Science – Gondaronline.com

HOW THE NSA BUILT A SECRET SURVEILLANCE NETWORK FOR ETHIOPIA

“A WARM FRIENDSHIP connects the Ethiopian and American people,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced earlier this year. “We remain committed to working with Ethiopia to foster liberty, democracy, economic growth, protection of human rights, and the rule of law.”

Indeed, the website for the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia is marked by press releases touting U.S. aid for farmers and support for public health infrastructure in that East African nation. “Ethiopia remains among the most effective development partners, particularly in the areas of health care, education, and food security,” says the State Department.

Behind the scenes, however, Ethiopia and the U.S. are bound together by long-standing relationships built on far more than dairy processing equipment or health centers to treat people with HIV. Fifteen years ago, the U.S. began setting up very different centers, filled with technology that is not normally associated with the protection of human rights.

In the aftermath of 9/11, according to classified U.S. documents published Wednesday by The Intercept, the National Security Agency forged a relationship with the Ethiopian government that has expanded exponentially over the years. What began as one small facility soon grew into a network of clandestine eavesdropping outposts designed to listen in on the communications of Ethiopians and their neighbors across the Horn of Africa in the name of counterterrorism.

In exchange for local knowledge and an advantageous location, the NSA provided the East African nation with technology and training integral to electronic surveillance. “Ethiopia’s position provides the partnership unique access to the targets,” a commander of the U.S. spying operation wrote in a classified 2005 report. (The report is one of 294 internal NSA newsletters released today by The Intercept.)

The NSA’s collaboration with Ethiopia is high risk, placing the agency in controversial territory. For more than a decade, Ethiopia has been engaged in a fight against Islamist militant groups, such as Al Qaeda and Shabab. But the country’s security forces have taken a draconian approach to countering the threat posed by jihadis and stand accused of routinely torturing suspects and abusing terrorism powers to target political dissidents.

“The Ethiopian government uses surveillance not only to fight terrorism and crime, but as a key tactic in its abusive efforts to silence dissenting voices in-country,” says Felix Horne, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Essentially anyone that opposes or expresses dissent against the government is considered to be an ‘anti-peace element’ or a ‘terrorist.’”

The NSA declined to comment for this story.

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia.

Photo: Yannick Tylle/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

In February 2002, the NSA set up the Deployed Signals Intelligence Operations Center – also known as “Lion’s Pride” – in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, according to secret documents obtained by The Intercept from the whistleblower Edward Snowden. It began as a modest counterterrorism effort involving around 12 Ethiopians performing a single mission at 12 workstations. But by 2005, the operation had evolved into eight U.S. military personnel and 103 Ethiopians, working at “46 multifunctional workstations,” eavesdropping on communications in Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. By then, the outpost in Addis Ababa had already been joined by “three Lion’s Pride Remote Sites,” including one located in the town of Gondar, in northwestern Ethiopia.

“[The] NSA has an advantage when dealing with the Global War on Terrorism in the Horn of Africa,” reads an NSA document authored in 2005 by Katie Pierce, who was then the officer-in-charge of Lion’s Pride and the commander of the agency’s Signal Exploitation Detachment. “The benefit of this relationship is that the Ethiopians provide the location and linguists and we provide the technology and training,” she wrote. According to Pierce, Lion’s Pride had already produced almost 7,700 transcripts and more than 900 reports based on its regional spying effort.

Pierce, now a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and a lawyer in private practice, had noted her role with the NSA’s Ethiopia unit in an online biography. When contacted by The Intercept, she said little about her time with Lion’s Pride or the work of the NSA detachment. “We provided a sort of security for that region,” she said. The reference to the NSA in Pierce’s online biography has since disappeared.

Reta Alemu Nega, the minister of political affairs at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, D.C., told The Intercept that the U.S. and Ethiopia maintained “very close cooperation” on issues related to intelligence and counterterrorism. While he did not address questions about Lion’s Pride, Alemu described regular meetings in which U.S. and Ethiopian defense officials “exchange views” about their partnership and shared activities.

Shabab and Hizbul Islam militants take a break at a front-line section in Sanca district in Mogadishu, on July 21, 2009.

Photo: Mohamed Dahir/AFP/Getty Images

Lion’s Pride does not represent the first time that Ethiopia has played a vital role in U.S. signals surveillance. In 1953, the U.S. signed a 25-year agreement for a base at Kagnew Station in Asmara, Ethiopia, according to a declassified NSA report obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive. Navy and Army communications facilities based there were joined by an NSA outpost just over a decade later.

On April 23, 1965, the Soviet Union launched Molniya-1, its first international communications satellite. The next month, the NSA opened STONEHOUSE, a remote listening post in Asmara. The facility was originally aimed at Soviet deep space probes but, in the end, “[its] main value turned out to be the collection of Soviet MOLNIYA communications satellites,” according to a 2004 NSA document that mentions STONEHOUSE.

STONEHOUSE was closed down in 1975 due to a civil war in Ethiopia. But its modern-day successor, Lion’s Pride, has proved to be “such a lucrative source for SIGINT reports” that a new facility was built in the town of Dire Dawa in early 2006, according to a secret NSA document. “The state of the art antenna field surrounded by camels and donkey-drawn carts is a sight to behold,” reads the NSA file. The effort, code-named “LADON,” was aimed at listening in on communications across a larger swath of Somalia, down to the capital Mogadishu, the Darfur region of Sudan, and parts of eastern Ethiopia.

At a May 2006 planning conference, the Americans and Ethiopians decided on steps to “take the partnership to a new level” through an expanded mission that stretched beyond strictly counterterrorism. Targeting eastern Ethiopia’s Ogaden region and the nearby Somali borderlands, the allied eavesdroppers agreed on a mission of listening in on cordless phones in order to identify not only “suspected al-Qa’ida sympathizers” but also “illicit smugglers.”

“It is very troubling to hear the U.S. is providing surveillance capacities to a government that is committing such egregious human rights abuses in that region.”

From the time Lion’s Pride was set up until predominantly ChristianEthiopia invaded mostly Muslim Somalia in December 2006, the U.S. poured about $20 million in military aid into the former country. As Ethiopian troops attempted to oust a fundamentalist movement called the Council of Islamic Courts, which had defeated several warlords to take power in Somalia, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter said the two nations had “a close working relationship” that included sharing intelligence. Within a year, Ethiopian forces were stuck in a military quagmire in Somalia and were facing a growing rebellion in the Ogaden region as well.

“While the exact nature of U.S. support for Ethiopian surveillance efforts in the Ogaden region is not clear, it is very troubling to hear the U.S. is providing surveillance capacities to a government that is committing such egregious human rights abuses in that region,” says Horne, the Human Rights Watch researcher. “Between 2007-2008 the Ethiopian army committed possible war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians in this region during its conflict with the Ogaden National Liberation Front.”

