#I tried to include a wide range of options cause I think the debate is always gay mike vs. bi mike
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broken-heroes-and-potatoes · 4 years ago
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hello hello!! i'm here to send some requests 💖maybe some Bakugou, Tamaki and Hawks best friends to lovers headcanons? good luck with your blog !! đŸ„șđŸ‘‰đŸŒđŸ‘ˆđŸŒ
Thank you so much senpai @bnha-imagines-forall for the shout-out and for the interesting request too, to be honest I have no idea what this is..I don’t think that’s headcanons though’ I hope it’ll be okay nonetheless, don’t hesitate to tell me how I can improve! #toomuchpressure
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Katsuki Bakugo
- Being friend with Bakugo is already a big thing, I mean, being upgraded from despise/indifference to tolerance isn’t something Katsuki grants to everyone, so you probably passed some ‘unconscious tests’ throught the early steps of the relationship.
- First of all, you intrigued him, pricked his curiosity whether because of your quirk or your personnality, you immediately caught his attention and even with that, he was definitely not the one who will approach you. He [im]patiently watched from afar, listened to other talk about you, studying your every moves from the corner of his eyes. [spoiler alert, he ended up doing the first move because you took too damn long to give him attention.]
- He had everyone recognitions for his strenght and abilities, but he couldn’t really understand why it bothered him that you never showed him yours, not that he needed it anyways.. but still.
- You ended up hanging with him because of your friendship with Kirishima and even if you he gave you the cold shoulder at first, he quickly accepted you and, to the surprise of his closest friend, undertook friendly actions so you’ll feel at ease around him.
- Bakugo being Bakugo, you often get into passionate and, sometimes, sterile debates with him ‘cause of how stuborn he’s, it usually ends in screams and shouts, or pillow thrown at each other. Whatever, it stimulates him, and more important, no matter what, you still sticked to his side supporting him even when he was in despicable states and you’re defintely worth of his trust and respect because of this.
- You challenge him and it’s what drag him into you, not necessarily on a fighting level, but on a daily basis of every single aspects in his life
- On the other hand, you assure a kind of balance, appeasing him when he can’t go down from a high frustration and he realized that as things progress his feelings evolved too.
- You are one of the only person he never pushed away (too harshly at least), the one he thinks of before falling asleep, the one he felt the ‘need’ to be with when he has something happy to share or when he’s feeling overwheelmed by negative emotions
- He’s an emotional constipated boy, but when he pulled all the pieces together and understood what those...unwanting feelings was, it angered him to no point. You never thought a grumpier Katsuki could exist? Say no more. He’s on edge and fuming at everything and everyone. Midoriya breathing next to him? He nearly blew his head off His pen stopped working? He exploded it like confettis.
- Once he was aware of it, he can’t get it out of his mind and it pissed him off, the only logical option he came up with? Avoiding you. And when you try to act as usual? Ignoring you.
- The fact was that the thing he could least bear? Himself. For feeling that way, for realizing it, for being distracted and affected by something so trivial, for hurting you.
- One night when he couldn’t fall asleep because of the situation, turning and tossing in his bed, he angrily thrown off his sheets on the ground, storming off of his room and frowning while taking the direction of yours with a determine step.
- He knocked [BANGED.] on your door, not giving a freakin’ care that it was past midnight, and when you opened it slightly panicked in your nightie, rubbing your eyes, he just blurted out nonsens and the only words you grabbed were «can’t stop thinking about you – it pisses me off – I miss you – in love with you» ponctuated with some ‘shit’ and‘fuckin’ here and there.
- When he finally shut his mouth, his ears turned bright pink, stupor painted his face and as he was about to leave the same way he arrived, you grabbed his wrist to prevent him to vanish and dropped a quick clumsy kiss on his lips.
- His brain freezed, his eyes wide opened, he didn’t know how to react, not even realizing he woke the entire floor with his shouts.
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Tamaki Amajiki
- He’s one of most the complicated person to reach, whether physically or emotionally, so it would take YEARS to make him accept that 1 – He can Love someone 2- He deserves to be Loved too
- Tamaki is a fragile little cinnamon roll that shouldn’t be pushed too much, it’s like sitting into bushes and wait to take wild animals in pictures. Patience and delicacy are required along with silence and empathy.
- If you both knew each other since elementary school, he would develop the same bond and dependance he has with Mirio, a solide relationship based on trust. But he would burried deep down his feelings so you would never discover his love to you, neither do he.
- If you met at U.A, then he would accept your presence only because Mirio and Nejire included you without his opinion to the group. If they do so without really consulting him, it's because they both know you could get along and won’t go beyond the pale and impose yourself on him.
- Either one of the other, he would very slowly open up to you, studying you at first, and leaving each time you sat next to him. Then he would accept that you could speak to him, sometimes he would even answer and to finish, he would talk to you and ask for your advices.
- If you’re lucky enough, you’ll be able to put your hand on his shoulder or brush his arm with yours after a few months!
- There’s something pretty reassuring about you, something that makes him feel at ease, almost confident when you’re around, the way you make all of those impossible things for him look so easy and smooth, and the bravery you show to accomplish little things in your life, even if it costs you a lot of courage to do so. He admires your convictions, the way you fight for what you love and what you believe in..
- He likes the fact you consider his feelings and apprehensions and don’t push him too much as much as you tend to help him find solution and don’t go and do the thing for him.
- You enlighten a path for him, guiding him throught the shadows of his emotional blinders, and help him make few steps in this horrific world. And he needs nothing more to fall in love with you.
- It was crystal clear for everyone to the point some people thought you were already dating, everyone except two persons, Him, and you.
- How he blushes each time you smile to him, how he searches you around when he losts sight of you, and how his own innocent smile gained his lips when you joke with him.
- Your two friends tried, REALLY hard to get you together, to help him realize and open up his feelings, to arranged some date between the two of you  while hidding to spy in the background.. but nope.
- When Mirio couldn’t bear it anymore, he took him under his arm to have an adult talk and it rang in Tamaki’s head like a bell.
- Thinking about it, the warm in his chest, the goosebump on his arms and the way he, sometimes [often], wanted to keep you close and don’t let you go after an afternoon by your side.. Mirio’s words do made sens.. and it was freaking him out now.
- A trap later settled into one more arranged date, he couldn’t look at you in the eyes, nor focus on what you were saying. You were so
 and he was.. No. You definitely deserved better and there were no chance..
- «Are you.. okay Tamaki?» His heart was about to exploded when you got him out of his thoughts with the sound of his name, eyes wondering on your face in panic, what where you saying ? Why does he have to act like this, why do you look so sad? He’s already a terrible friend, how could he be a good boyfriend to you
- «No, it’s- it’s okay, I should have know you're not returning my feelings, I’am sorry I misread the signs-I .. I hope we can still be friend?»
- Tamaki thought he was about to faint when he heard you, wobbly legs, buzzing ears, blurry vision, he couldn’t think straight, but the tiny bit of reason in his head push few words to escape from his lips before he black out from the pressure. «I love you.»
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Hawks - Keigo Takami
- This cocky Bastard had won your heart for ages but you kept it to yourself because you knew it was just a game between the two of you.
- You had to admit he was a pretty cute guy when you both met and began to work together, but this smart ass deserved some slaps on the head from time to time and it was a charm that would drag you to him even more.
