signature domestic achievement. it is singularly unpopular, and i think by objective circumstances it is not working. as john adams said, facts are stubborn things. host: the headlines today in the paper are that in the second round of enrollment, the exchange has added 1.9 million new insurance customers. we will get in one last phone call. it comes from nick in norwalk, connecticut, a democratic caller. caller: thank you for taking my , greta. happy and merry christmas and happy hanukkah and all the holidays. is, i want to tell you have been a registered democrat for over 40 years, but i will be january my party in when the senate takes over as republican. 2006ported these people in

, and the first thing i want to say is, top 1% are also democrats. so when we got a bunch of rich people that are supposed to be getting all kinds of breaks, and we got democrats, we got republicans. i am out of work. i have not worked in a while area i am very good at what i do but i cannot find a job, because they want to give you a part-time job. the last thing i wanted to is that with the thing that is going on right now in ferguson and new york, the president is ,eally not supporting anybody especially the police, and he is out there golfing in hawaii. host: we have to run on that point. guest: that is the problem americans face. people who voted for president obama had high expectations, and

the performance has not been there. what he said happened in new york -- i just want to say, and i think president obama and mayor deblasio, and eric holder have really act in a disgraceful way toward the police. they have furthered a narrative that at its core is wrong, is a lie, which is the idea that there is rampant racism in police departments, and that police are targeting african-americans simply because they are black. mayor deblasio has been the most irresponsible. president obama, when these things have happened, he has consistently weighed in in terms of statements, whether before a camera, whether it was the cambridge cup in 2009 in ferguson, or the staten island death that happened, in ways racism atnually put the front in ways it is not.

when he died, i thought it was in excess use of force, but for these political leaders to stoke racial resentment and to help promote what i think is a pernicious narrative that is anti-police, i think that is really disturbing. now we are in a whirlwind, and it was extraordinary the scene that we saw this week and when you have these police officers turning their back as the mayor was walking into the hospital. that kind of tension between a mayor and his police force is very dangerous, very problematic. i think that attorney general holder and the president have acted in ways that are really problematic. host: we could talk about that for much longer, but unfortunately we're out of time. peter wehner, thank you for joining us. you can see more of his thoughts and writings on the website for the ethics and public policy

center, where he is a senior fellow. coming up next, we are going to talk with correspondent and ."thor of "@war shane harris joins us. interview" being released in limited theaters across the country christmas day. will you see it? all that and more coming up. >> here is look at -- here's a look at some of the programs you will find on christmas day. holiday festivities start at 10:00 a.m. eastern with the lighting of the national christmas tree, followed by the white house christmas

decorations with first lady show obama, and the lighting of the capitol christmas tree. just after 12:30 p.m., celebrity activists talk about their causes. then at 8:00, supreme court justice samuel alito, and former florida governor bill -- jeb bush on the bill of rights and the founding fathers. and then venture into the art of good writing with steve pinker. and then the feminine side of the superhero, as jill lepore explores the history of wonder woman. on american history tv on c-span 3 at 8:00 a.m. eastern, the fall of the berlin wall with c-span footage of president george bush and bob dole, with speeches from presidents john kennedy and ronald reagan. at noon, fashion experts on fashion choices and how they represented the style of times in which they lived. nbc news anchor tom brokaw on his more than 50 years of reporting on world events.

that is christmas day on the c-span networks. for a complete schedule, go to c-span.org. "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with senior correspondent of "the daily beast," shane harris, the author of a new book, "@war: the rise of the military-internet complex ." the timing of this could not be more relevant. let's begin with north korea. what do we know about their internet going down? who was behind that? guest: it is still an open question, although some people would be motivated to think it is the u.s. government. taking down north korea's internet is not that technically hard because there are so few connections they have. it is really quite vulnerable in that way. this comes three days after president obama promised a

proportional response to the hacking, which he publicly blamed on north korea. the united states would have a motive. so far we are not taking credit for it. legal experts say it would fit in that proportional response, so we do not know for sure. but active groups -- activist groups have claimed credit for this. we may not know for a while, is the straightforward answer. it looks like their internet is coming back up, but the timing is certainly more than curious. let's look at what the state department spokeswoman had to say when asked if the u.s. was responsible. >> we are considering a range of options in response. we will not discuss publicly operational details about the possible response options or comment on those kind of reports. weept to say that as implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen. i cannot confirm those reports, but in general, that is what the president has spoken to.