For the U.S., “the chaos” caused by the invasion “yielded opportunities for progress in the war on terrorism,” stated a top secret NSA documentdated February 2007. According to the document, the Council of Islamic Courts was harboring members of an Al Qaeda cell that the NSA’s African Threat Branch had been tracking since 2003. After being flushed from hiding by the Ethiopian invasion, the NSA provided “24-hour support to CIA and U.S. military units in the Horn of Africa,” utilizing various surveillance programs to track Council of Islamic Courts leaders and their Al Qaeda allies. “Intelligence,” says the document, “was also shared with the Ethiopian SIGINT partner to enable their troops to track High Value Individuals.” The NSA deemed the effort a success as the “#1 individual on the list” was “believed killed in early January” 2007, while another target was arrested in Kenya the next month. The identities of the people killed and captured, as well as those responsible, are absent from the document.

As the Council of Islamic Courts crumbled in the face of the invasion, its ally, the militant group Shabab, saw Somalis flock to its resistance effort. Fueled and radicalized by the same chaos exploited by the NSA, Shabab grew in strength. By 2012, the terrorist group had formally become an Al Qaeda affiliate. Today, the U.S. continues to battle Shabab in an escalatingconflict in Somalia that shows no sign of abating.

The first batch of Ethiopian troops leaving the Somali capital Mogadishu hold a departure ceremony 23 January 2007 at Afisiyooni Air Base. Ethiopian troops began withdrawing from Mogadishu nearly four weeks after they helped oust Islamist forces from the Somali capital. A special departure ceremony was held for the pullout of the first batch of around 200 soldiers at the former headquarters of the Somali air force in the southern outskirts of the capital. AFP PHOTO/STRINGER (Photo credit should read STRINGER/AFP/GettyImages)

The first batch of Ethiopian troops leaving the Somali capital Mogadishu hold a departure ceremony Jan. 23, 2007 at Afisiyooni Air Base.

Photo: Stringer/AFP/Getty Images

At the time the NSA set up Lion’s Pride, the U.S. State Department had criticized Ethiopia’s security forces for having “infringed on citizens’ privacy rights,” ignoring the law regarding search warrants, beating detainees, and conducting extrajudicial killings. By 2005, with Lion’s Pride markedly expanded, nothing had changed. The State Department found:

The Government’s human rights record remained poor. … Security forces committed a number of unlawful killings, including alleged political killings, and beat, tortured, and mistreated detainees. … The Government infringed on citizens’ privacy rights, and the law regarding search warrants was often ignored. The Government restricted freedom of the press. … The Government at times restricted freedom of assembly, particularly for members of opposition political parties; security forces at times used excessive force to disperse demonstrations. The Government limited freedom of association. …

A separate State Department report on Ethiopia’s counterterrorism and anti-terrorism capabilities, issued in November 2013 and obtained by The Intercept via the Freedom of Information Act, noted that there were “inconsistent efforts to institutionalize” anti-terrorism training within Ethiopian law enforcement and added that while the Ethiopian Federal Police use surveillance and informants, “laws do not allow the interception of telephone or electronic communications.” The readable sections of the redacted report make no mention of the NSA program and state that the U.S. “maintains an important but distant security relationship with Ethiopia.”

A 2010 NSA document offers a far different picture of the bond between the security agencies of the two countries, noting that the “NSA-Ethiopian SIGINT relationship continues to thrive.”

In an after-action report, a trainer from NSA Georgia’s “Sudan/Horn of Africa Division” described teaching a class attended by soldiers from the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and civilians from Ethiopia’s Information Network Security Agency. He praised the Ethiopians for “work[ing] so hard on our behalf” and wrote that his students were “excited and eager to learn.”

According to the documents, analysts from the Army’s 741st Military Intelligence Battalion were still detailed to Lion’s Pride while the Ethiopians they worked beside had increased their skills at analyzing intercepted communications. “More importantly, however,” the American trainer noted, “is the strengthening of the relationship” between NSA and Ethiopian security forces. NSA Georgia, he declared, was eager to continue “developing the relationship between us and our Ethiopian counterparts.”

The NSA refused to comment on whether Lion’s Pride continues to eavesdrop on the region, but no evidence suggests it was ever shut down. There is, however, good reason to believe that U.S. efforts have strengthened the hand of the Ethiopian government. And a decade and a half after it was launched, Ethiopia’s human rights record remains as dismal as ever.

“Governments that provide Ethiopia with surveillance capabilities that are being used to suppress lawful expressions of dissent risk complicity in abuses,” says Horne. “The United States should come clean about its role in surveillance in the Horn of Africa and should have policies in place to ensure Ethiopia is not using information gleaned from surveillance to crack down on legitimate expressions of dissent inside Ethiopia.”

———

Documents published with this article:

HOW THE NSA BUILT A SECRET SURVEILLANCE NETWORK FOR ETHIOPIA

The Intercept

The NSA declined to comment for this story.

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia.

Photo: Yannick Tylle/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

Shabab and Hizbul Islam militants take a break at a front-line section in Sanca district in Mogadishu, on July 21, 2009.

Photo: Mohamed Dahir/AFP/Getty Images

“It is very troubling to hear the U.S. is providing surveillance capacities to a government that is committing such egregious human rights abuses in that region.”

The first batch of Ethiopian troops leaving the Somali capital Mogadishu hold a departure ceremony Jan. 23, 2007 at Afisiyooni Air Base.

Photo: Stringer/AFP/Getty Images

The Government’s human rights record remained poor. … Security forces committed a number of unlawful killings, including alleged political killings, and beat, tortured, and mistreated detainees. … The Government infringed on citizens’ privacy rights, and the law regarding search warrants was often ignored. The Government restricted freedom of the press. … The Government at times restricted freedom of assembly, particularly for members of opposition political parties; security forces at times used excessive force to disperse demonstrations. The Government limited freedom of association. …

A 2010 NSA document offers a far different picture of the bond between the security agencies of the two countries, noting that the “NSA-Ethiopian SIGINT relationship continues to thrive.”

———

Documents published with this article:

Why Do Hurricanes Form From Ethiopian Highlands?

ABC NEWS

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Why Do Hurricanes Form From Ethiopian Highlands?

ABC NEWS

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Cyberwar: A guide to the frightening future of online conflict

ZDNet

With cyberwarfare, the battlefield is going online. Here’s everything you need to know.

Cyberwar: Here’s what you need to know.
Getty Images/iStockphoto

What is cyberwar?

At its core, cyberwarfare is the use of digital attacks by one state to disrupt the computer systems of another in order to create significant damage or destruction.

What does cyberwarfare look like?

Cyberwar is still an emerging concept, but many experts are concerned that it is likely to be a significant component of any future conflicts. As well as troops using conventional weapons like guns and missiles, future battles will also be fought by hackers manipulating computer code.

Governments and intelligence agencies worry that digital attacks against vital infrastructure — like banking systems or power grids — will give attackers a way of bypassing a country’s traditional defences.

Unlike standard military attacks, a cyberattack can be launched instantaneously from any distance, with little obvious evidence in the build up. And it is often extremely hard to trace such an attack back to its originators. Modern economies, underpinned by computer networks that run everything from sanitation to food distribution and communications, are particularly vulnerable to such attacks.

