Remember.

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We remember! From only several days ago.

That Chinese Phase One of the Korean war and the obliteration of the American 8th Cavalry remembered by a special Catholic ritual!

"Traditional Latin Mass offered at Ft. Hood"

"KILLEEN, Texas - - An All Souls Day Traditional Latin Mass was celebrated Wednesday on the Fort Hood Military base."

"The Mass was offered on the hood of a military humvee, the traditional way Mass is offered during time of battle."

"With some 60 people in attendance, the Mass was especially offered up for the fallen 1st Cavalry Division soldiers who died in the Battle of Unsanin during the Korean War on November 2, 1950. The Mass was held on the grounds of the 1st Cavalry Division Museum"

THERE BEING NO VIOLATION OF CHRISTIAN PRECEPTS, THE SOLDIER AT THE PROFESSION OF ARMS!

Those apostles of JESUS not only carrying swords but encouraged to do so:

Luke 22:36 "Then said he [JESUS] unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take [it], and likewise [his] scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."

"'But now': When Christ sent them out before, He had sovereignly arranged for their needs to be met. Henceforth they were to use normal means to provide for their own support and protection. The money bag, knapsack and sword were figurative expressions for such means (the sword being emblematic of protection, not aggression)."

Prepared for self-defense a virtue, not a fault.

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DDoS.

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Distributed Denial of Service [DDoS].

Cyber warfare and once again the bad guys have struck.

An entire nation their Internet services and system brought to the proverbial "grinding halt".

Thanks to the tip from Freeper.

"Criminals Trying to Take an Entire Country Offline with Massive DDoS Attacks"

" – Testing Cyber Weapons? Security Criminals Trying to Take an Entire Country Offline with Massive DDoS Attacks –  Cyber criminals are now using Mirai malware to take down the entire Internet infrastructure of Liberia. The African nation was targeted by the same cyber weapon that caused the largest ever cyber attack of the history, just two weeks ago. Mirai malware was used in October to launch a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that affected some of the world’s biggest online sites and services"

Trying to take the Liberian Internet down or have done so partially or in whole?

See my previous recent blog entries here and here the topic of which was cyber warfare.

The game is afoot, the battle is on, Liberia today, USA tomorrow!

Those devoted readers to the blog also might want to read this Internet article, the lone-wolf hacker able to take down again in part or in whole the emergency 911 system of the United States, done inadvertently [??] but nonetheless done.

coolbert.

Body Count.

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Sounds sorta sounds like Vietnam deja vu all over again!

From Mr. Lawrence and the article as seen at the Dupuy Institute Internet web site.

A LESS THAN SANGUINE APPRAISAL OF THE CURRENT COALITION OFFENSIVE THE MISSION OF WHICH IS THE CAPTURE OF MOSUL

Statistics as bandied about by certain military authorities exaggerated and creating a false and misleading image of the true situation?

So it seems!

"Body Count"

"The body count [that number of ISIL fighters killed] seems high. What appeared to be more relevant in Vietnam was the number of rifles and other personal weapons taken after the battle. The assumption was that most dead warriors left a weapon on the battlefield. Often the weapon count was less than half the estimated number of killed.It appears that the estimate of 900 ISIL killed may be high and the Iraq Army and Peshmerga reports of wounded are low. This seems to happen a lot."

My instantaneous thought was the experience of the American Ninth Infantry Division [9th ID] in Vietnam. That combat record of the 9th ID during riverine operations in the Mekong Delta during the Second Indo-China War seen as very successful based on reported body count. BUT VERY FEW WEAPONS FROM VANQUISHED ENEMY COMBATANTS EVER RECOVERED!

As it was fifty years ago as it is now and perhaps always will be?

You the devoted reader to the blog answer this question for yourself.

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Tartus Syria.

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From CNN several items of interest. In all instances including image thanks to CNN and author.

It appears I am wrong. That Russian naval flotilla en route to Syria their port of destination Tartus and not Latakia!

Russia not only waging war on behalf of the Assad regime but also with the intention of creating a permanent naval presence in the Mediterranean.

1. "Russia plans permanent navy base in Syria"

"(CNN) Russia plans to expand its supply base in the Syrian port city of Tartus into a permanent naval base, Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov said on Monday, according to state news agency TASS."

This map shows as of September 2015 those areas [at that exact moment] in red controlled by the Islamic state and areas in yellow as controlled by the Assad regime. Tartus south of Latakia. Click on image to see an enlarged view. Pay particular interest to the Aleppo/Hama/Homs/Damascus road. Control that road and you control Syria.