host: how would you describe that answer? guest: the classic washington nondenial denial. in that was also saying statement, it fits very much with the idea that a proportional response, those being the key words, are what the administration is looking for. taking down the internet of north korea, as dramatic as that sounds, may be a proportional response because no physical damage is done, you are just attacking computers. it is possible this is some and that fits within the realm of the kinds of things you would expect the u.s. to do in response to the sony attack. host: does it matter? what does north korea say in response? guest: we have not heard much from north korea in terms of whether they were responsible for the event in the first place. the country does not have widespread internet access, so if you take out the internet, you are only affecting the elites, party members, government elites, some media.

most north koreans have never been on the internet, so it would not affect them at all. this could be the beginning of what would be called an information operational campaign instead of a propaganda campaign, where we attempt to manipulate information in north korea, we can cut off access to commit occasions. this is about sending a message not to the country but to the few people who can get online and are running things. times"the washington reported yesterday that the state media of north korea sunday night put out a statement , that "the army and people of north korea are fully ready to stand in confrontation with the u.s. in all war spaces, including cyber warfare space." guest: they are doing this because it is a domain cyberspace where they know they can compete with other large powers, where they can flex their muscles and be aggressive, much more so than they would in

a conventional military setting. so even by taking on the united states, what they're trying to say is that we are not defenseless, we are prepared to strike back and defend ourselves if we are attacked. very much the war of words that they have displayed in this space before. now what you have is the possibility that they were hit, so what do they do? if they came out and blames united states, you would expect the north koreans to retaliate in some way. history would tell us they will look for some other provocative measure to take the signal back to us, that you cannot just do this. the: your book is about rise of the internet military complex. how does it compare north korea's military internet contacts and our own? powerfule of the most cyber forces in the world would be us, the chinese, the russians, and the israelis are very sophisticated in this area. north korea is in the second and peopleer power,

have been joking in the past few days, how could north korea have launched a sophisticated attack on sony when they practically have no internet? to some extent they rely on hackers and other countries. a lot are in china and sort of farm this out. mostare not the sophisticated and skill, but they are highly aggressive. they have demonstrated that they theselling to use offensive cyber techniques against other countries, including south korea, that offend the regime or that they feel are rivaling them in some strategicybe are adversaries. and now they have done this in the united states and that escalates it. not as powerful and strong, but they're willing to use it, at least publicly in ways that countries have not done. host: you write that the u.s. military views cyber warfare as the fifth domain of war. what does that mean, and what sort of resources are going toward this? guest: we are pouring billions

into it right now. cyber security is one area of the defense and military budget that is growing, not being cut. sea,ther 4 -- air, land, and outer space. the military is trained and we have doctrine for offensive and defensive fighting. domain,ce is the fifth and military services are training up generations of cyber offenders and attackers, hackers, soldiers who will work alongside their colleagues who are flying planes and driving tanks and sailing ships. cyber becomes another component of how we fight wars, both in terms of propaganda against enemies, knocking out there to medications systems. even the kinds of things that we're seeing with north korea, if we weregine -- able to go to war with a country like north korea, we would want to sever to sever communications systems and knock it off line. this is something we will see in the future labor, i think. host: how does the military

recruit that type of soldier and compete with silicon valley and compete with those who want that type of worker? with: they try to compete people who come into services. one was spotted early on. he had a background in math and physics and was routed into the intelligence line of work in the military. that is where they are recruiting a lot these people from. but the nsa, the national security agency, has gone to hacker conferences to recruit people. the nsa helps colleges right curriculum for computer science students and will pay in some cases for you to get a four-year degree in computer science if you will come to work as a hacker to pay back the debt. but the competition with silicon valley and the financial sector is fierce. people can make vastly more

money doing cyber security work for a company, either working at a company or for one of the private security contractors we are seeing. the military will be behind the curve for a long time. they can promise a level of excitement and interesting job that maybe you would not get as much in the private sector. host: we are talking with shane harris, author of the new book "@war: the rise of the military-internet complex." taking your comments, in light of what we have seen with the north korea incident with sony. republican, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. 202-748-8002. guest: the cyber command will be

whichl command, wench -- runs the war in iraq and syria. all of the offenses and , all of themponents expertise, the capabilities, the cyber weapons, will all reside under the authority of cyber command. is that because cyber is such a particular discipline and will become such a big component of how we fight wars, the military at the end of the bush administration felt that cyber needed its own home rather than being strains and pockets of activity scattered throughout military services, so that when we do go to war and we need the cyber operators, they will be tasked out of cyber command. own command, its it is run by the director of the national security agency, which is an intelligence agency.