The head of the US National Security Agency (NSA) Admiral Michael Rogers said his worst case cyberattack scenario would involve “outright destructive attacks”, focused on some aspects of critical US infrastructure and coupled with data manipulation “on a massive scale”. Some experts warn it’s a case of when, not if.

What is the definition of cyberwarfare?

Whether an attack should be considered to be an act of cyberwarfare depends on a number of factors. These can include the identity of the attacker, what they are doing, how they do it – and how much damage they inflict.

Like other forms of war, cyberwarfare is usually defined as a conflict between states, not individuals. Many countries are now building up military cyberwarfare capabilities, both to defend against other nations and also to attack if necessary.

Attacks by individual hackers, or even groups of hackers, would not usually be considered to be cyberwarfare, unless they were being aided and directed by a state. For example, cyber crooks who crash a bank’s computer systems while trying to steal money would not be considered to be perpetrating an act of cyberwarfare, even if they came from a rival nation. But state-backed hackers doing the same thing to destabilise a rival state’s economy might well be considered so.

The nature and scale of the targets attacked is another indicator: defacing a company website is unlikely to be considered an act of cyberwarfare, whereas disabling the missile defence system at an airbase would certainly come close. And the weapons used are important too: cyberwar refers to digital attacks on computer systems: firing a missile at a data center would not be considered cyberwarfare.

Cyberwarfare and the use of force

How these factors combine matters because they can help determine what kind of response a country can make to a cyber attack.

There is one key definition of cyberwarfare, which is a digital attack that is so serious it can be seen as the equivalent of a physical attack.

To reach this threshold, an attack on computer systems would have to lead to significant destruction or disruption, even loss of life. This is a significant threshold because under international law states are permitted to use force to defend themselves against an armed attack.

It follows then that, if a country were hit by a cyber attack of significant scale, they would be within their rights to strike back using their standard military arsenal: to respond to hacking with missile strikes. So far this has never happened – indeed it’s not entirely clear if any attack has ever reached that threshold. That doesn’t mean that attacks which fail to reach that level are irrelevant or should be ignored: it just means that the country under attack can’t justify resorting to military force to defend itself. There are plenty of other ways of responding to a cyber attack, from sanctions and expelling diplomats, to responding in kind, although calibrating the right response to an attack is often hard.

What is the Tallinn Manual?

One reason that definitions of cyberwarfare have been blurred is that there is no international law that covers cyberwar, which is what really matters here, because it is such a new concept. That doesn’t mean that cyberwarfare isn’t covered by the law, it’s just that the relevant law is piecemeal, scattered and often open to interpretation.

This lack of legal framework has resulted in a grey area: in the past some states have used the opportunity to test out cyberwar techniques in the knowledge that other states would be uncertain about how they could react under international law.

More recently that grey area has began to shrink. A group of law scholars has spent years working to explain how international law can be applied to digital warfare. This work has formed the basis of the Tallinn Manual, a textbook prepared by the group and backed by the NATO-affiliated Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCoE) based in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, from which the manual takes its name.

The first version of the manual looked at the rare but most serious cyber attacks, which rose to the level of the use of force; the second edition released earlier this year looked at the legal framework around cyber attacks, which do not reach the threshold of the use of force, but which take place on a daily basis.

Aimed at legal advisers to governments, military, and intelligence agencies, the Tallinn manual sets out when an attack is a violation of international law in cyberspace, and when and how states can respond to such assaults.

The manual consists of a set of guidelines — 154 rules — which set out how the lawyers think international law can be applied to cyber warfare, covering everything from the use of cyber mercenaries to the targeting of medical units’ computer systems. The idea is that by making the law around cyberwarfare clearer, there is less risk of an attack escalating, because escalation often occurs when the rules are not clear and leaders over-react.

Which countries are preparing for cyberwar?

According to US intelligence chiefs, more than 30 countries are developing offensive cyber attack capabilities, although most of these government hacking programmes are shrouded in secrecy.

The US intelligence briefing lists Russia, China, Iran and North Korea as the major “cyber threat actors” to worry about. Russia has a “highly advanced offensive cyber program” and has “conducted damaging and/or disruptive cyber-attacks including attacks on critical infrastructure networks”, it warns.

China has also “selectively used cyber attacks against foreign targets” and continues to “integrate and streamline its cyber operations and capabilities”, said the report, which also said Iran has already used its cyber capabilities directly against the US with a distributed denial of service attacks targeting the US financial sector in 2012-3. The report also notes that when it comes to North Korea: “Pyongyang remains capable of launching disruptive or destructive cyber attacks to support its political objectives.”

US cyberwarfare capabilities

However, it’s likely that the US has the most significant cyber defence and cyber attack capabilities. Speaking last year President Obama said: “we’re moving into a new era here, where a number of countries have significant capacities. And frankly we’ve got more capacity than anybody, both offensively and defensively.”

Much of this capability comes from US Cyber Command, lead by Admiral Rogers who also leads the NSA, which has a dual mission: to protect US Department of Defence networks but also to conduct “full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries”.

Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the US National Security Agency and head of US Cyber Command
Image: Siim Teder/Estonian Defence Forces

Cyber Command is made up of a number of what it calls ‘Cyber Mission Force teams’. The Cyber National Mission Force teams defend the US by monitoring adversary activity, blocking attacks, and manoeuvring to defeat them. Cyber Combat Mission Force teams conduct military cyber operations to support military commanders, while the Cyber Protection Force teams defend the Department of Defense information networks. By the end of fiscal year 2018, the goal is for the force to grow to nearly 6,200 and for all 133 teams to be fully operational. The US is believed to have used various forms of cyber weapons against the Iranian nuclear programme, the North Korean missile tests and the so-called Islamic State, with mixed results.

Other agencies — such as the National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA — have their own cyber attack capabilities too.

The UK has also publicly stated that is working on cyber defence and offence projects, and has vowed to strike back if attacked in this manner.

What do cyberweapons look like?

The tools of cyberwarfare can vary from the incredibly sophisticated to the utterly basic. It depends on the effect the attacker is trying to create. Many are part of the standard hacker toolkit, and a series of different tools could be used in concert as part of a cyber attack. For example, a Distributed Denial of Service attack was at the core of the attacks on Estonia in 2007.

Ransomware, which has been a constant source of trouble for businesses and consumers may also have been used not just to raise money but also to cause chaos. There is some evidence to suggest that the recent Petya ransomware attack which originated in Ukraine but rapidly spread across the world may have looked like ransomware but was being deployed to effectively destroy data by encrypting it with no possibility of unlocking it.

Other standard hacker techniques are likely to form part of a cyber attack; phishing emails to trick users into handing over passwords or other data which can allow attackers further access to networks, for example. Malware and virus could form part of an attack like the Shamoon virus, which wiped the hard drives of 30,000 PCs at Saudi Aramco in 2012.

