Wednesday, August 21, 2013

CHAPTER 31

TACTICS: CYBERSPACE

We’re going to talk about another invasion that was foiled without any direct effort by the humans. The Kzzzz’zzzz – I hope I’m pronouncing that right – are beings of pure electricity, and they had a pretty unique strategy.

You see, the Earth may be backwards, but they have discovered the computer network. Nearly all their early warning installations, and even most weapons systems, are either computer assisted or computer controlled. The Kzzzz’zzzz were going to attack computer network itself. By their nature, they could enter computers the same way you or I enter a room.

But their problems started with faulty intelligence. They monitored Earth communications, but weren’t aware that Earthlings have these entertainments called movies. And these movies are really bad sources of information, especially about Earth’s computer systems.

The Kzzzz’zzzz believed these stories were real, and were convinced that the Earth computer network extended everywhere, to every device imaginable; that the computer network controlled every little function of every device hooked into it and, by taking over the system, they could gain total mastery of the planet. But it was all lies. The Kzzzz’zzzz never considered this because they didn’t wonder why would the humans create such a disturbing fantasy world for the purposes of entertainment. They weren’t able to understand that the Earthlings are a quirky bunch.

So when the Kzzzz’zzzz entered Earth’s computer network, they found this did not automatically hand them an easy victory. In fact, they were hard pressed to find targets of any value. The problem is most Earth computers are dedicated to porn. And the Kzzzz’zzzz, being pure electricity, found themselves in some pretty embarrassing positions.

But that was nothing when they escaped and found themselves in an even worse spot. You see, the computers not dedicated to porn are dedicated to video games. Very violent video games.

Those that survived that debacle managed to finally find a useful target – or so they thought. They spent several days locked inside the Washington, D.C. visitor website. They discovered that important material, such as nuclear launch codes and vital information about military units and weapon systems, was kept under very tight security. Ironically, they followed a human hacking attack to finally find some classified material. Only to discover that “classified” material is actually just embarrassing. Which led them back to the porn. After that, they decided they had enough and left.

And so another would-be invasion ended without the Earthlings having to do much of anything. At least, not directly.

If any of you want to follow the Kzzzz’zzzz, be aware that there are other pitfalls besides porn, first person shooters, and more porn. Cyber warfare has grown very sophisticated. In a way, Earth is less vulnerable than you might think. Attacks meant to defeat AI programs, quantum computers, and wetware are completely useless against the much simpler terran systems. Your technicians will have to think backwards in order to come up with a virus simple enough to infect the Earthling systems, yet sophisticated enough to do what you desire: disrupt vital communications, compromise weapons and defense systems, glean important data, and so on.

All this is going to take a lot of research, which can take even trained observers years to complete. Terran programming languages and architecture are nothing like what we use. I’ve had experts tell me the Earth computers are designed so that they’re difficult to program, something they found hard to fathom. You see, most humans understand how to use their information devices, but only a tiny percentage of them know how to program those devices.

Even if you do find the systems you are searching for, and manage to infect them with a virus, you might not do that much damage. Very sensibly, nothing is one hundred percent computer controlled, and all the vital systems have manual backups. So making their reactors all go into meltdown? That’ll only happen if the crew is too lazy to work the manual override.

One last thing. When choosing a master computer to coordinate your attacks, don’t get the model that blows up if it encounters a question it can’t answer or a phrase that makes no sense. It’ll crash the moment it encounters a human pop song. Don’t believe me…?

(At this point War Hawk plays a bit of Earth music. It’s easily the most excruciating part of the whole symposium. It’s about some Earth who doesn’t want Fernando or Roberto to call her name. Possibly that’s what it’s about.)

Gahh! My head’s ready to explode just listening to this crap.

Yes, cyber-warfare is something you should look into. Yes, that is going to be more time and more expense. Yes, that is adding up.

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