- You were like an elusive target to him, reproaching his nonchalance and laid back attitude, spending your time pushing him away and resisting to his teasing demeanors.
- Despite the constant lazyness he tends to wallow in, he took it as a challenge and he put a point of honor to make you abdicate.
- [Un]fortunately, after months of playing with your nerves, he got caught at his own game and he was the one to fall deeply for you.
- You also fell for him hard, and quick after you two became friends, it was some kind of funny fight at first, a pleasant banter between two grown persons, he was throwing flirty comments your way and you answered to him with a wink accompanied by snarky remarks.
- Beyond that, the two of you created a really healthy bonds, he knew in a sec’ when something’s wrong and dropped anything he was doing to cheer you up, leaving all of the challenge out.
- He would took you on the roof of his building to watch a reassuring movie outdoor, your favorite snacks prepared, even if he would never admit that he fly throught the whole city to find them.
- It surprised him how much he remembered useless things when it comes to you, how many sugar you put in your tea, how your mustard scarf look good on you and how the tint of vanilla in your perfurme get along perfectly with the natural one of your skin.
- He also noticed the changed in his feelings toward you, for example, he was annoyed to the tips of his wings when Best Jeanist proposed to accompanied you to chose a new jacket to welcome spring and you seemed utterly happy about it.
- Whether for you or for him, it was more and more difficult to accept the situation when you realized how the feelings had settled down and there was no way to back off now that the relationship always been like that.
- He tried to didn’t take it seriously, but he liked this..thing.. going on between you too much, could he call it an addiction? He didn’t like it but, Maybe. Anyway, he would take the risk to confess even if it means not coming out unscathed
- Being an organised and clever guy didn’t help him much because each of is attempts to wooed you failed as you took it as the natural behaviour he developped toward you.
- And God knows how he gave it his best, he made it clear to call it «A DATE», he offered you flowers carefuly picked with his feathers while you were both sitting in a meadow as the sun set, he was neatly dressed and if you squinted a lot, he even did something to his hair!
- You wished all of this could be true but you refused to believe in it, because the fall would only be harder, proof with how hard the pain already thundered in your chest.
- When he leaded you home that night, you felt as if you didn’t wanted him to go, it wasn’t the first time, but right now, you would have given everything you could to keep him by your side. You anxiously turned to him once you reached the door, no word were needeed for him to understand what was going on in your mind.
- He approached confidently, shielding you both with his wings, his gloved hand on your cheek before you could react and his mouth on yours in a chaste kiss. You felt a smile crept on his lips when you put enough pressure to return it and he pulled away slowly.
- You plunged into amused golden eyes when his breath tickled you in a whispered words «I won», he laughed against your lips, trying once more to steal a kiss as you pushed him away gently, not-so-nice words leaving your mouth.
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courtneytincher · 5 years ago
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The Urgent Search for a Cyber Silver Bullet Against Iran
WASHINGTON -- After spending billions of dollars to assemble the world's most potent arsenal of cyberweapons and plant them in networks around the world, United States Cyber Command -- and the new era of warfighting it has come to represent -- may face a critical test in the coming weeks.President Donald Trump is considering a range of options to punish Iran for this month's attack on Saudi oil facilities, and has toughened sanctions on Iran and ordered the deployment of additional troops to the region. But a second cyberstrike -- after one launched against Iran just three months ago -- has emerged as the most appealing course of action for Trump, who is reluctant to widen the conflict in a region he has said the United States should leave, according to senior American officials.But even as the Pentagon considers specific targets -- an attempt to shut down Iran's oil fields and refineries has been one of the "proportionate responses" under review -- a broader debate is taking place inside and outside the administration over whether a cyberattack alone will be enough to alter Iran's calculations, and what kind of retaliation a particularly damaging cyberstrike might provoke."The president talked about our use of those previously, but I'm certainly not going to forecast what we'll do as we move forward," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" when asked whether a cyberattack might be an artful, nonescalatory response to this month's drone or missile strikes on two of Saudi Arabia's most important facilities."This was Iran true and true, and the United States will respond in a way that reflects that act of war by this Iranian revolutionary regime."Pompeo noted that the U.S. military was already sending additional troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, largely to bolster air defenses. But those moves alone are viewed as unlikely to be enough to prevent further Iranian actions.The question circulating now through the White House, the Pentagon and Cyber Command's operations room is whether it is possible to send a strong message of deterrence with a cyberattack without doing so much damage that it would prompt an even larger Iranian counterstrike.At least three times over the past decade, the United States has staged major cyberattacks against Iran, intended to halt its nuclear or missile programs, punish the country or send a clear message to its leadership that it should end its support for proxy militant groups.In each case, the damage to Iranian systems could be repaired over time. And in each case, the effort to deter Iran was at best only partly successful. If the American charge that Iran was behind the attack in Saudi Arabia proves accurate, it would constitute the latest example of Tehran's shaking off a cyberattack and continuing to engage in the kind of behavior the United States had hoped to deter.The most famous, complex effort was a sophisticated sabotage campaign a decade ago to blow up Iran's nuclear enrichment center using code, not bombs. The Obama administration later began a program, accelerated by Trump, to try to use cyberattacks to slow Iran's missile development. And this past June, Trump approved a clandestine operation to destroy a key database used by the Iranian military to target oil-carrying ships -- and canceled a traditional missile strike he had ordered to respond to the downing of an American surveillance drone.The June cyberattack, according to two American officials, also did damage that Iran has not yet detected."Cyber can certainly be a deterrent, it can be a very powerful weapon," said Sen. Angus King, the Maine independent who is a chairman of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, created by Congress, that is examining American offensive cyberstrategy. "It is an option that can cause real damage."King and other experts said Iran would probably respond to a cyberattack with one of its own, given the vulnerabilities that exist in the United States and the hyperconnected nature of American life.But current and former intelligence officials say a cycle of retaliation need not be confined to one military domain. Just as the United States responded in June to the Iranian downing of a drone and sabotage of oil tankers with a cyberattack, Iran could respond to an American cyberoperation with a terrorist attack by a proxy force or a missile strike.The Pentagon has long held that a cyberattack could constitute an act of war that requires a physical response, and there is no reason to think that Iran would not pursue the same policy.One senior administration official recently acknowledged that even Gen. Paul Nakasone, the commander of Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency, has warned Trump and his aides that the cyberarsenal is "no magic bullet" for deterring Iranian aggression in the Middle East.In war games -- essentially online simulations -- held before the attack on the Saudi oil fields, officials have tried to figure out how Iran's increasingly skillful "cyber corps" would respond to an American cyberattack. These Iranian fighters have racked up a significant record: wiping out 30,000 computers at Saudi Aramco, freezing operations at American banks with a "denial of service" attack, and crippling a Las Vegas casino. Last year, they began to study the ins and outs of election interference, according to private experts and government studies of the 2018 midterms.When Nakasone was nominated for his job, he acknowledged that one of the biggest problems facing Cyber Command was that it had not cracked the deterrence problem. Nations that are attacking the United States via cyberattacks "do not think much will happen to them," he told Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. "They don't fear us."In his first 18 months in office, Nakasone has raced to bolster Cyber Command's authority to act preemptively -- and its preparations to respond to attacks. New, classified directives given to him by Trump and built upon by Congress allow Cyber Command to place "implants" of malicious software inside foreign networks without lengthy approval processes that run up to the president. Congress has called such efforts part of "traditional military authority."Iran