According to the Washington Post, after revelations about Russian meddling in the run up to the 2016 US Presidential elections, President Obama authorised the planting cyber weapons in Russia’s infrastructure. “The implants were developed by the NSA and designed so that they could be triggered remotely as part of retaliatory cyber-strike in the face of Russian aggression, whether an attack on a power grid or interference in a future presidential race,” the report said

Cyberwarfare and zero-day attack stockpiles

Zero-day vulnerabilities are bugs or flaws in code which can give attackers access to or control over systems, but which have not yet been discovered and fixed by software companies. These flaws are particularly prized because there will likely be no way to stop hackers exploiting them. There is a thriving trade in zero-day exploits that allow hackers to sidestep security: very handy for nations looking to build unstoppable cyber weapons. It is believed that many nations have stock piles of zero day exploits to use for either cyber espionage or as part of elaborate cyber weapons. Zero day exploits formed a key part of the Stuxnet cyberweapon (see below).

One issue with cyberweapons, particularly those using zero-day exploits is that — unlike a conventional bomb or missile — a cyberweapon can be analysed and even potentially repurposed and re-used. Also, once used, the zero-day exploits are usually rapidly patched by software vendors, which makes it impossible to use them again. These weapons can also cause much greater chaos than planned, which is what may have happened in the case of the Ukrainian Petya ransomware attack.

What is Stuxnet?

the-lightwriter, Getty Images/iStockphoto

Stuxnet is a computer worm that targets industrial control systems, but is most famous for most likely being the first genuine cyber weapon, in that it was designed to inflict physical damage. It was developed by the US and Israel (although they have never confirmed this) to target the Iranian nuclear programme. The worm, first spotted in 2010, targeted specific Siemens industrial control systems, and seemed to be specifically targeting the systems controlling the centrifuges in the Iranian uranium enrichment project — apparently damaging 1,000 of these centrifuges and delaying the project, although the overall impact on the programme is not clear.

Stuxet was a complicated worm, using four different zero-day exploits and likely took millions of dollars of research and months or years of work to create.

What are the targets in cyberwar?

Military systems are an obvious target: preventing commanders from communicating with their troops or seeing where the enemy is would give an attacker a major advantage. However, because most developed economies rely on computerised systems for everything from power to food and transport many governments are very worried that rival states may target critical national infrastructure. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, or industrial control systems, which run factories, power stations and other industrial processes are a big target, as Stuxnet showed.

These systems can be decades old and were rarely designed with security as a priority, but are increasingly being connected to the internet to make them more efficient or easy to monitor. But this also makes these systems more vulnerable to attack, and security is rarely upgraded because the organisations operating them do not consider themselves to be a target.

A short history of cyberwar

For many people 2007 was when cyberwar went from the theoretical to the actual.

When the government of the eastern European state of Estonia announced plans to move a Soviet war memorial, it found itself under a furious digital bombardment that knocked banks and government services offline (the attack is generally considered to have been Russian hackers; Russian authorities denied any knowledge). However, the DDoS attacks on Estonia did not create physical damage and, while a significant event, were not considered to have risen to the level of actual cyberwarfare.

Another cyberwarfare milestone was hit the same year, however, when the Idaho National Laboratory proved, via the Aurora Generator Test, that a digital attack could be used to destroy physical objects – in this case a generator.

The Stuxnet malware attack took place in 2010, which proved that malware could impact the physical world.

Since then there has been a steady stream of stories: in 2013 the NSA said it had stopped a plot by an unnamed nation — believed to be China — to attack the BIOS chip in PCs, rendering them unusable. In 2014 there was the attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, blamed by many on North Korea, which showed that it was not just government systems and data that could be targeted by state-backed hackers.

Perhaps most seriously, just before Christmas in 2015 hackers managed to disrupt the power supply in parts of Ukraine, by using a well-known trojan called BlackEnergy. In March 2016 seven Iranian hackers were accused of trying to shut down a New York dam in a federal grand jury indictment.

Nations are rapidly building cyber defence and offence capabilities and NATO in 2014 took the important step of confirming that a cyber attack on one of its members would be enough to allow them to invoke Article 5, the collective defence mechanism at the heart of the alliance. In 2016 it then defined cyberspace as an “operational domain” — an area in which conflict can occur: the internet had officially become a battlefield.

Cyberwar and the Internet of Things

Big industrial control systems or military networks are often considered the main targets in cyberwarfare but one consequence of the rise of the Internet of Things may be to bring the battlefield into our homes.

“Our adversaries have capabilities to hold at risk US critical infrastructure as well as the broader ecosystem of connected consumer and industrial devices know as the Internet of Things,” said a US intelligence community briefing from January 2017. Connected thermostats, cameras and cookers could all be used either to spy on citizens of another country, or to cause havoc if they were hacked.

How do you defend against cyberwarfare

The same cybersecurity practices that will protect against everyday hackers and cyber crooks will provide some protection against state-backed cyber attackers, who use many of the same techniques. That means covering the basics: changing default passwords and making passwords hard to crack, not using the same password for different systems, making sure that all systems are patched and up-to-date (including the use of antivirus software), ensuring that systems are only connected to the internet if necessary and making sure that essential data is backed up securely. This may be enough to stop some attackers or at least give them enough extra work to do that they switch to an easier target.

Recognising that your organisation can be a target is an important step: even if your organisation is not an obvious target for hackers motivated by greed (who would hack a sewage works for money?) you may be a priority for hackers looking to create chaos.

However, for particularly high-value targets this is unlikely to be enough: these attacks are called ‘advanced and persistent’. In this case it may be hard to stop them at the boundary and additional cybersecurity investments will be needed: strong encryption, multi-factor authentication and advanced network monitoring. It may well be that you cannot stop them penetrating your network, but you may be able to stop them doing any damage.

What is cyber espionage?

Closely related but separate to cyberwarfare is cyber espionage, whereby hackers infiltrate computer systems and networks to steal data and often intellectual property. There have been plenty of examples of this in recent years: for example the hack on the US Office of Personnel Management, which saw the records of 21 million US citizens stolen, including five million sets of fingerprints, was most likely carried out by Chinese state-backed hackers.

Perhaps even more infamous: the hacking attacks in the run up to the 2016 US Presidential elections and the theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee: US intelligence said that Russia was behind the attacks. The aim of cyber espionage is to steal, not to do damage, but it’s arguable that such attacks can also have a bigger impact. Law scholars are, for example, split on whether the hacks on the DNC and the subsequent leaking of the emails could be illegal under international law.

Some argue that it mounts up to meddling in the affairs of another state and therefore some kind of response, such as hacking back, would have been justified; others argue that it was just below the threshold required. As such the line between cyberwarfare and cyberespionage is a blurred one: certainly the behaviour necessary is similar for both — sneaking into networks, looking for flaws in software — but only the outcome is different; stealing rather than destroying. For defenders it’s especially hard to tell the difference between an enemy probing a network looking for flaws to exploit and an enemy probing a network to find secrets.

