Holes in NATO’s Cyber Defense Pledge

The Holes in NATO’s Cyber Defense Pledge by William A. Blunden / September 4th, 2014 NATO members are currently meeting in Wales to consider a joint defense agreement which stipulates that a cyberattack on one member would represent an attack on all of them.1 Though the concept of international teamwork may seem appealing at the outset there are at least a couple of issues that officials are [intentionally] neglecting. High-End Anti-Forensics For instance, how can countries mobilize to fend off a cyberattack when they can’t even tell who launched it? Deception is an age-old instrument of spy tradecraft and the Pentagon has been actively working on developing Internet stealth technology for decades. [ ...] Folks, it’s anarchy. Until we mobilize and get our political leaders to outlaw covert ops the government and corporate spies show no sign of letting up. In all probability, as things progress the whole clandestine scene is just going to get worse. This past April Obama openly bragged to China’s leadership that the U.S would be devoting $26 billion to the Pentagon’s cyber trough and expanding the U.S. force to 6,000 so-called “cyberwarriors”.15 Guess where all of that funding goes to? The moral of the story is this: when high-level Pentagon types and think tank pundits start yammering about cyberattacks from Russia or China keep in mind that our security services are neck deep in deception ops directed against their alleged allies. History shows that the American Deep State is constantly in search of new enemies, even if it has to fabricate them,16 and our corporate rulers have no scruples about launching attacks that kill untold thousands of innocent people so that they can boost quarterly profits. [... EXTRACT - FULL @ SOURCE ] http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/09/the-holes-in-natos-cyber-defense-pledge/

This article is a wealth of information.  Everyone gets a mention:

Tor, Ntrepid, WikiLeaks, TAO, GCHQ

Check it out.

BILL BLUNDEN on NATO BANDING AGAINST CYBER-ATTACKS

To the Editor: Re “In New Pledge, NATO Nations Would Band Together Against Cyberattacks” (news article, Sept. 1): You report that NATO leaders plan to update their collective defense policy to include a contingency for cyberattacks. The caveat of an agreement like this is that it assumes that NATO members are capable of identifying the actual source of an attack. Leaked documents reveal classified government programs like Hacienda and corporate services like Ntrepid’s Internet Operations Network, which are leveraged to reroute network traffic and undermine digital trails. Furthermore, logistical signatures can be faked and forensic artifacts can be forged. In other words, when facing off against an organized, well-funded adversary, attribution is largely a lost cause. Both national governments and private sector companies have made investments to ensure that this is the case. False flag attacks are as old as espionage and relatively simple to execute on the Internet. BILL BLUNDEN San Francisco, Sept. 1, 2014 The writer is the author of “Behold a Pale Farce: Cyberwar, Threat Inflation and the Malware-Industrial Complex” and “The Rootkit Arsenal.” http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/opinion/tracing-cyberattacks.html?_r=0

Trouble understanding what's going on.
If proper state-funded cyber-attacks aren't traceable, then why go through this farce?

Would that mean the NATO big banding together isn't really about defence against cyber-attacks? 

 Does that then mean this is just about collective, large-scale surveillance of the population/s?

Don't understand 'false flag'  attacks.  What, they're going to make out they were attacked to justify a cyber-attack or hostility on some other government?

What I don't understand is why national governments & private sector agencies would want to reroute traffic to undermine digital trail.  Unless they reroute to spy and thus undermine trail as the cost of being able to spy?

Very interesting.

*Digital Trail - lost.
*Logistical Signature - can fake.
*Forensic Artefacts  - can forge.