has reportedly been a major target -- no surprise, because Nakasone was a key player in designing a plan called Nitro Zeus to shut down Tehran and other Iranian cities in the event of a war. The idea was to put together an attack so devastating that Iran might surrender without a shot being fired.The 2015 nuclear agreement between the Iranian leadership and President Barack Obama eased the threat of war, and the American cyberoperations plan was put back on the shelf, at least until recently.At the Pentagon, and even at Cyber Command, many senior officers are cautious about cyberwarfare, arguing that it is difficult for such weapons alone to deter an enemy.The attack using the "Stuxnet" virus that crippled Iranian nuclear-enrichment centrifuges a decade ago was successful in a narrow sense: It blew up 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges up and running at the time. But when it recovered, Iran built upward of 14,000 more, and counterattacked by crippling Saudi Aramco's computer systems.A long-running series of cyberattacks has slowed but not stopped Iran's missile program -- and Iran has continued to provide thousands of short-range rockets to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Saudis are studying whether a new generation of Iranian-made missiles were central to this month's attack on its oil facilities.The Pentagon and other military officials have told the White House that neither another cyberattack nor the new deployment announced Friday will probably be robust enough to reestablish deterrence and prevent another attack by Iran on U.S. allies.Part of the problem is that most cyberactivity is clandestine, so it is easy for a government to play down the consequences of an attack or deny it even took place.But some people who favor stepping up cyberoperations suggest that officials are simply thinking too small. If a cyberstrike is damaging enough -- taking a refinery offline or shutting down an electric grid, for example -- it would be hard to hide. That might have a much more deterrent effect than the smaller bore operations the United States has undertaken so far, they argue.But such a devastating cyberoperation would also increase the risk of escalation -- just as a bombing run on the oil refineries would. Iran, or any other adversary, could say that people were killed or injured, and that might be difficult to disprove.A key element of deterrence is ensuring that an adversary understands the other side's basic capabilities. Unlike nuclear weapons, though, which are widely understood, the American cyberarsenal is shrouded in secrecy, for fear adversaries will develop countermeasures if even basic capabilities are known.Nakasone has argued that his cyberwarriors must be roaming cyberspace "persistently engaging" enemies -- a euphemism for skirmishing with adversaries inside their networks."We must 'defend forward' in cyberspace, as we do in the physical domains," he wrote in a Defense Department publication in January. "Our naval forces do not defend by staying in port, and our air power does not remain at airfields. They patrol the seas and skies to ensure they are positioned to defend our country before our borders are crossed. The same logic applies in cyberspace."But there is a growing consensus within Cyber Command that if cyberweapons are going to shape the actions of adversaries, they must be used in combination with other elements of power, including economic sanctions, diplomacy or traditional military strikes.King, the Maine senator, sees the decisions over the next few weeks on Iran as a test case. "The president's instinct is not to get in a shooting war, and I think he is right about that," he said. "So the question is how do we respond?"He argued that there was no urgency. "This was not a strike on New York City," King said. "This was not even a strike on Riyadh. There needs to be a response."But there is time to pause and take a deep breath and consider all of the options -- one of which is cyber -- but also to think about how we deescalate the situation."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines
WASHINGTON -- After spending billions of dollars to assemble the world's most potent arsenal of cyberweapons and plant them in networks around the world, United States Cyber Command -- and the new era of warfighting it has come to represent -- may face a critical test in the coming weeks.President Donald Trump is considering a range of options to punish Iran for this month's attack on Saudi oil facilities, and has toughened sanctions on Iran and ordered the deployment of additional troops to the region. But a second cyberstrike -- after one launched against Iran just three months ago -- has emerged as the most appealing course of action for Trump, who is reluctant to widen the conflict in a region he has said the United States should leave, according to senior American officials.But even as the Pentagon considers specific targets -- an attempt to shut down Iran's oil fields and refineries has been one of the "proportionate responses" under review -- a broader debate is taking place inside and outside the administration over whether a cyberattack alone will be enough to alter Iran's calculations, and what kind of retaliation a particularly damaging cyberstrike might provoke."The president talked about our use of those previously, but I'm certainly not going to forecast what we'll do as we move forward," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" when asked whether a cyberattack might be an artful, nonescalatory response to this month's drone or missile strikes on two of Saudi Arabia's most important facilities."This was Iran true and true, and the United States will respond in a way that reflects that act of war by this Iranian revolutionary regime."Pompeo noted that the U.S. military was already sending additional troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, largely to bolster air defenses. But those moves alone are viewed as unlikely to be enough to prevent further Iranian actions.The question circulating now through the White House, the Pentagon and Cyber Command's operations room is whether it is possible to send a strong message of deterrence with a cyberattack without doing so much damage that it would prompt an even larger Iranian counterstrike.At least three times over the past decade, the United States has staged major cyberattacks against Iran, intended to halt its nuclear or missile programs, punish the country or send a clear message to its leadership that it should end its support for proxy militant groups.In each case, the damage to Iranian systems could be repaired over time. And in each case, the effort to deter Iran was at best only partly successful. If the American charge that Iran was behind the attack in Saudi Arabia proves accurate, it would constitute the latest example of Tehran's shaking off a cyberattack and continuing to engage in the kind of behavior the United States had hoped to deter.The most famous, complex effort was a sophisticated sabotage campaign a decade ago to blow up Iran's nuclear enrichment center using code, not bombs. The Obama administration later began a program, accelerated by Trump, to try to use cyberattacks to slow Iran's missile development. And this past June, Trump approved a clandestine operation to destroy a key database used by the Iranian military to target oil-carrying ships -- and canceled a traditional missile strike he had ordered to respond to the downing of an American surveillance drone.The June cyberattack, according to two American officials, also did damage that Iran has not yet detected."Cyber can certainly be a deterrent, it can be a very powerful weapon," said Sen. Angus King, the Maine independent who is a chairman of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, created by Congress, that is examining American offensive cyberstrategy. "It is an option that can cause real damage."King and other experts said Iran would probably respond to a cyberattack with one of its own, given the vulnerabilities that exist in the United States and the hyperconnected nature of American life.But current and former intelligence officials say a cycle of retaliation need not be confined to one military domain. Just as the United States responded in June to the Iranian downing of a drone and sabotage of oil tankers with a cyberattack, Iran could respond to an American cyberoperation with a terrorist attack by a proxy force or a missile strike.The Pentagon has long held that a cyberattack could constitute an act of war that requires a physical response, and there is no reason to think that Iran would not pursue the same policy.One senior administration official recently acknowledged that even Gen. Paul Nakasone, the commander of Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency, has warned Trump and his aides that the cyberarsenal is "no magic bullet" for deterring Iranian aggression in the Middle East.In war games -- essentially online simulations -- held before the attack on the Saudi oil fields, officials have tried to figure out how Iran's increasingly skillful "cyber corps" would respond to an American cyberattack. These Iranian fighters have racked up a significant record: wiping out 30,000 computers at Saudi Aramco, freezing operations at American banks with a "denial of service" attack, and crippling a Las Vegas casino. Last year, they began to study the ins and outs of election interference, according to private experts and government studies of the 2018 midterms.When Nakasone was nominated for his job, he acknowledged that one of the biggest problems facing Cyber Command was that it had not cracked the deterrence problem. Nations that are attacking the United States via cyberattacks "do not think much will happen to them," he told Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. "They