Obviously attribution becomes far more important with cyberattacks, but that's a tangential point.
You're acting like the power grid going offline is equivalent to a thermonuclear explosion. Yes, it will suck, but it's temporary. And afterwards, those exploit vectors will be patched.
> Obviously attribution becomes far more important with cyberattacks, but that's a tangential point.
No its not, its the whole point. The point of the age of information is that it is a departure from the age of blood and steel. The tactics of blood and steel that you are supporting have no place in this future and are counter-productive.
The point of the age of information is that power is no longer solely in the hands of nations. Therefore treating it as a case of "stomping on the bad people" means your attack spread increases from all the nations in the world to all the people in the world. Added to that the evidence of those attacks can and will be forged.
You're chasing shadows and its not worth it. Just build a better shield, that's all that matters.
Yes. This. Old government people think of everything in terms of "weapons" and "wars" and they still think the word "cyber" is cool. We need to promote, like, a radical new school of thought about software: Creators of a system should be fully responsible for whatever damage the system causes. A bug is a bug, whether it's exploited by an outside actor or it happens during normal execution. Developers should be responsible for bugs. I like the "defective lock" analogy from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14663474
Just put all the effort into keeping the grid up. Absorb all attacks and then export that IP and tech for healthy profit. Its the only winning move.