evening. A lot of people were inconvenienced and there was some "widespread panic" but nothing more.
There! Over in the corner! Shine the flashlight! Today's rat:
The Air Force is Covertly Attempting to Drum Up
Money and Recruits for the New
Cyberspace Command.
Money and Recruits for the New
Cyberspace Command.
1. Why those websites - WashingtonPost.com, Slate.com and Newsweek.com?
A few years back when Lockheed Martin and Boeing were competing for the coveted Joint Strike Fighter contract from the Defense Appropriations Committee, each company ran hundreds of thousand of dollars of full page ads in The Washington Post newspaper. (WashingtonPost.com existed at the time, but the paper was still the big media feed.) Lockheed's ads were much more eye-catching, dramatic and just plain niftier than Boeing's. They were also more frequent. Both Boeing and Lockheed secured JSF contracts, but Lockheed got the big one. (I still kick myself for not having bought stock.) It all comes down to a single advertising principle that states if you want to sell something, you have to advertise. The secret to advertising is simply this: Get your message in front of the right people, the right way. And in the case of the JSF contract, if you wanted to get the attention of the decision-makers and influencers in Washington, you ran big ads in the Post.
Now, we're seeing the same principal through a slightly different feed. The concept, however, is exactly the same. If you want to get DOD dollars, you run scary ads on the websites that are most likely to get the attention of the decision-makers and influencers on Capitol Hill.
2. Why that day, Tuesday, February 26th?
I'm going to go with a couple of Defense Appropriation Committee hearings within a week of the incident. Wednesday, February 27th was the hearing for the Army's 2009 budget. And one week after the blackout, on Tuesday, March 4th, was the hearing for Fiscal Year 2009 for the Department of Homeland Security. (See the Senate's committee hearing schedule on OpenCongress.org for details.)
3. Why Florida and those cities in particular?
It could be as simple as proximity to the training center for Cyber Command's "Cyber Warriors" which is...wait for it....Florida! Hulburt Air Force Base to be exact. It could be several other factor's as well, not the least of which would be the air conditioner defense. You get to claim all kinds of electrical gremlins when the ol' AC's up just too darn high. Another factor could be the relative low level of danger to the rest of the country caused by a short blackout in Florida. New York goes dark for a day and the stock market shuts down. We saw it in 2003. Miami? People sweat a little more. But, because of the high public awareness value of a state like Florida any kind of incident there makes a loud bang, even if it's an empty one. Think about it: if there was a big power outage in Boseman, Montana and the surrounding area no one would give a shit. But Daytona Beach? Miami? Hell, we're talking race cars and bad 1980's cop shows. Florida holds a high place in the zeitgeist, no question about it. Florida's a destination in the American mind. Set off a firecracker there and people turn around, but maybe nobody really gets hurt.
And, here's the big question...
4. Why does the Air Force need to fundraise so badly for Cyber Command?
You know, I'm not sure. But me and my rat-seeking flashlight have an idea. The Chinese are the new Soviet Union only waaaaaay more dangerous in the minds of those in power in the US of A. Okay, pretend you're a hyper-paranoid conservative warmongering dickhead (Cheney). China is like the Soviet Union except with a hell of a lot more people and not nearly as many of them shitfaced on vodka. Combine that with a wealth-and-resources assimilation appetite that would make The Borg look peckish and you'd be kind of worried.
Resistance is εΎεγ
So here's this big enemy and so far they've shown themselves to be pretty adept at hacking your most important computer systems (FCW.com article: Cyber Officials: Chinese Hackers Attack 'Anything and Everything') and even shooting down spy satellites (WashingtonPost.com article: China Criticized for Anti-Satellite Missile Test). You figure the bad guys are coming after you with their clever yellow computers and you've got to hit them back.
I suppose the big counter argument might be that the Air Force wouldn't dream of trying such an obvious ploy. Run a big campaign about blackouts on the same day as a blackout? C'mon, how brazen do you think we'd have to be? Oh, I don't know. Being super obvious as a means to draw suspicion away from yourself is one of the oldest cons in the book. Know why it's so old? Because it works.
It's such a simple, old, depressing formula: The guys in the cave down the block have a bunch of clubs and sharp sticks, so we gotta' get some bigger clubs and sharp sticks. Well, how do we go about getting the rest of our tribe to take time and resources to make those clubs and sharp sticks? Wait, I know! We'll tell some stories around the fire about how we saw some of those other guys messing around with their clubs and sharp sticks. Then we (quietly, quietly) beat someone with a club and then stab him or her to death with a sharp stick and--here's the beauty part--we leave the corpse in front of our cave. We don't gotta' say nothin'. Our tribe'll start whittling away the same day.
Labels: air force, cyber command, florida, power failure
posted by Captain Ninja at 12:47 PM
0 comments