that has been controversial because now you have effectively a military command being run by the head of an intelligence agency, and we are mixing these two disciplines and these worlds together. our people have advised president obama, that if we want to mature are cyber capabilities and make sure they are not being run by secretive intelligence agencies, you need to split the command up and that cyber command stand on its own. it is getting there, rowing, and ultimately the military wanted to be able to be its own full-fledged command. but right now what it is is feeding the nsa and those intelligence agencies that we have learned so much about in the wake of the snowden kay's, in particular. that is not exactly the right --ture, because we have been we need to get it out of the race of the classified intelligence agency. it is governed by different parts of u.s. law. harris has written

about this in this book. and i want to ask what you have learned about cyber warfare from eric snowden. we will take your comments and questions on this as well. , 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-7 48-8000. 202-748-8002. what did we learn from eric snowden? guest: a lot of things. there were documents that did not get as much attention as the surveillance, the phone surveillance programs that were very telling. we wanted to learn how the nsa has been intersecting its computers around the world with what is called spyware, so that you can monitor them and control those computers. it is classic straightforward hacking.

we learned a lot about the systems and the global nature of how the nsa does that. there were blueprints for exploits, which you might think of as cyber weapons that were leaked out as well, published overseas. what we got is a glimpse into how systematic cyber operations have become for the intelligence community and how central hacking is to both the intelligence gathering mission of the nsa but also the mission to go out and try and disrupt and penetrate adversary networks. the united states was responsible for knocking north korea offline, the expertise to do that resides in the nsa. those are the people you would task to execute that mission. documents told us a lot about how central the cyber mission has now become for the intelligence community. doctrine ast have a the others do for offense and defense? guest: it is developing.

there are some rules of the road beginning to form. how it plays into the sony situation is the question of what constitutes an act of war in cyberspace. what would be an action that a country or group could take against us that would be so significant that the military would recommend that the president have some sort of response that might even involve cyber operations, a kinetic response. we do not have a lot of doctrine around that yet. it is generally agreed that a cyber attack on a system that causes physical damage, like a blackout or destruction to major communications systems, that might rise to something that the aesident would consider hostile act. but the doctrine of the rules are of engagement are forming around that. we do not know the rules in other countries. when we talk to china, what would we do in your cyberspace that we would consider hostile, and here is what we would consider hostile. the chinese are not telling us a lot.

we are not having a two-way conversation. that leads to a misunderstanding. you can see how the doctrine is loose and is not gelling together. let's get to robert in richmond, virginia. you are on the air. we as a country seem to be -- we are already in that we are all in -- we are all in everybody else's business. -- why are wes always in everyone else's business? when we do not take care of our own at home? is a big policy question in that that i do not know if i am completely qualified to answer, but you are hitting something that i write a lot about in the book. the united states and our

officials like to talk a lot about how we are at risk from other countries and how other countries are hacking into our systems, stealing our information, and trying to manipulate our infrastructure. but we are doing a lot of these things to other countries as well. we are one of the big aggressors in cyberspace, so we cannot be that surprised when another country decides to use these capabilities against us. say we can do is go out and there are certain behaviors across a line. the chinese are notorious for hacking into american corporations and stealing data from us that goes back to their companies, and we say, well, we don't give that information to countries in our country. between thehis line economic espionage they are doing and the kind that we are doing. takingare all out there aggressive measures, so we do not have clean hands in the space. so i do not think it is surprising to administration

officials when you see north korea getting up and becoming more aggressive because this is the people are vying for dominance, and so are we. we are part of that entire struggle. host: ray, you are next from california, an independent. caller: my question is, are you like a security trend specialist in counterfeits? i have been in security for 25 years, and my company is in detection security. you might be a security risk or security police, but i am not sure where you're going. but i am will tell you this, when you start assertions -- because assertion means you are not knowing -- and accuse other countries, especially in cyberspace, when the united states of america -- you do not have a blanket of security. two, you do not have a guard against police infringement.