“Infiltrations in US critical infrastructure–when viewed in the light of incidents like these–can look like preparations for future attacks that could be intended to harm Americans, or at least to deter the United States and other countries from protecting and defending our vital interests,” said NSA chief Rogers in testimony to the US Senate.

Cyberwarfare and information warfare

Closely related to cyberwarfare is the concept of information warfare; that is, the use of disinformation and propaganda in order to influence others — like the citizens of another state. This disinformation might use documents stolen by hackers and published — either complete or modified by the attackers to suit their purpose. It may also see the use of social media (and broader media) to share incorrect stories. While Western strategists tend to see cyberwarfare and hybrid information warfare as separate entities, some analysts say that Chinese and Russia military theorists see the two as closely linked.

CIA’s Plan If Nuclear War breaks out

Declassified CIA documents reveal a secret plan if nuclear war breaks out

By SARAH K. BURRIS

1956 Operation Redwing bombing at Enewetak Atoll. (National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Field Office)

If Kim Jong Un launches a nuclear weapon there’s an extensive plan in place thanks to the CIA, the military and former President Jimmy Carter.

Newly declassified documents from Carter’s administration revealed Presidential Directive 58, the plan for how the United States moves forward, according to Foreign Policy magazine. Under President Ronald Reagan, the directive was amended slightly.

The strategies behind the end of the world stem from a single man: emergency preparedness and disaster response expert Ray Derby. In Europe, Derby worked with NATO to craft evacuation drills for non-combat troops. He led the government-wide work to prepare for a nuclear, biological or chemical threat. The nuclear bases around the United States have Derby to thank for their plans as well.

During the Carter administration, the plan for nuclear war was Federal Emergency Plan D, which required each agency to design, develop and build its own underground facility, FP reported. The thought was that in the event of an emergency, the agencies of the government could still function from a bunker. Most didn’t take it seriously and as such, most agency personnel didn’t know whether they were part of the team that was supposed to head to the bunker or not.

To make more people take it seriously meant getting the military involved — something the military had no interest in. They assumed martial law would have to be instituted in the event of a nuclear incident but the military would also be tasked with the military response from the United States. Neither the military nor political leaders wanted to talk about the plans openly, forcing them to be devised in secret.

If “the bomb” was en route, the Joint Chiefs of Staff would order 60 officials to a special facility build into Mount Weather in Berryville, Virginia. Other locations are near Hagerstown, Maryland, and Martinsburg, West Virginia. The FBI would be relocated to the Marine base near Quantico, Virginia. The State Department would be sent to Front Royal, Virginia. The rest would be hidden at colleges inside or near the Washington, D.C. metro area.

Having a rendezvous spot was only half the battle, however. The military didn’t have enough helicopters to carry more than a third of those assigned. Everyone was given an alternative idea for how to get to Mount Weather. However, most leaders scoffed at the idea that nuclear war would ever happen and even if it did, the former Soviet Union knew about Mount Weather. They even purchased land around it to monitor what was going on at the site.

Carter became the first president since John F. Kennedy to take civil defense seriously, FP said. Many fallout shelters were decaying and agencies had spent years ignoring assignments for readiness. The budget was increased and a whole new policy was developed. The goal was to have 80 percent of the population survive by spending less than $250 million each year. That’s when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was created.

FEMA became responsible for stocking the bunker with supplies and ensuring that a functioning government can operate. At the same time, the White House was tasked with ensuring there were mechanisms in place for a presidential successor to function militarily during and after nuclear missiles land. The Secret Service enacted their own plan for getting the president out or securing the successor in the event that the president was killed. One declassified memo from the White House urged daily communication between the Pentagon and the president at Mount Weather. Then it confessed that after an incident of “uncoordinated sabotage” facilities wouldn’t provide enough protection and survivors probably wouldn’t live long and could become a target themselves.

Fixed command posts didn’t seem like it would work and mobile ones would require getting the president or a successor to an emergency escape aircraft. Doing so also required a plan for finding the successor if the president is incapacitated. So, the White House tried to make it a little more flexible and focused on three major concepts: survivability, connectivity and supportability.

So, the devised a “presidential successor support team” that would be pre-positioned or pre-deployed during emergencies to the presidential successors. Each team would have requirements to authenticate the new president and the further actions continue to be classified. FP was able to hear some specifics that reveal what might be the first use of a “tracking chip” in the successor cards that would be “amplified by radio frequency repeaters.” They could be collected by FEMA to find locations.

The team was also tasked with helping the successor to carry out functions, talk to other teams, talk to the Pentagon and help execute the nuclear war plan. They’d also be required to “receive intelligence and damage assessments” and talk to local and state governments. Essentially, each team must be able to function as its own government.

All of the other documents that outline specifics are still classified but Carter issued at least 29 other directives. It’s unclear how Congress would be reestablished or if troops would be drafted.

Which Country Has More Nuclear Arsenal?

By Tom O’Connor International Business Times

President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin both expressed their support for expanding their respective nations’ nuclear capabilities in separate statements on Thursday.

The Russian leader told an annual meeting with his chiefs of defense that the Russian arsenal was already capable of overcoming any potential aggressors, but that nuclear expansion should be a goal for the upcoming year. Later that same day, Trump tweeted his desire to “greatly strengthen and expand” the U.S.’ nuclear capability until “the world came to its sense” on nuclear warfare.

Both Washington and Moscow control two of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world. The United Nation’s 1968 Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty recognizes only five countries as being nuclear-weapon states, which represent the five permanent members of the National Security Council – the United States, Russia, China, the U.K. and France. Other countries, such as Pakistan, India and North Korea, have openly developed and detonated nuclear weapons despite not signing the treaty. Israel has intentionally hidden its nuclear program, maintaining a policy known as “nuclear ambiguity” or “nuclear opacity” through which it neither confirms nor denies its nuclear capabilities.

Nine countries in total were believed to possess nuclear weapons. Nations often keep the precise number of nuclear armaments they possess confidential, but leading experts have compiled figures estimating just how many nuclear weapons there are out there and who has them. As the two largest nuclear-capable countries consider expanding their arsenals, here’s a look at the existing state of affairs:

#1 Russia

A deactivated Soviet-era SS-4 medium range nuclear capable ballistic missile is displayed at La Cabana fortress in Havana, Oct. 15, 2012. Photo: Reuters

Putin was not lying when he said Russia’s nuclear arsenal overshadowed its opponents. Russia is believed to possess 7,300 weapons in total. Moscow detonated its first nuclear weapon in 1949, soon after the end of World War II and during the early stages of the Cold War with the U.S. The nuclear arms race was a primary area of competition between the two countries and partially responsible for the vast size of their nuclear arsenals today.

#2 United States

An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operational test from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, Feb. 25, 2016. Photo: Reuters

With an estimated 6,970 nuclear weapons, the U.S. is not far behind Russia. The country’s modernized military, which easily dominates in number and quality of aircraft carriers, also gives the U.S. a distinct tactical advantage. The U.S. was the first nation to develop nuclear weapons and the only nation to have ever conducted nuclear warfare, launching two atomic weapons on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 during World War Two, killing an estimated 225,000 people and injuring many more.