don't fear us."In his first 18 months in office, Nakasone has raced to bolster Cyber Command's authority to act preemptively -- and its preparations to respond to attacks. New, classified directives given to him by Trump and built upon by Congress allow Cyber Command to place "implants" of malicious software inside foreign networks without lengthy approval processes that run up to the president. Congress has called such efforts part of "traditional military authority."Iran has reportedly been a major target -- no surprise, because Nakasone was a key player in designing a plan called Nitro Zeus to shut down Tehran and other Iranian cities in the event of a war. The idea was to put together an attack so devastating that Iran might surrender without a shot being fired.The 2015 nuclear agreement between the Iranian leadership and President Barack Obama eased the threat of war, and the American cyberoperations plan was put back on the shelf, at least until recently.At the Pentagon, and even at Cyber Command, many senior officers are cautious about cyberwarfare, arguing that it is difficult for such weapons alone to deter an enemy.The attack using the "Stuxnet" virus that crippled Iranian nuclear-enrichment centrifuges a decade ago was successful in a narrow sense: It blew up 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges up and running at the time. But when it recovered, Iran built upward of 14,000 more, and counterattacked by crippling Saudi Aramco's computer systems.A long-running series of cyberattacks has slowed but not stopped Iran's missile program -- and Iran has continued to provide thousands of short-range rockets to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Saudis are studying whether a new generation of Iranian-made missiles were central to this month's attack on its oil facilities.The Pentagon and other military officials have told the White House that neither another cyberattack nor the new deployment announced Friday will probably be robust enough to reestablish deterrence and prevent another attack by Iran on U.S. allies.Part of the problem is that most cyberactivity is clandestine, so it is easy for a government to play down the consequences of an attack or deny it even took place.But some people who favor stepping up cyberoperations suggest that officials are simply thinking too small. If a cyberstrike is damaging enough -- taking a refinery offline or shutting down an electric grid, for example -- it would be hard to hide. That might have a much more deterrent effect than the smaller bore operations the United States has undertaken so far, they argue.But such a devastating cyberoperation would also increase the risk of escalation -- just as a bombing run on the oil refineries would. Iran, or any other adversary, could say that people were killed or injured, and that might be difficult to disprove.A key element of deterrence is ensuring that an adversary understands the other side's basic capabilities. Unlike nuclear weapons, though, which are widely understood, the American cyberarsenal is shrouded in secrecy, for fear adversaries will develop countermeasures if even basic capabilities are known.Nakasone has argued that his cyberwarriors must be roaming cyberspace "persistently engaging" enemies -- a euphemism for skirmishing with adversaries inside their networks."We must 'defend forward' in cyberspace, as we do in the physical domains," he wrote in a Defense Department publication in January. "Our naval forces do not defend by staying in port, and our air power does not remain at airfields. They patrol the seas and skies to ensure they are positioned to defend our country before our borders are crossed. The same logic applies in cyberspace."But there is a growing consensus within Cyber Command that if cyberweapons are going to shape the actions of adversaries, they must be used in combination with other elements of power, including economic sanctions, diplomacy or traditional military strikes.King, the Maine senator, sees the decisions over the next few weeks on Iran as a test case. "The president's instinct is not to get in a shooting war, and I think he is right about that," he said. "So the question is how do we respond?"He argued that there was no urgency. "This was not a strike on New York City," King said. "This was not even a strike on Riyadh. There needs to be a response."But there is time to pause and take a deep breath and consider all of the options -- one of which is cyber -- but also to think about how we deescalate the situation."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
September 23, 2019 at 09:40PM via IFTTT
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foodramblings · 7 years ago
Link
(Via Google Translate)
You have denounced that the food system is designed with more thinking in the economic benefit than in matters of health or justice. What can we do to reverse this situation?
The answer is complicated. In order to change this situation, it is necessary to act at multiple levels, from the questioning of the logic of Objective no. 2 (United Nations Sustainable Development) (Zero Hunger) and fight to implement the commitments on food of the New Urban Agenda1, to actions aimed at putting pressure on the national state to highlight the negative impact of an unjust food system, seeking to identify mechanisms Existing at local level that influence food policy and planning. One of my main concerns has been that, in many parts of the developed world, the food movement has acted among the elite sectors, sometimes disconnected from the food needs of the most disadvantaged by focusing on environmental sustainability rather than on issues of Justice.
You are critical of the way in which some governments and NGOs use urban agriculture in their programs as a measure to fight against hunger because, in general, they are a good scenario for a good photo and, instead, they are investments that do not contribute Too much to solve the problem in the background. What role can urban agriculture play in resolving food insecurity? How should it be implemented?
Urban agriculture can serve to tackle the problem of food insecurity but, in my view, it can only fully meet this objective if its successes or failures are analyzed without being influenced by individual projects. It is also important to examine how the viability of urban agriculture is affected by the food system on a larger scale and for urban planning. The opposite leads to projects that promise a lot but do not come to anything. If governments and NGOs are committed to ensuring the development of urban agriculture to its full potential, there is a need for clearer protection of agricultural land (at all levels) and a conscious effort to understand the many social and economic factors that influence In their success or failure.
In addition to urban agriculture, what kind of policies should be developed at the local level to address the problem of food insecurity?
There are many measures that can be implemented. We have been working on understanding how people living in cities access to food and what kind of food they find most accessible. With this information, we have identified measures that local governments can adopt, such as establishing preferential zones for healthy sellers near the main transport interchanges in the city, modifying the rules of urban waste management to encourage the separation of The organic part and transform it into cheap energy for use by street vendors or as fertilizer for urban agriculture. Other possible measures include the study of passive thermal control in the construction of new social housing, reduce food waste and thus help change consumption habits or also the approval of local ordinances prohibiting the sale of junk food near schools and Hospitals.
Both your work and your speech convey a lot of sensitivity to the structural causes of gender inequalities. In your opinion, how can food policy address this issue adequately? How could they integrate it?
Most work to develop food security policies is done at the national level based on survey data that hardly accurately summarizes the gender dynamics of food security. Our work tries to integrate this data taken on a large scale with a more ethnographic work. We have perceived that in the political arena the gender issue rarely goes beyond counting the number of female beneficiaries of the projects. This is not really a gender-based approach. The current tactic of the Western Cape Government to include lactation rooms in the workplace as a central part of the strategy is a new approach that could serve to address both the problem of child nutrition and gender.
In your work reports that the arrival of supermarkets in African cities is linked to a poorer diet. Do you think these big companies can be part of the solution to the problem of food insecurity? How?
Supermarkets are always on the lookout for research results and, in fact, have much more data on the subject than the universities themselves. For me, the cynical way  of his way of acting is that, although his speech focuses on the benefit of food security, given that they offer quality products and economic prices (or at least lower than those of its main competitors ), The only thing they are really looking for is to increase their market share. This does not mean, however, that their model does not offer benefits, since they allow cheaper access to basic food (such as corn flour) and many households benefit. The problem is that, in turn, small traders who sell products in units, which is what the most disadvantaged can afford, are disadvantaged and, like the rest of the population buying in supermarkets, they fail leaving the poorest without alternative. The second worrying issue is that they offer increasing amounts of ultraprocessed food, which is detrimental to good nutritional quality.