2. "What does Russia want in Syria? 5 reasons Putin backs Assad" by Matthew Chance

"what exactly is Russian President Vladimir Putin up to in Syria? What does Russia really want? Here are five key reasons Russia won't be leaving Syria any time soon."

1. "Protect Russia's interests in Syria."

2. "Maintain strategic interest."

3. "Fight Islamist groups."

4. "Bolster Putin's support at home."

5. "Sell Arms."

Whoever said nations [whatever nation that may be] engage in foreign wars for strictly altruistic purposes? NO ONE I might venture and add.

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IT III.

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Conclusion!

That single hacker not only has an ability to take down the Internet [at least to an extent] but PERHAPS HAS ALREADY DONE SO?

From Sputnik. NO Russians in this case!

"Surprise! US Intel Chief Confirms: Russia Not Behind Massive Online Attack"

"Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has revealed that a non-state actor, and therefore not the Russian government, may have been behind the massive attack on Dyn [an Internet service company] last Friday [21 October], which shut down much [some and only for two hours] of the Internet in the United States."

"Dyn’s servers monitor and route Internet traffic, and were slammed with a large-scale distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, said to have been the biggest in history. For hours, Twitter, Netflix, Amazon, and other popular websites were offline."

"When asked if the attack was perpetrated by a non-state actor, Clapper replied, 'Yes, but I wouldn't want to be conclusively definitive about that yet,' adding, 'that's an early call.'"

THE LONE-WOLF HAS STRUCK? AN ANARCHIST WITH MALICIOUS INTENT AND RELISHING THE POWER TRIP TOOK DOWN A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF THE INTERNET FOR A PERIOD, COMPANIES AS MENTIONED LOSING BUSINESS THAT AMOUNT OF INCOME LOST EVEN IN A SHORT DURATION OF TIME PROBABLY MIND BOGGLING!

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IT II.

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With regard to the previous blog entry, consider this.

A SINGLE HACKER SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD ABLE TO BRING DOWN THE ENTIRE INTERNET OR A PORTION THEREOF?

Again a cyber-attack of a massive and overwhelming nature the result of which is CHAOS on an unimaginable scale. As if a NUCLEAR ATTACK has occurred.

"Could a single hacker crash a country's network?"

"Harassing a handful of Web sites is one thing, but does one hacker have the technological wherewithal to bring down an entire country's network? In a word: yes"

YES?

In context consider the 2007 attack on the Internet infrastructure of the nation of Estonia. Deliberate, all-pervasive and persistent and successful! A DDoS attack mind-boggling and crippling!

"The Estonian virtual invasion consisted of distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS). With DDoS attacks, hackers use other people's computers, sometimes halfway across the globe, to wreak virtual havoc. To launch DDoS attacks, hackers first access other people's computers through zombie applications, malicious software that overrides security measures or creates an entry point. Once hackers gain control over so-called zombie computers, they can network them together to form cyber-armies, or botnets. The Estonian attack relied on vast botnets to send the coordinated crash-inducing data to the Web servers."

AN ATTACK ATTRIBUTED AT THE TIME TO THE RUSSIAN. SUCH IS THE THREAT AND REALITY OF CYBER-WARFARE!

A single hacker perhaps also in an unintended and unanticipated manner can do the same as the "state actor"? Perhaps but I am no expert.

coolbert.

IT I.

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An alarming headline to say the least. Thanks to the excellent Internet web site isegoria.net for the tip!

"Someone Is Learning How to Take Down the Internet"

"Who would do this? It doesn’t seem like something an activist, criminal, or researcher would do. Profiling core infrastructure is common practice in espionage and intelligence gathering. It’s not normal for companies to do that. Furthermore, the size and scale of these probes — and especially their persistence — points to state actors. It feels like a nation’s military cyber command trying to calibrate its weaponry in the case of cyber-war. It reminds me of the U.S.’s Cold War program of flying high-altitude planes over the Soviet Union to force their air-defense systems to turn on, to map their capabilities."

How realistic is this? Some entity unknown is PROBING the Internet.

In anticipation of THINGS TO COME? A cyber-attack of mind boggling proportions the result of which will be CHAOS on an unimaginable scale. As deadly as a NUCLEAR ATTACK in some circumstances.

TAKE DOWN AND DESTROY THE INTERNET AND RENDER THE ENTIRE STRUCTURE AND SYSTEM AS NON-OPERATIVE? RENDER ALSO AND ENTIRE SOCIETY INOPERATIVE.

Could it really be? To be continued!

coolbert.