or a security analyst, which might be, according to my -- looking at the situation, especially individuals with no expertise in security, security analysts -- i will tell you this . insecurity, you have to have strict. you do not have anything strict. a firm, assert, and propose. all that good stuff, if i was to say in exchange for the money that you get paid, what would deter this counterfeit? because that is what it is, right? counterfeit, when you infringe -- i.t.'s, your phones, all that. it is here, not over there. host: i think we got your point. shane harris? guest: you asked me my position. i am a journalist and i write about security and talk to

people in the industry. i think you are talking about how it gets to this idea of attribution. how do you have certainty when you are asserting that other countries have done something aggressive. in the sony case, the president directly pointed the finger at north korea. north korea is responsible for this. it is extremely difficult to know in the whole space when someone is actually behind a particular event are attacked. it is interesting president obama went on television and tells us that the information we have not seen publicly revealed probably is pretty persuasive. but this is an issue in the space of trying to a trip in these particular actions to individual countries. that is very hard, and it makes retaliating for any of these tax or these acts of espionage more difficult because we cannot say with certainty who is responsible for it. host: kathy from long branch, new jersey, a democratic caller. caller: let me tell you

something. war? what is a good for? absolutely nothing. except for these people who are hard at oil -- excuse my french -- are absolutely crazy. we voted for obama because he is an antiwar person. i am not even dates of that anymore. i remember dick cheney did not even -- i were over dick cheney did nothing but lie to us back in the day. host: are we inching toward cyber wars? are we getting closer than that -- closer to that? guest: i think we are. i do not think the sony situation rises to the level of war because no physical damage was done. but let's look at the attack years ago where the u.s. and israel built a computer advisor -- a computer virus that we inserted into a new care system and cause the centrifuge equipment to spin out of control and breakdown. with that qualify as an act of war? perhaps. it certainly was an act of

sabotage, causing physical damage to another country, violating its sovereignty. these kinds of instances, you will see more of them. we are entering into a new age of cyber war. and draw a spectrum in the book of different kind of activities that happen in cyberspace. what looks like war is hacking that has an actual outcome. you break into a computer system to cause physical real-world damage. that is not what happened in the sony case. that is what happened in the iran case. you will be seeing a mixture of all of these kinds of events that we should be careful to classify war legally as something that has an outcome. if something is an act of war, that will prompt a different response than sabotage or basic espionage host:. host:. . --t: here is a tweet

how big is the industry? guest: the industry is growing, and some of the startups are companies that come in after a company has been hacked to help them clean it up, helping them putting countermeasures to make sure it does not happen again. i write in the book about copies helping to develop cyber weapons quietly. it is information that is sold to governments, that is sold to companies in some cases. there is a really booming industry around this. part of the reason is that the governments cannot protect all of the internet. for one thing, the networks in this country, 85% of them are privately owned, private properly, effectively -- private property, a tentatively -- private property, effectively. it depends on the industry to protect itself. target and home depot and sony and j.p. morgan and many more that happened that you never

hear about, the more the securities companies will look to experts in the private sector to comment and guard them at i talked to one former official is possible for cyber security in the homeland security department, we have these -- and he said we have these massive services that are standing up that are as intelligent as the people in the intelligence agencies. many of these companies are formed by people who used to work in the military and intelligence agencies. so the industry is big and it will only become more central to all of security and cyber warfare in the future. book, you say $67 billion worldwide is spent. guest: we should emphasize that is not taking into account offensive spending by governments, classified spending by intelligence agencies, but the market for this, if you are looking at taking a valued measure of this, it is

absolutely huge and growing fast. next, froms, your humble, texas, an independent caller. caller: i was calling about the fcc and the rules and regulations. how did we get the war so wrong when we know about this information? aboutif you are talking the information in the war, let me talk about the current war that we are fighting in syria and iraq and how it pertains to cyber grade we had a lot of success in 2000 seven using hacking to get inside the communication systems, inside al qaeda and iraq. i read about how we were able to break into the networks and find all the major players. we have not had that kind of success with isis because they are not using communications in the same way.

much on the phone. they have become very savvy as an adversary for how to counter our hacking and surveillance. feature ofecome a these wars in the future. every time we develop a new way to break into a system or spy on someone, they are going to develop a countermeasure for that. all of this cyber warfare is about the moves and counter moves sprint it's true and traditional military but the speed at which it's happening in cyberspace is so much greater because of the technology. i think that will become a unique aspect of how we fight wars, the need to constantly be developing moves and counter moves. host: stephen in illinois, independent color, you are next. you, i want day to to comment on the gentle man talking about why are we always in other people's business. i think we have always been a commercial nation and the world

is getting smaller. tried to stay out of the world's affairs in world war i. in world warlesson ii by trying to stay out of the world affairs and we were drawn into a bloody mess. it's not whether we should be involved for our own interests and the stability of the world but it's how we go about it. is, how do struggle we gain partners and deal in the middle east? our engagement in the middle east could make things worse and to succeed.emies you made an interesting point about how the world seems to be getting smaller.

