Readers React: Bad neocon advice on dealing with cyberthreats

To the editor: Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton’s suggested “strategy” is all too predictable. (“Obama’s cyber silence leaves U.S. unprepared,” op-ed, June 10)

He writes in his op-ed about foreign cyberespionage and hacking government sites (which he assumes emanated from China, but without a shred of evidence): “First, America must create structures of deterrence. Starting now, America’s cyber response should be disproportionate.”

This is just like his and the other neoconservatives’ “strategy” for going to war in Iraq. Those misplaced knee-jerk reactions of Bolton and others have cost our country immeasurably, just like Bolton’s disproportionate response to the Chinese would.

And he’s supposed to be a diplomat.

Ken Goldman, Beverly Hills

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To the editor: What Bolton does not address is the reality that it is virtually (pun intended) impossible to determine with certainty the source of a hack or attack precisely because, as Bolton says, of the “computerized complexity.”

The systems are so vast and interconnected, the server farms so massive and located in far-flung locations throughout the world, the Web so crisscrossed that where data sit and what paths they take are almost unknowable. So we should think long and hard before we fire missiles (real or virtual) at China, our second-largest trading partner.

But what really disturbs me is that a government agency like the CIA uses Amazon’s Web Services (Amazon’s cloud service used by President Obama in his campaigns) to store its data.

We’re all to blame — we want “it” smaller, faster, cheaper (Moore’s Law). You asked for it, you got it — with all its benefits and all its ugliness and all its risks. And that genie isn’t going back into the bottle.

Stephany Yablow, North Hollywood

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