Since large cities are not very sustainable, would it not be better to work in those whose food systems still have a relation to the rural world and its traditional production?
Our project Consuming Urban Poverty has been working in three intermediate cities in Africa (they are not very small cities but, of course, much more than a capital). Existing publications on this subject have always assumed that their food system is much more local and yet in practice we have found that this is not so. In Kisumu (Kenya), for example, only a very small amount of fish caught on nearby beaches is consumed in the same Kisumu; Most are exported to Nairobi markets or even further afield. Some of the fish they eat comes from other places near Lake Victoria, but there is a regular supply of fish from China. Likewise, the agricultural lands near the city are known for their sugar cultivation, but the production costs in the region are high and the sugar consumed in the city is imported. That cities are smaller does not necessarily imply a more local supply chain. In those places whose systems are still in place, we must make serious efforts to maintain them as a form of food system resilience.
Faced with the challenge of changing a local food system to make it more just and sustainable, why do you consider that the local and small-scale approach is not always a good choice?
I think the ideal would be a small local approach, but this often favors the producer versus the consumer. When you look at food systems and see their strengths and weaknesses from the point of view of the consumer, you come to the conclusion that, while the local food system has a lot to offer and has a dense and rich network of networks, it also has Its weak points. A specific example is drought and other extreme weather events. When these systems are in trouble it is useful to have a wide range of resources to turn to. However, the general tendency of the market is to move towards an increasingly large food system, so it is important to have legislation that preserves diversity. It is also important not to over-praise the small and the local, as we also know examples of labor exploitation and practices harmful to the environment at the local level.
And now we would like to talk about the rural world, since it seems that we are getting carried away in a certain way by the "center" (the big cities). Why do we not value the possibility of building food systems starting with the periphery (in this case, rural areas)?
I believe that this is the approach advocated by the movement of the City Region Food System and the food commitments of the New Urban Agenda. Of course, it's a useful approach, but what worries me is what you do not get to see if you start working out there. In particular, I have seen that this approach does not recognize the large-scale drivers of changes in the food system, given their great commitment to making the local system work. I believe that, in the end, this compromises the viability of the local system. I think we should work with both approaches, as there are certain aspects that look better from the outside in and others better from the inside out. We must be able to have both perspectives on the table.
What role does agrarian reform play in the fight against food insecurity? Do you think there is a relationship between land ownership and population growth in cities?
My view in this regard is biased by the example of South Africa where agrarian reform programs have mostly failed to guide historically disadvantaged farmers towards more sustainable and viable production. I'm afraid I really have nothing useful to say about it.
How could we prevent so many people from being forced to leave their land and their villages? What kind of (and other) food policy would be needed to achieve this goal? Would not this be the best way to avoid hunger and poverty in cities?
Numerous actions have been carried out all over the planet to try to make this happen. This is a subject in which I do not have much experience so I do not feel very prepared to comment on it. One of the worrying issues has been that efforts to promote rural development (better education, better infrastructure, etc.) have often only served to accelerate rural-urban migration. A whole paradox. I would say that improving access to markets and information could stimulate the viability of rural livelihoods and that multilevel development could also lead to families being able to diversify their livelihood options to support their farming activities , In case the harvest was looser or sales prices fell.
And finally, what do you think of the concept of food sovereignty?
On the concept of food sovereignty, I must say that I still have to see it well structured in the urban areas of the countries of the South.
While the official response to the food crisis (which is only the manifestation of a far more important agrarian crisis) has been to continue agribusiness, with the novelty now of trying to incorporate small farmers into global markets for agricultural commodities. First necessity, the response by the food sovereignty movement has been to offer an alternative interpretation of the problem and its solution. The perspective of food sovereignty criticizes the discourse of descampesinizaciĂłn and the application of this type of policies and bets for the protection of peasant agriculture as social and environmental necessity to foment the food security in the world.
The absence of the urban consumer is a lamentable omission, a reluctance to participate in a world that develops in an increasingly urban context. This is one of the main weaknesses of the food sovereignty movement (Agarwal, 2014, p.1265) and has led to the establishment of a series of targets to meet objective no. 2 that do not address the changing reality of food and nutrition insecurity in Africa.
Some people talk about food sovereignty in the urban context of South Africa, but what I perceive is that they focus almost entirely on small-scale urban production rather than a systemic criticism. There is a lot of work to be done in this regard.
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kuniee · 8 years ago
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Best Shampoo For Oily Hair
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Best Shampoo For Oily Hair
  Do you get stressed out when you walk through the shampoo isle looking for the best shampoo for oily hair? Does a trip to the salon leave you only feeling bummed out the next day, when your hair returns to normal. Do you desperately try to figure out why your hair looks so great when a professional does it, even though you know you could never make your hair look that beautiful? Do you ever just want to pull all of your hair straight out? If you hair stresses you out, and it does not look well no matter what you do to it, then there is a solution that you have probably already heard of, and maybe even thought about trying. The biggest hair care problem that I hear from people is that their hair is too oily or collects oil too quickly, which makes them have to wash their hair constantly just to make it look clean. If this describes you, read on for life altering information on the best shampoo for oily hair that promises to tame your oily hair.Tried Others that Claim to be the Best Shampoo For Oily Hair? Every day you wash your hair with that same shampoo. Whether it is something new tha you are trying, or the same shampoo you have been using, you hair always turns out the same way – Oily. You spend hours on your hair trying to make it at least look decent. You lather and rinse, air dry or blow dry, and have tried every hair product that claims to be the best shampoo for oily hair that you could find, but at the end of this monstrous and never ending cycle, you hair still turns out oily. At this point, you have only a couple of solutions: slick it back and put it up, or hide it under a hat. But who wants to do that every day? I know that you want gorgeous hair, but maybe you do not have the time to keep fooling with your hair or to keep spending all that money on salon treatments. I also know that if you could find the best shampoo for oily hair that provides an easy way to get that fabulous hair that you have always wanted, you would use it and believe me, you are in plentiful company. Many regular shampoo customers, like you, are seeking a solution to the “oily hair” problem. They too have tried every product that claims to be the best shampoo for oily hair that they could have, with no results. They too are endlessly frustrated with their oily hair. Luckily, some of them have now discovered the solution! These lucky ones are no longer frustrated at their hair; they are simply satisfied with the look and feel of their hair, every day, and they are also satisfied with their wallets. So now is the time to quit spending a ton of money on hair products that do not work. Now is the time to quit worrying about your hair, and just keep managing your hair simple. If you have wanted, beautiful, shiny, voluminous hair rather than the same oily hair that you get every day, start at the source of the problem. You, my friend, need a different shampoo and the best shampoo for oily hair is none other than Wen¼. Wen¼ Cleansing Conditioner is the new revolution in hair care products! Now, I know what you’re thinking – how can a conditioner clean my hair? But one use of Wen and you will be hooked.Wen¼ is the Best Shampoo For Oily Hair Wen¼ Cleansing Conditioner is 5 treatments in 1 application, that will make your hair look the best it ever has. This product is your shampoo, conditioner, deep conditioner, de-tangler, and leave-in conditioner, all in one. It was created by Chaz Dean, a famous hair stylist, whose clientele included celebrities. Dean was convinced that all shampoos were damaging to hair, so he created a conditioner that was designed to cleanse hair and give it tons of added benefit to make it the best shampoo for oily hair. 