What's the outcome of attacks on globalisation?
Posted by KaleidoscopeMean6924@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 24 comments
The North Koreans made a reasonable attempt at halting Maersk with ransomware called WannaCry a few years ago. The ransomware went so (accidentally) out of control that it caused enormous collateral damage, and the tool itself was very rudimentary.
Imagine if NK or another country put more effort into such a tool, how successful would they be at halting global shipping? What things does your country rely on for import that you would be short of, and how much would your currency devalue if your export capability was crippled?
Two small events that keep cropping up regularly are global supply chain collapse via something like WannaCry and cutting undersea communications cables. Basically, the new war is one of isolation and the fall of globalisation in order to obtain a new world order. What can countries produce on their own and who will they have to ally with to get the things they can't produce on their own?
Virtual-Feature-9747@reddit
"Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests."
Countries will ally and trade only when it suits them to do so. Yes, we are witnessing the unwinding of the globalization ball of yarn. However, modern products and processes are too complicated and interconnected for anyone to be completely "on their own." The US probably has the best shot at this but there are many things, like rare earths, that we simply do not have. I suppose a workforce that is skilled, healthy, and industrious is also a problem but a solvable one.
To your point, I don't think there is any malware that would be completely undetectable, completely unstoppable and completely effective. Such things make for great plot devices in movies. There are perhaps other, more direct cyber attacks to immediately cripple an economy other than exports. Why not attack the finance systems directly? Or the power grid?
infiltrateoppose@reddit
"there are many things, like rare earths, that we simply do not have."
Yeah that's what the army is for.
KaleidoscopeMean6924@reddit (OP)
Perhaps if you join the army, these sorts of problems may become clearer for you.
KaleidoscopeMean6924@reddit (OP)
To contradict my own initial point - countries /usually/ attack other countries in cyber-attacks for espionage. It's usually just criminal groups that attack to cause disruption or for financial gain. But the initial point was - what if the next war was to cause isolation. Not every country is like the US. For some countries, food grows only in specific parts of the world and those countries who can't grow it depend on it for imports. Take the Ukraine war for example - The grain from the Ukraine being held up almost caused famine in Africa, because African countries were dependent on said grain. Latin American countries suffered at the lack of fertilizer from Russia
If countries with rare earths couldn't export those to the US, wouldn't that also cause economic problems for them? Taking down just a small number of shipping companies or port companies could cause enormous distress.
The point of the post is for the reader to think about the things that their own country imports lots of and how they would deal with a disruption to that important item.
infiltrateoppose@reddit
Cyber is a major component of modern warfare. Disrupting C&C, navigation, economic assets etc are all major objectives in war.
OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit
I'd be really mad if Costa Rica couldn't get gas or propane. My solar cooker isn't effective in the worst of the rainy season and I'd be stuck cooking over wood. Or getting my composter running for the methane.
Other than that... I don't think yogurt is produced locally - beef farming is huge here, but not dairy. So that changes my dinner plans a bit.
Dude, if global shipping gets halted by a cyber attack, the disruption will last less than a month. By the time the already-sailing ships arrive in ports, the problems will be largely fixed. All that happens is that US supermarkets have another unjustified reason to raise prices again.
The world is not as fragile as some people seem to want to think.
KaleidoscopeMean6924@reddit (OP)
Costa Rica was severely affected by the most recent "shipping container crisis" and had to start finding rice and beans from more neighbors, but then there was a trucking strike, which halted that during the shipping container crisis. Now Costa Rica has to grow much of its own rice and beans, but that took almost a year to change farm productions, and large scale farmers are reluctant to do things like that because they make more money from exports because the "national food basket" items are price fixed by the government. Also changing crops and tools is expensive for something that might only be temporary, even if it causes a temporary famine.
Costa Rica has recovered from multiple food crises recently, which took about a year each time. It's not obvious to expats or tourists because they bring the cash and they are generally in areas that seem sheltered from these problems, but if you've lived in a rural area for long enough, you'll see the effects. About 70% of the people in rural areas (or about 20% of the National Average) live on less than $155 a month. There's not much financial incentive for people to have or work on farms, so Costa Rica still relies heavily on imports for food, and puts significant tax on imports also, which compounds the problem for normal citizens.
chasonreddit@reddit
Wait. I'm sorry, I have been under the impression that globalisation WAS the new world order. Did I miss an email?