#3 France

France’s missile M51 soars into the air during its first test in Biscarosse Nov. 9, 2006.Photo: Reuters

France hasn’t let the end of the Cold War keep it from stockpiling up to 300 nuclear weapons, the largest stockpile in Western Europe. France conducted its first nuclear test in 1960 and, despite eliminating about half of its nuclear arsenal since the late 1980s, the country has pushed for more nuclear deterrent cooperation with the U.K.

#4 China

A Chinese man sits beside a Chinese Hongqi-2 missile at an exhibition room in Beijing’s Military Museum July 16, 2005. Photo: Reuters

China boasts the largest nuclear arsenal in Eastern Asia, with around 260 warheads. Beijing’s communist government began pursuing nuclear technology soon after taking over in 1949 and conducted its first nuclear test in 1964. Since then, China has advocated for disarmament and expressed Friday that it was “paying close attention” to Trump’s rhetoric on the matter.

#5 United Kingdom

An officer poses in the weapons storage compartment on board the nuclear-powered and nuclear-capable HMS Vigilant at Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Clyde on Jan. 21, 2016.Photo: Getty Images

The U.K.’s political players have questioned the future of the nation’s estimated 215 nuclear weapons. The country’s close relationship with the U.S. and popular support for non-proliferation have led some to speculate as to whether the country’s nuclear arsenal was necessary to maintain. Hawks, however, say that Russia’s military expansion mean the possession of nuclear weapons is as relevant as ever.

#6 Pakistan

Scientists, engineers and army personnel pose for a photograph before the test flight of a Hatf-VI (Shaheen-II) missile, with a range of 2,000 1,242 miles, in Pakistan April 21, 2008. Photo: Reuters

Pakistan is thought to maintain around 130 nuclear weapons. The nation’s nuclear history began in 1972 when then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto urged politicians to support such a program to defend against its southern rival, India, which had also pursued nuclear weapons. The Pakistani-Indian conflict has been widely considered a flashpoint for nuclear warfare and border skirmishes between the new countries often raise fears of all-out war. Pakistan has rejected to adopt the “no first-use” policy, allowing it to respond to Indian aggression with nuclear warheads. However, analysts have said the dire consequences and close proximity of the nations make this an unlikely outcome.

#7 India

A surface-to-surface Agni V missile is launched from the Wheeler Island off the eastern Indian state of Odisha April 19, 2012. Photo: Reuters

India possesses about 120 nuclear weapons, according to experts. India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974 and did not detonate another until 1998. Unlike its rival Pakistan, India has adopted a “no first-use” policy, meaning it would not launch nuclear strikes unless it was clear that the other side would attack first. Still, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhary said last year that nuclear warfare against Pakistan was not off the table. Some analysts say that, despite the tense situation between India and Pakistan, their nuclear arsenals actually deter war. Others have argued that they allow the possibility of mass destruction.

#8 Israel

Map of suspected nuclear facilities in Israel. With illustrations and statistics on Israel’s missiles, March 9, 2010. Photo: Reuters

Israel deliberately maintains a shroud of secrecy over what’s believed to be an arsenal of about 80 nuclear warheads. In the 1950s, Tel Aviv pursued a top secret campaign to acquire parts necessary for nuclear development with confidential help from France. Not even Israel’s greatest ally, the U.S., was fully made aware of Tel Aviv’s nuclear aspirations. Israel has rejected inspections of its Dimona facilities from the International Atomic Energy Agency and only allows limited access to Washington. Israel’s nuclear capabilities have angered its Arab neighbors, some of which faced significant international criticism for pursuing nuclear warheads in the past and have threatened to walk out on current treaties if Israel maintains its arsenal.

#9 North Korea

A rocket is launched during a demonstration of a new large-caliber multiple rocket launching system attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (not pictured) at an unknown location, in this undated file photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on March 22, 2016. Photo: Reuters

Unlike Israel, North Korea has been eager to show off its nuclear arsenal, estimated at fewer than 10 warheads. The reclusive, authoritarian state carried out its first nuclear explosion in 2006 and has conducted four more tests since. Pyongyang’s aggressive nuclear rhetoric has concerned its rivals, especially its southern neighbor South Korea, which North Korea routinely threatens. The nation’s nuclear program has also made it a target of severe international sanctions, which even its greatest ally China has signed on to.

This Is Why You Still Can’t Get a Vaccine for HIV?

By @acsifferlin

Elizabeth Renstrom—TIMEThe region of the Americas is the first in the world to be declared measles-free, after 22 years of work to banish the highly contagious infection that can result in pneumonia, blindness and death (stock photo)

The most ambitious HIV vaccine trial is now underway. Will it work?

The first HIV vaccine trial in seven years is launching in South Africa.

The trial is called HVTN 702, and the goal is to enroll 5,400 sexually active men and women between 18 and 35 throughout South Africa, where more than 1,000 people are infected with HIV each day. It’s the most ambitious HIV vaccine trial launched so far.

“If deployed alongside our current armory of proven HIV prevention tools, a safe and effective vaccine could be the final nail in the coffin for HIV,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said in a statement about the trial.

Though scientists have been able to create vaccines for other viruses, developing a vaccine for HIV has been especially challenging. (In lieu of one, doctors mostly use preventative drugs like Truvada to help prevent contraction of the virus in uninfected people who are at high risk.)

But a vaccine could significantly taper infections worldwide. “Even a moderately effective vaccine would significantly decrease the burden of HIV disease over time,” said Fauci in a statement.

So why are HIV vaccines so elusive?

HIV behaves unlike most other viruses in some important ways. Usually, when a person is infected with a virus, their immune system creates antibodies that target the bug. That’s usually the starting point for researchers, who work to develop drugs that can imitate that process (but without causing the recipient to develop a full blown reaction to the virus). What’s tricky about HIV, however, is that when a person is infected with the virus, that same process of developing antibodies isn’t triggered.

“One of the reasons why it has been so difficult to make an AIDS vaccine is that the virus infects the very cells of the immune system that any vaccine is supposed to induce,” senior author Dr. Guido Silvestri, chief of microbiology and immunology at Yerkes National Primate Research Center said in a statement.

Still, expert hope the new vaccine trial will work better than earlier attempts. The new vaccine is based on a version tested in a clinical trial in Thailand, with results that were released in 2009. The study showed that the vaccine was about 30% effective at preventing infection over 3.5 years. In the new trial, researchers hope to spur greater protection against the virus for longer. The results are expected to be available in late 2020.

Why Is NASA Putting Its Research Papers Online For Free?

NASA announced that it’s making most of its publicly-funded research available online free of charge. It’s using a site called Pubspace where you can search peer-reviewed papers resulting from NASA-funded research on a wide variety of topics.

Do you want or need to read studies about the origins of life on Mars? Maybe you’d like to draw your own conclusions about the “Grand challenges in space synthetic biology?” Or learn about exercising in space? Previously you would have had to pay for access to this work, but today is your day as Pubspace already has over 850 articles posted, with more to come.

NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan explained the reasoning involved in releasing the papers to the public:

“Making our research data easier to access will greatly magnify the impact of our research. As scientists and engineers, we work by building upon a foundation laid by others.”

NASA’s move is in response to a general worldwide trend towards making scientific knowledge more available as well as a 2013 directive from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to increase access to their research. NASA’s new policy will be to post all agency-funded research papers on Pubspace within a year of their publication.

The one big exception is any research related to national security.

In a press release, NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman further expounded on the far-reaching implications of the new scientific openness:

“At NASA, we are celebrating this opportunity to extend access to our extensive portfolio of scientific and technical publications. Through open access and innovation we invite the global community to join us in exploring Earth, air and space.”

So if you’re up for investigating the workings of “Stereoscopic Integrated Imaging Goggles for Multimodal Intraoperative Image Guidance” or have been wondering about the cardiovascular disease mortality of the Apollo lunar astronauts, you know where to go.

ብሎክቼይን አዲሱ ኢንተርኔት

By Geleta Gammo

ብሎክቼይን ማለት በመሰረቱ ያልተማከለ የመረጃ መዝገብ ነው። በዚህ የመረጃ መዝገብ ላይ የሚመዘገቡ ነገሮች ሁሉ
1፣ ያልተማከለ ነው። ማለት፣ አንድ መረጃ በብሎክቼይን ላይ ሲመዘገብ የመረጃው ቅጂ ከብሎክቼይኑ ጋር በተያያዙ በሚሊዮኖች በሚቆጠሩ ኮምፑተሮች ሁሉ ላይ ይቀመጣል። ይህ ማለት መረጃው ሊጠፋ አይችልም።

ምሳሌ1፣ በስሜ የተመዘገበ የቤት ካርታ ቢኖረኝና ይህንን ብሎክቼይን ላይ ባስመዘግብ ያ የኔን ስም የያዘ ካርታ ተባዝቶ በመላው ዓለም ባሉ ኮምፑተሮች ይቀመጣል። የኔ ኮሙፑተር ቢሰረቅ ካርታው በኔ ስም እስካለ ድረስ ምንም ለውጥ አያመጣም።

ምሳሌ 2፣ አንድ ሰው የህክምና ታሪክ መዝገብ አለው ብንል ይህ መዝገብ በብሎክቼይን ላይ ከተቀመጠ ሁሌም አዲስ ነገር ሲመጣ እየተጨመረበት ይኖራል። ወደ አዲስ ዶክቶር ጋ ሰውዬው ሲሄድ የመዝገብ ቁጥሩን ቁልፍ ለዶክቶሩ ሲሰጠው የታማሚውን የጤና ታሪክ ዶክቶሩ አይቶ የበለጠ ይረዳል።

ምሳሌ3፣ አንድ ሰው ማንነቱን ለማሳወቅ ራሱን ሊያሳውቁ ከሚችሉት ነገሮች ጋር አንድ ጊዜ ራሱን ብሎክቼይን ላይ መመዝገብ ብቻ ነው። ለምሳሌ ፎቶውን የጣት አሻራውን ቢያስቀምጥና ከዚህ መታወቂያው ጋር የቤት ካርታውን ወይም የህክምና መዝገቡን የባምክ ቁጥሩን ቢያያይዝ፣ ሌላ መታወቂያ አያስፈልገውም። የትም ዓለም ቢሄድ ፓስፖርት አያስፈገውም። ማንነቱን ከብሎክ ቼይን ላይ ማሳየት ይችላል። ማሳየት ለሚፈልገው ብቻ ያሳያል።

2፣ መረጃው ተመስርጠው (encrypted) ሆነው ይመዘገባሉ። ይህ ማለት ቁልፉን ከያዘው በስተቀር ማንም ሊያየው አይችለም። ቁልፎቹ ሁለት ናቸው። አንደኛው የባሌበቱ ቁልፍ ሲሆን ሌላው ሌላ ሰው እንዲያይ የሚሰጥ ቁልፍ ነው። ይህ ለሌላ የሚሰጠው በተቀባዩ መታወቂያ ቁልፍ ስለሚመዘገብ የተሰጠው ሰውየ ብቻ ነው ሊያይ የሚችለው። ለሌላ አሳልፎ መስጠት አይችልም። ያንን እንዲያደርግ ፈቃድ ካልተሰጠው በስተቀር። ባለቤቱ በፈለገው ጊዜ ያንን ለሰው የተሰጠ ቁልፍ መሰረዝ ይችላል።

ምስሌ 1፣ የተገለጸው የቤት ካርታ ሙሉ በሙሉ ለሁሉም እንዲታይ፣ የተወሰነው መረጃ ብቻ እንዲታይ፣ ለተወሰነ ሰው ብቻ እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይቻላል። ለምሳሌ የባለቤቱ ስም እንዳይታይና የመሬቱ ስፋት ብቻ ለህዝብ እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይቻላል። ፍርድ ቤት ሲቀርብ ዳኛውና ፖሊስ ብቻ ስሙ ምን እንደሚል ማሳየት ይቻላል።

ምሳሌ3፣ የህክምና መረጃው ለዶር ብቻ እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይቻላል። ዶሩ ህክምናውን ሲጨርስ ለሱ የተዘጋጀው ቁልፍ ከተሰረዘ ዶሩ ተመልሶ መግባት አይችለም።
ነገር ግን ስም ሳይታይ የበሽታው ዓይነት፣ የተወሰደው መድሃኒት፣ ለመዳን የወሰደበት ጊዜ የመሳሰሉት ለሁሉም ዶክቶሮች ወይም ተመራማሪዎች ስም ሳይኖር እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይቻላል። ያ ማለት ተመራማሪዎች ስንተ በዚህ በሽታ ታማሚ እንዳለና የትኛው መድሃኒት እንደሚሰራ ማወቅ ይችላሉ። ይህ ለምርምር በጣም ጠቃሚ ነው። እስከ ዛሬ ያሉ የህክምና ምርምሮችን አስቸጋሪ የሚያደርገው እንዲህ ዓይነት መረጃ አለመገኘት ነው።

ምሳሌ3፣ የጣት አሻራውን ከብሎክ ቼይን ጋር በማመሳከር ማንነቱንና ከየት እንደመጣ እንዲታወቅ አድርጎ ማስመዝገብ ይችላል። ሌላውን መረጃ ተጨማሪ ቁልፍ አድርጎበት። ያ ማለት ሰውዬው የትም አገር ሄዶ ራሱን ቢስት ቢያንስ ማን እንደሆነ ከየት እንደመጣ ወዲያው ይታወቃል። የአደጋ ጊዜ ተጠሪ ቢያስቀምጥና ሁለት ሶስት እንዲህ ዓይነት ሰዎችን አብረው ከፈረሙ ሌላው መረጃው ሁሉ እንዲታይ ማድረግ ይችላል።
ቢሞት አምስት የሚያምናቸው ሰዎች ከፈረሙበት በሱ ስም የተመዘገቡ ንብረቶች ለማዛወር እንዲቻል ማድረግ ይቻላል፡
የመክፈቻ ቁልፉ ቢጠፋበት ማንነቱን የሚገልጹ ቀድሞ የመረጣቸው አምስት ሰዎች እንዲፈርሙ ባምድረግ ማንነቱን ማሳወቅ ይችላል። ያ ማለት ማንም ሌላውን አስመስኦ ምንም ማድረግ አይችልም። (identity theft) አይኖርም።