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You will feel the difference, and people will notice the difference, making you feel like you have just spent a ton of money at the salon. No one will ever have to know that you did not get your hair professionally done, instead you used Wen. As an added benefit, your hair will smell fresh all day, because Wen¼ Cleansing Conditioner can be ordered in scents, such as, sweet almond mint, lavender, pomegranate, or spring gardenia green tea. Wen¼ is the revolutionary hair care shampoo for oily hair. You will love it so much that you will want to purchase their styling products, as well, just to put on the finishing touch of beauty. Many women and men have testified to the fact that Wen¼ is the best and only product to have for your hair. Normally, something this stunning, you would expect to have to pay a fortune, especially since it was created by a famous stylist and used on celebrities. However, a thirty day supply is only $29.95! Wen¼ also comes with a ninety day money back guarantee, so you can have confidence in ordering and trying this product. Although, when you receive Wen¼ the best shampoo for oily hair, you will never want to go back to a regular, boring shampoo, ever again. So what are you waiting for? Try Wen¼ the best shampoo for oily hair now! For more information on this brilliant hair cleansing product or to order, visit www.wenhaircare.com. Sincerely, Katie Meyers0 comments When you are shopping for a new hair product, and you want to get the best shampoo, it is necessary to understand the type of hair you have to find the perfect product that fits your needs. If you have oily hair, you can look for hair products that specialize as shampoo for oily hair, helping to reduce the amount of oil in the hair back down to a normal range (depending on the severity of the oily hair as well). Finding the Best Shampoo for Oily Hair When you are trying to find the best shampoo for oily hair, you have a few methods to choose from including shopping locally and also by doing some research and shopping online, as well. When you choose to shop online, you have a broader options to choose from, and you can order the type of shampoo you need right from the comfort of your own home. Oily hair shampoo specializes in helping to eliminate the excess oils from the hair by reducing the oil production in the sebaceous glands of the scalp. Also, most of the shampoos help to clean dirt and build-up from products such as hair sprays, gels, and foam products that can help to contribute to oily or greasy hair. Check the ingredients of all of the best shampoo for oily hair products to compare whether the shampoos contain vitamins, minerals and natural botanicals to assist with improving the hair’s quality while ridding excess oils. You can also look for organic shampoos that help to treat oily hair. The Best organic shampoos will have fewer chemicals than nonorganic shampoos, and that means little to no added oils or fragrances to your hair, reducing the total oil from your hair overall. Most of the products on the market to help with high levels of oils in the hair help to regulate the production of excess sebum over time with constant use. Benefits of Shopping for The Best Shampoo and Hair Products Online When you are shopping online to find the best shampoo to help you with your oily hair, you have the ability to browse catalogues of thousands of products within a few minutes, rather than having to go to several stores to see stock and inventory of the type of shampoo you are searching for. Also, when you look online to find the oily hair shampoo you are seeking, you can see real customer reviews and compare prices of the each of the products before you buy–allowing you to get the best product for your money. You can also take time to research the ingredients in all of the best shampoos available online before you make your purchase. Finding the best shampoo for oily hair allows you to target oils specifically on your scalp, rather than using a traditional shampoo that may not help to reduce the oil that is being produced in your hair. Shopping from the comfort of your home to find the shampoo you need, it is easier to find the exact product that will work for your type of hair (including whether it is thick or thin) and your budget.1 comment
Many people today suffer from excessively oily hair. While this is a problem, it can easily be overcome by using the right hair products. Oily hair is the result of producing too much of the substance known as sebum. The causes of sebum overproduction are caused by inherited genes; not regularly cleaning your hair, and the use of the wrong hair care products. Regardless of the particular cause, many solutions exist for people with this issue that ought to end their greasy hair problems. Many hair care professionals debate on how often we should wash our hair. Some say that washing your hair on a daily basis to remove toxins and oils is needed. Others state that frequent washing leads to overproduction of sebum and is a direct cause of oily hair problems. In either case, the use of a specific shampoo for oily hair can help eliminate oils and toxins while moisturizing your scalp to reduce sebum production.Conditioning Hair Products The usual hair products used today treat hair by completely stripping it of its natural oils. This results in the need for conditioners to keep the hair soft and protected. This type of treatment can lead to a dependency on them by causing your scalp to generate even more sebum than if you didn’t remove all the natural oils. The overproduction of oils by improper treatment can lead to acne outbreaks and in some cases even shedding hair loss. The only safe and effective way to treat oily hair problems is by using the best shampoo for oily hair available. Specially formulated hair products are now readily available to help. Those who fight unwanted hair oils on a regular basis can now obtain the correct treatments. A great shampoo for oily hair will provide initial relief as well as long term improvement. These shampoos treat the hair in a way that promotes normal production of oils and cleanses the hair entirely of pollutants. Use of these products can help reduce build up that lead to conditions such as greasy dandruff and other scalp problems.Hair Products for a Healthy Scalp A healthy scalp is free of build up and toxins. Both pollutants and dry scalp can also lead to overproduction of sebum that causes oily hair. If your scalp isn’t receiving the right hydration it needs, than this is of considerable importance and should be treated immediately. It’s well known that our skin needs water to function properly. Your scalp is no different. When your scalp is not properly hydrated the skin will produce many more oils than needed. There are many causes of oily hair. While it may be difficult to understand the causes affecting each person, finding the right shampoo is not. You may be using a hair products now that are giving you less than satisfactory results. Many of the commonly used hair care products today do not offer a variety in treatment. A shampoo that doesn’t offer both deep cleansing and moisturizing will probably not perform to your expectations. The best hair products for oily hair address both of these concerns. Your greasy hair may be caused by the wrong care; excess build up of toxins, or maybe you even inherited it. Regardless of the cause, using the right shampoo for oily hair will help provide the comfort that you’ve been looking for.0 comments
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courtneytincher · 5 years ago
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The Urgent Search for a Cyber Silver Bullet Against Iran
WASHINGTON -- After spending billions of dollars to assemble the world's most potent arsenal of cyberweapons and plant them in networks around the world, United States Cyber Command -- and the new era of warfighting it has come to represent -- may face a critical test in the coming weeks.President Donald Trump is considering a range of options to punish Iran for this month's attack on Saudi oil facilities, and has toughened sanctions on Iran and ordered the deployment of additional troops to the region. But a second cyberstrike -- after one launched against Iran just three months ago -- has emerged as the most appealing course of action for Trump, who is reluctant to widen the conflict in a region he has said the United States should leave, according to senior American officials.But even as the Pentagon considers specific targets -- an attempt to shut down Iran's oil fields and refineries has been one of the "proportionate responses" under review -- a broader debate is taking place inside and outside the administration over whether a cyberattack alone will be enough to alter Iran's calculations, and what kind of retaliation a particularly damaging cyberstrike might provoke."The president talked about our use of those previously, but I'm certainly not going to forecast what we'll do as we move forward," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" when asked whether a cyberattack might be an artful, nonescalatory response to this month's drone or missile strikes on two of Saudi Arabia's most