How Equipment Left In Afghanistan Will Expose US Secrets

[rangerrebew]

 How Equipment Left In Afghanistan Will Expose US Secrets
Even rendered inoperable, equipment now in the hands of the Taliban will yield troves of information about how the U.S. builds weapons and uses them.
                       
By Patrick Tucker
Technology Editor
September 10, 2021
 

The ultimate winner of two decades of war in Afghanistan is likely China. The aircraft and armored vehicles left behind when U.S. forces withdrew will give China—through their eager partners, the Taliban—a broad window into how the U.S. military builds and uses some of its most important tools of war. Expect the Chinese military to use this windfall to create—and export to client states—a new generation of weapons and tactics tailored to U.S. vulnerabilities, said several experts who spent years building, acquiring, and testing some of the equipment that the Taliban now controls.

To understand how big a potential loss this is for the United States, look beyond the headlines foretelling a Taliban air force. Look instead to the bespoke and relatively primitive pieces of command, control, and communication equipment sitting around in vehicles the United States left on tarmacs and on airfields. These purpose-built items aren’t nearly as invincible to penetration as even your own phone.

“The only reason we aren’t seeing more attacks is because of a veil of secrecy around these systems,” said Josh Lospinoso, CEO of cybersecurity company Shift5. “Once you pierce that veil of secrecy…it massively accelerates the timeline for being able to build cyber weapons” to attack them.

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2021/09/how-equipment-left-afghanistan-will-expose-us-secrets/185264/

[Kamaji]

Exactly.  I said that earlier. 

[EdinVA]

The ultimate winner of two decades of war in Afghanistan is likely China.

Per the plan....

[Smokin Joe]

I find it interesting, considering a relative was going to retire from working for the Navy and take a team of programmers with them and write canned business software (for accounting, word processing, etc.,) for mainframes back in the 70s, and was told "No." by the Navy, who did not want that system architecture to be in more public venues--because it would lead to vulnerabilities for other systems which were classified. (all before the internet).

Now these idiots have just given that architecture away (and that relative could have been a billionaire when PCs became a thing, just adapting that software to a different platform).

A lot of the people who will be analyzing everything from armor construction, metallurgy, electronics, and computer systems either learned here, in our universities, or were taught by others who did.

[corbe]