3፣ በዚህ የመረጃ መዝገብ ላይ የተመዘገበ ነገር መሰረዝ ወይም መቀየር አይቻልም። መረጃው ብሎክቼይን የተባለበትም ምክንያት ለዚህ ነው። መረጃው በጥቅል ጥቅል ተደርጎ ርስበርሱ በተመዘገበበት ጊዜ ቅደም ተከተል ይቀመጣል። ይህ ቅደም ተከተል አይዛነፍም። የመጀመሪያውና የሚቀጥለው መረጃ በጊዜ ማኅተም (time stamp) የተቆራኙ በመሆናቸው በመሃከላቸው አዲስ ነገር ማስገባት አይቻልም።

ምሳሌ1፣ የቤት ካርታው አንዴ ከተመዘገበ ባለቤቱ እስካልፈረመ ድረስ ለዘላለም እዛው ይኖራል። ነገርግን ቤቱ ቢሸጥ ካርታው መዝገቡ ላይ ካርታው ወደየት እንደሄደ ተመዝግቦ ወደ አዲሱ ባለቤት መዝገብ ይገባል። አዲሱ ባለቤት መዝገብ ላይም ካርታው ከየት፣ መቼ እንደመጣ ይመዘገባል። ይህ የተመዘገበው ነገርም ለዘላለም አይጠፋም።

ምሳሌ2፣ ይህንኑ ካርታ ሌላ ዋጋ ያለው ነገር ነው ብንል፣ ለምሳሌ መኪና፣ አልማዝ፣ ወርቅ፣ ብር ነው ብንል ፣ መኪናውም ሆነ አልማዙ፣ ወርቁም ሆነ ብሩ ከየት ተነስቶ ወዴት እንደሄደና ለምን እንደሄደ (በሽያጭ ይሁን በስጦታ) ተመዝግቦ ለዘላለም ይቀመጣል። ማንም ሰው ሊሰርዘው ሊደልዘው አይችልም። አንድ ሰው ራሱ ኮምፑተር ላይ ያለውን ብሎክቼይን ውስጥ ያለውን መረጃ ወደ ኋላ ሄዶ ቢቀይር ምንም ጥቅም የለውም። ምክንያቱም የተቀየረበትን ጊዜ ሌሎች ኮፑተሮች ከራስቸው መረጃ ጋር ስለሚያመሳክሩ አይቀበሉትም።

ይህ ማለት ሙስናና ስርቆት በፍጹም የማይቻል ይሆናል ማለት ነው።

4፣ ብሎክቸይን ሶስተኛ ምስክር አይፈልግ።
አሁ ባለበት ሁኔታ ማንኛውምንም ንብረት ለማስተላለፍ ወይ የውልና መረጃ መሄድ ወይም ምስክሮችን ማቆም ያስፈልጋል። ወይ ፍርድ ቤት መሄድ ያስፈጋል። ይህ ደግሞ ጊዜና ገንዘብ ይፈጃል።

ምሳሌ፣ ቤቴን ወይም መኪናዬን መሸጥ ብፈልግ፣ ሶስተኛ ምስክር ወይም መገናኛ መሄድ አያስፈልገኝም። ሰውዬውንም ማግኘት አያስፈልገኝም። ገዢና ሻጭ ከተስማሙ የብሎክቼይን ውል ይፈራረማሉ። ይህ ውል በብሎክ ቼይን ብልጥ ውል (smart contract) በመባል ይታወቃል።
በመሰረቱ ይህ ውል የኮምፑተር ፕሮግራም ነው። ማንኛውም የኮምፑተር ፕሮግራም በመሰረቱ ትዕዛዝ ነው። ሁሉም ፕሮግራሞች ይህ ሲደረግ ይህንን አድርግ የሚል ትዕዛዞች ናቸው።

ይህ ወደ ውል ሲቀየር ከገዢ አካውንት አንድ መቶ ሺህ ብር ወደ ሻጭ አካውንት ሲገባ የካርታውን ወይም የመኪናውን ስም ወደ ገዢ አዙር ተብሎ የሚጻፍ ውል ነው። በሶስት ቀን ውስጥ ገንዘቡ ካልገባ ውሉ ይሰረዝ የሚልም ሊጨመርበት ይችላል። መያዣ አንድ ሺህ ብር ሲገባ ውሉ የሶስት ቀን ገደቡን እንዲያከብር፣ መያዣ ካልገባ ለ 1 ሰዓት ብቻ እንዲጠብቅም ማዘዝ ይቻላል። የተለያየ ዓይነት ትዕዛዝ መስጠት ይቻላል።

ይህንን ውል ሁለቱም በብሎክቼይን ላይ የግል ቁልፋቸውን በማሳየት ይፈርማሉ። ይህ ውል ከተፈረመ በኋላ በሁለቱም ስምምነት ካልሆነ የትኛውም ወገን በራሱ ሊቀይረው አይችልም። መሰረዝም ማስተካክለም አይቻልም። በዚህ ውል መሰረትም፣ ቤቱም ሆነ መኪናው በውሉ ጊዜ ለሌላ ሰው እንዳይተላለፉ መቆለፍም ይቻላል።
ገዢው የተዋዋሉትን ገንዘብ መጠን በሻጩ አካውንት ሲያስገባ ወዲያውኑ የቤቱ ካርታም ሆነ የመኪና ሊብሬው ወደ ገዢው ይተላለፋል።

ለምሳሌ የመኪናው ቁልፍ ወይም የቤቱ ቤት ቁልፍ በእጅ አሻራ የሚከፈት ቢሆን መኪናው ከዛ በኋላ በቀድሞው ባለቤቱ አሻራ አይከፈትም ማለት ነው። መኪናው አልነሳም ሊልም ይችላል።
ዛሬ ስልኮች ሳይቀሩ በአሻራ መክፈትና መዝጋት በሚቻልበት ጊዜ ይህንን ማድረግ በጣም ቀላል ነው።

5፣ ብሎክቼይንን በመጠቀም የምርጫ ድምጽ መስጠት ይቻላል። በብሎክ ቼይን የተደረገ ምርጫን መስረቅ አይቻልም። ይህ ማለት ዲሞክራሲ….

6፣ የብሎክ ቼይንን ጥቅም ላይ የሚያውል ድርጅት መዝገቡ ሊሰረቅበት አይችልም፣ ጉልበተኛ ሊዘጋው አይችልም፣ ሌቦች፣ ሙሰኞች ሊበሉት አይችሉም…

ዘላለማዊ ይሆናል ማለት ነው።