KaleidoscopeMean6924@reddit (OP)
Perhaps you've been in a coma for the last few years - welcome back! Yes, Putin has been talking about a new world order since the start of the establishment of BRICS
Torch99999@reddit
I'm a software engineer with almost 20 years of professional experience...and cyber threats are a huge vulnerability. Most people have no idea how exposed they are.
The amount of damage a large-scale, coordinated and competent, cyber attack could do is just amazing.
It's not just international trade. Imagine not being able to make a purchase at your local grocery store because the credit card processing system is down. You can't get cash out of the ATM because the database that stored your account information got deleted.
Even if you have cash, most gas pumps won't work if they can't communicate with their back-end. No Internet means no gas.
And the list goes on. We're so dependent on technology that a competent cyber attack would probably be worse than an all-out nuclear exchange.
boomerangchampion@reddit
Also worth noting that everything is under constant attack all of the time. I run a little personal server with nothing interesting on it and I get about a thousand login attempts a day. Thank you fail2ban lol
I work in nuclear, not in IT but they say we get millions of malicious attempts per day and most of them are more sophisticated than just basic bot attacks. The plant is airgapped but it's scary. Unlabelled USB sticks are treated like hand grenades after stuxnet.
Federal_Refrigerator@reddit
Me, personally, if I saw a public facing server with open ports on recognizable services? I’d try it too. If I was a hacker.
Upstairs-Parsley3151@reddit
We really just need closed systems for things that really don't need Internet access to function.
ResponsibleBank1387@reddit
IF a cyberattack, lots of people would just come to a standstill. They are incapable of making a decision. The ones that can think and decide will be alright. Too many will be like Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory.
Halo22B@reddit
So your theory.... a globalist new world order takeover that is carried out by isolating every country forcing them to not trade with each other and thus becoming more self sufficient.... gotya
KaleidoscopeMean6924@reddit (OP)
No, not at all. Look what happened in the EU with the Russian gas issue just a couple of years ago. The EU had to completely re-strategise and get their gas another way. That was one of the more permanent ones. But even temporary ones like the grain crisis where India decided they were going to keep grain for themselves last year and people had to go elsewhere - those countries had to make new alliances, get rice from other locations. The shipping crisis during the pandemic caused massive bulk shopping and then when it subsided, everyone had really cheap bbqs for the summer - probably not many people need another one for a while.
The problem with shipping food internationally is not the same as shipping BBQs - bbqs can be used next year, even if the market is flooded. Food just goes bad if it can't get to its destination on time. Countries need to source from elsewhere and that "elsewhere" is usually happy to accommodate, as long as there's a continued demand into the future. ergo - new alliances.
PissOnUserNames@reddit
I got a buddy that works in IT for several prisons (including super max).
He said every couple of months they will get hacked and have cell doors open randomly and make things go nuts for a while.
No-Professional-1884@reddit
How does he know it’s not ghosts?
PissOnUserNames@reddit
Idk about ghosts he did say that whenever it happens there is alot of cursing so possibly witchcraft
KaleidoscopeMean6924@reddit (OP)
Yeah, we see it in other scenarios. Kids / people / someone hacks things for shits and giggles, just because they can. Imagine what a determined and skilled attacker who doesn't like your country can do.
PissOnUserNames@reddit
A mass cyber attack would be crippling since literally everything is done with computers.
KaleidoscopeMean6924@reddit (OP)
Yep - look what happened with Colonial Pipeline - nobody hacked the fuel supply, but the fuel supply was severely affected because the invoicing system was down!
bendallf@reddit
Also look at hospital hacking. Everything now is on computers. Most hospitals will pay the ransom fee just to avoid putting their patients into harms way. But that makes it more likely that hospitals will become the first choice for hackers wanting a payout.
KaleidoscopeMean6924@reddit (OP)
Exactly - look at situations like ireland and UK where the national health systems were hacked - all UK and Irish citizen's personal and medical data are now up for grabs. The data of entire countries is available on the black market. Talk about COMPROMAT