important facilities."This was Iran true and true, and the United States will respond in a way that reflects that act of war by this Iranian revolutionary regime."Pompeo noted that the U.S. military was already sending additional troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, largely to bolster air defenses. But those moves alone are viewed as unlikely to be enough to prevent further Iranian actions.The question circulating now through the White House, the Pentagon and Cyber Command's operations room is whether it is possible to send a strong message of deterrence with a cyberattack without doing so much damage that it would prompt an even larger Iranian counterstrike.At least three times over the past decade, the United States has staged major cyberattacks against Iran, intended to halt its nuclear or missile programs, punish the country or send a clear message to its leadership that it should end its support for proxy militant groups.In each case, the damage to Iranian systems could be repaired over time. And in each case, the effort to deter Iran was at best only partly successful. If the American charge that Iran was behind the attack in Saudi Arabia proves accurate, it would constitute the latest example of Tehran's shaking off a cyberattack and continuing to engage in the kind of behavior the United States had hoped to deter.The most famous, complex effort was a sophisticated sabotage campaign a decade ago to blow up Iran's nuclear enrichment center using code, not bombs. The Obama administration later began a program, accelerated by Trump, to try to use cyberattacks to slow Iran's missile development. And this past June, Trump approved a clandestine operation to destroy a key database used by the Iranian military to target oil-carrying ships -- and canceled a traditional missile strike he had ordered to respond to the downing of an American surveillance drone.The June cyberattack, according to two American officials, also did damage that Iran has not yet detected."Cyber can certainly be a deterrent, it can be a very powerful weapon," said Sen. Angus King, the Maine independent who is a chairman of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, created by Congress, that is examining American offensive cyberstrategy. "It is an option that can cause real damage."King and other experts said Iran would probably respond to a cyberattack with one of its own, given the vulnerabilities that exist in the United States and the hyperconnected nature of American life.But current and former intelligence officials say a cycle of retaliation need not be confined to one military domain. Just as the United States responded in June to the Iranian downing of a drone and sabotage of oil tankers with a cyberattack, Iran could respond to an American cyberoperation with a terrorist attack by a proxy force or a missile strike.The Pentagon has long held that a cyberattack could constitute an act of war that requires a physical response, and there is no reason to think that Iran would not pursue the same policy.One senior administration official recently acknowledged that even Gen. Paul Nakasone, the commander of Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency, has warned Trump and his aides that the cyberarsenal is "no magic bullet" for deterring Iranian aggression in the Middle East.In war games -- essentially online simulations -- held before the attack on the Saudi oil fields, officials have tried to figure out how Iran's increasingly skillful "cyber corps" would respond to an American cyberattack. These Iranian fighters have racked up a significant record: wiping out 30,000 computers at Saudi Aramco, freezing operations at American banks with a "denial of service" attack, and crippling a Las Vegas casino. Last year, they began to study the ins and outs of election interference, according to private experts and government studies of the 2018 midterms.When Nakasone was nominated for his job, he acknowledged that one of the biggest problems facing Cyber Command was that it had not cracked the deterrence problem. Nations that are attacking the United States via cyberattacks "do not think much will happen to them," he told Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. "They don't fear us."In his first 18 months in office, Nakasone has raced to bolster Cyber Command's authority to act preemptively -- and its preparations to respond to attacks. New, classified directives given to him by Trump and built upon by Congress allow Cyber Command to place "implants" of malicious software inside foreign networks without lengthy approval processes that run up to the president. Congress has called such efforts part of "traditional military authority."Iran has reportedly been a major target -- no surprise, because Nakasone was a key player in designing a plan called Nitro Zeus to shut down Tehran and other Iranian cities in the event of a war. The idea was to put together an attack so devastating that Iran might surrender without a shot being fired.The 2015 nuclear agreement between the Iranian leadership and President Barack Obama eased the threat of war, and the American cyberoperations plan was put back on the shelf, at least until recently.At the Pentagon, and even at Cyber Command, many senior officers are cautious about cyberwarfare, arguing that it is difficult for such weapons alone to deter an enemy.The attack using the "Stuxnet" virus that crippled Iranian nuclear-enrichment centrifuges a decade ago was successful in a narrow sense: It blew up 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges up and running at the time. But when it recovered, Iran built upward of 14,000 more, and counterattacked by crippling Saudi Aramco's computer systems.A long-running series of cyberattacks has slowed but not stopped Iran's missile program -- and Iran has continued to provide thousands of short-range rockets to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Saudis are studying whether a new generation of Iranian-made missiles were central to this month's attack on its oil facilities.The Pentagon and other military officials have told the White House that neither another cyberattack nor the new deployment announced Friday will probably be robust enough to reestablish deterrence and prevent another attack by Iran on U.S. allies.Part of the problem is that most cyberactivity is clandestine, so it is easy for a government to play down the consequences of an attack or deny it even took place.But some people who favor stepping up cyberoperations suggest that officials are simply thinking too small. If a cyberstrike is damaging enough -- taking a refinery offline or shutting down an electric grid, for example -- it would be hard to hide. That might have a much more deterrent effect than the smaller bore operations the United States has undertaken so far, they argue.But such a devastating cyberoperation would also increase the risk of escalation -- just as a bombing run on the oil refineries would. Iran, or any other adversary, could say that people were killed or injured, and that might be difficult to disprove.A key element of deterrence is ensuring that an adversary understands the other side's basic capabilities. Unlike nuclear weapons, though, which are widely understood, the American cyberarsenal is shrouded in secrecy, for fear adversaries will develop countermeasures if even basic capabilities are known.Nakasone has argued that his cyberwarriors must be roaming cyberspace "persistently engaging" enemies -- a euphemism for skirmishing with adversaries inside their networks."We must 'defend forward' in cyberspace, as we do in the physical domains," he wrote in a Defense Department publication in January. "Our naval forces do not defend by staying in port, and our air power does not remain at airfields. They patrol the seas and skies to ensure they are positioned to defend our country before our borders are crossed. The same logic applies in cyberspace."But there is a growing consensus within Cyber Command that if cyberweapons are going to shape the actions of adversaries, they must be used in combination with other elements of power, including economic sanctions, diplomacy or traditional military strikes.King, the Maine senator, sees the decisions over the next few weeks on Iran as a test case. "The president's instinct is not to get in a shooting war, and I think he is right about that," he said. "So the question is how do we respond?"He argued that there was no urgency. "This was not a strike on New York City," King said. "This was not even a strike on Riyadh. There needs to be a response."But there is time to pause and take a deep breath and consider all of the options -- one of which is cyber -- but also to think about how we deescalate the situation."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines
WASHINGTON -- After spending billions of dollars to assemble the world's most potent arsenal of cyberweapons and plant them in networks around the world, United States Cyber Command -- and the new era of warfighting it has come to represent -- may face a critical test in the coming weeks.President Donald Trump is considering a range of options to punish Iran for this month's attack on Saudi oil facilities, and has toughened sanctions on Iran and ordered the deployment of additional troops to the region. But a second cyberstrike -- after one launched against Iran just three months ago -- has emerged as the most appealing course of action for Trump, who is reluctant to widen the conflict in a region he has said the United States should leave, according to senior American officials.But even as the Pentagon considers specific targets -- an attempt to shut down Iran's oil fields and refineries has been one of the "proportionate responses" under review -- a broader debate is taking place inside and outside the administration over whether a cyberattack alone will be enough to alter Iran's calculations, and what kind of retaliation a particularly damaging cyberstrike might provoke."The president talked about our use of those previously, but I'm certainly not going to forecast what we'll do as we move forward," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" when asked whether a cyberattack might be an artful, nonescalatory response to this month's drone or missile strikes on two of Saudi Arabia's most important facilities."This was Iran true and true, and the United States will respond in a way that reflects that act of war by this Iranian revolutionary regime."Pompeo noted that the U.S. military was already sending additional troops to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, largely to bolster air defenses. But those moves alone are viewed as unlikely to be enough to prevent further Iranian actions.The question circulating now through the White House, the Pentagon and Cyber Command's operations room is whether it is possible to send a strong message of deterrence with a cyberattack without doing so much damage that it would prompt an even larger Iranian counterstrike.At least three times over the past decade, the United States has staged major cyberattacks against Iran, intended to halt its nuclear or missile programs, punish the country or send a clear message to its leadership that it should end its support for proxy militant groups.In each case, the damage to Iranian systems could be repaired over time. And in each case, the effort to deter Iran was at best only partly successful. If the American charge that Iran was behind the attack in Saudi Arabia proves accurate, it would constitute the latest example of Tehran's shaking off a cyberattack and continuing to engage in the kind of behavior the United States had hoped to deter.The most famous, complex effort was a sophisticated sabotage campaign a decade ago to blow up Iran's nuclear enrichment center using code, not bombs. The Obama administration later began a program, accelerated by Trump, to try to use cyberattacks to slow Iran's missile development. And this past June, Trump approved a clandestine operation to destroy a key database used by the Iranian military to target oil-carrying ships -- and canceled a traditional missile strike he had ordered to respond to the downing of an American surveillance drone.The June cyberattack, according to two American officials, also did damage that Iran has not yet detected."Cyber can certainly be a deterrent, it can be a very powerful weapon," said Sen. Angus King, the Maine independent who is a chairman of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, created by Congress, that is examining American offensive cyberstrategy. "It is an option that can cause real damage."King and other experts said Iran would probably respond to a cyberattack with one of its own, given the vulnerabilities that exist in the United States and the hyperconnected nature of American life.But current and former intelligence officials say a cycle of retaliation need not be confined to one military domain. Just as the United States responded in June to the Iranian downing of a drone and sabotage of oil tankers with a cyberattack, Iran could respond to an American cyberoperation with a terrorist attack by a proxy force or a missile strike.The Pentagon has long held that a cyberattack could constitute an act of war that requires a physical response, and there is no reason to think that Iran would not pursue the same policy.One senior administration official recently acknowledged that even Gen. Paul Nakasone, the commander of Cyber Command and the director of the National Security Agency, has warned Trump and his aides that the cyberarsenal is "no magic bullet" for deterring Iranian aggression in the Middle East.In war games -- essentially online simulations -- held before the attack on the Saudi oil fields, officials have tried to figure out how Iran's increasingly skillful "cyber corps" would respond to an American cyberattack. These Iranian fighters have racked up a significant record: wiping out 30,000 computers at Saudi Aramco, freezing operations at American banks with a "denial of service" attack, and crippling a Las Vegas casino. Last year, they began to study the ins and outs of election interference, according to private experts and government studies of the 2018 midterms.When Nakasone was nominated for his job, he acknowledged that one of the biggest problems facing Cyber Command was that it had not cracked the deterrence problem. Nations that are attacking the United States via cyberattacks "do not think much will happen to them," he told Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. "They don't fear us."In his first 18 months in office, Nakasone has raced to bolster Cyber Command's authority to act preemptively -- and its preparations to respond to attacks. New, classified directives given to him by Trump and built upon by Congress allow Cyber Command to place "implants" of malicious software inside foreign networks without lengthy approval processes that run up to the president. Congress has called such efforts part of "traditional military authority."Iran has reportedly been a major target -- no surprise, because Nakasone was a key player in designing a plan called Nitro Zeus to shut down Tehran and other Iranian cities in the event of a war. The idea was to put together an attack so devastating that Iran might surrender without a shot being fired.The 2015 nuclear agreement between the Iranian leadership and President Barack Obama eased the threat of war, and the American cyberoperations plan was put back on the shelf, at least until recently.At the Pentagon, and even at Cyber Command, many senior officers are cautious about cyberwarfare, arguing that it is difficult for such weapons alone to deter an enemy.The attack using the "Stuxnet" virus that crippled Iranian nuclear-enrichment centrifuges a decade ago was successful in a narrow sense: It blew up 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges up and running at the time. But when it recovered, Iran built upward of 14,000 more, and counterattacked by crippling Saudi Aramco's computer systems.A long-running series of cyberattacks has slowed but not stopped Iran's missile program -- and Iran has continued to provide thousands of short-range rockets to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Saudis are studying whether a new generation of Iranian-made missiles were central to this month's attack on its oil facilities.The Pentagon and other military officials have told the White House that neither another cyberattack nor the new deployment announced Friday will probably be robust enough to reestablish deterrence and prevent another attack by Iran on U.S. allies.Part of the problem is that most cyberactivity is clandestine, so it is easy for a government to play down the consequences of an attack or deny it even took place.But some people who favor stepping up cyberoperations suggest that officials are simply thinking too small. If a cyberstrike is damaging enough -- taking a refinery offline or shutting down an electric grid, for example -- it would be hard to hide. That might have a much more deterrent effect than the smaller bore operations the United States has undertaken so far, they argue.But such a devastating cyberoperation would also increase the risk of escalation -- just as a bombing run on the oil refineries would. Iran, or any other adversary, could say that people were killed or injured, and that might be difficult to disprove.A key element of deterrence is ensuring that an adversary understands the other side's basic capabilities. Unlike nuclear weapons, though, which are widely understood, the American cyberarsenal is shrouded in secrecy, for fear adversaries will develop countermeasures if even basic capabilities are known.Nakasone has argued that his cyberwarriors must be roaming cyberspace "persistently engaging" enemies -- a euphemism for skirmishing with adversaries inside their networks."We must 'defend forward' in cyberspace, as we do in the physical domains," he wrote in a Defense Department publication in January. "Our naval forces do not defend by staying in port, and our air power does not remain at airfields. They patrol the seas and skies to ensure they are positioned to defend our country before our borders are crossed. The same logic applies in cyberspace."But there is a growing consensus within Cyber Command that if cyberweapons are going to shape the actions of adversaries, they must be used in combination with other elements of power, including economic sanctions, diplomacy or traditional military strikes.King, the Maine senator, sees the decisions over the next few weeks on Iran as a test case. "The president's instinct is not to get in a shooting war, and I think he is right about that," he said. "So the question is how do we respond?"He argued that there was no urgency. "This was not a strike on New York City," King said. "This was not even a strike on Riyadh. There needs to be a response."But there is time to pause and take a deep breath and consider all of the options -- one of which is cyber -- but also to think about how we deescalate the situation."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
September 23, 2019 at 01:04PM via IFTTT
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