cyberspace is a great encapsulation of this idea. the barrier to entry for any building aget into cyber army is much lower than trying to build a maybe orfield and army or build a sophisticated modern air force. cyberspace is your mining us how interconnected we all are and how this domain is very contested. toe toon can really go toe with us in a kinetic military science. plenty of countries can cause a lot of damage and do a lot to annoy us at the very least in cyberspace. it's a reminder of how small the world actually is and the potential for escalation. host: does that mean that the military/internet complex will be cheaper than the military-industrial complex? guest: it may be. at the end of the day, building cyber systems is a lot cheaper than building missile systems. it isvestment in

supported. these are not long-term projects like talking about building of militaries. there will be less money to be made in the government space. that is why i think they will turn more to the private sector. if you are a start up right now doing private cyber security, a government contract could be very lucrative and get you access to a lot of people and projects you want to work on. it's really, the money will be made in the private sector. $65 billion is a much bigger figure than what they government is spending on cyber security. the real money to be made will be on these companies selling these services to private companies and not just working for the government. different than the military-industrial complex of the past. host: "usa today" has this story --

guest: it's true, another reminder of this is a big multinational corporation, sony, brought to its knees because its security appears not to have been very good. there is an education campaign that is going on. are watching what happened to sony and wondering if they need to worry about this. is the quest for expertise in information and more intelligence security that will keep driving the growth of this interesting -- of this industry. this is the opinion page of "the wall street journal."

how big of a task would that be and what does that entail? >> it would be huge and we have not been successful since the cessation of hostilities in the korean war. i think what this event reminds people of -- maybe this is the conversation -- even though north korea is this isolated country, a hermit kingdom, it has the ability to project force and influence on provocation outside what it's wait would suggest around the world. if they are in fact responsible for what happened to sony and i put a big"if" on that, look at what they have been able to do. look at the political consequences of this. to say nothing of the damage to the company itself. it is a huge month -- moment that has fixated our national security establishment.

i think it's a reminder of how countries like north korea -- iran is in this category -- see cyberspace is a place for they can go and flex their muscles and cause a lot of trouble in ways that they cannot and other domains. we should expect to see more of that. i think this will absolutely focus the attention on what you do about a larger threat of north korea. you cannot just isolate the cyber problem. it's indicative of a mindset of a country. you see the latest projection of this. host: he says it will come down to china. china not only has these ties to north korea, but it also has economic ties to south korea and that could be the answer. guest: beijing has been not too happy with the regime in north

korea. this is a real moment for the obama administration to push china on this question of its relationship with north korea. on the issue of hacking, most of the internet from north korea goes through china. most of the people behind the sunny attacker probably based in china and that's one way were beijing could crackdown and that's how it will have to happen. this is an opportunity i think for the white house to start pressing for realignment about these priorities. if this was if north korea, we have a public example of why this is a country that is likely to do this again, can't necessarily be trusted to moderate its behavior and china has to worry about this, too. you don't want a rampant cyber actor in your neighborhood claiming to be one of your allies. it will not be a chinese benefit. host: we'll go to texas, an independent, you are up next. caller: hi.

host: go ahead. caller: ok, good morning. host: good morning. how i: i was wondering can get involved in this area. i have a fatalistic view of everything. host: you are wondering about jobs in this industry? caller: helping develop this area. guest: it's a growth area. government agencies and companies looking for people with expertise in computer science and engineering and programming. we are trying now to field the next generation of hackers to defend and conduct operations offense of late. i think people who are interested in this particularly young people who are interested in this as a career will find

that the kinds of places used to go to study computer science for the purpose of writing programs, this -- these may become the new incubators to do cyber security. i think it will be an exciting and interesting time for people who want to be in this field. it is growing so fast. it is so closely tied to technology which has been the economic trevor for so long. if people want to get involved go to a i would say university that will have a program of computer science and you'll probably start finding the avenues are just opening up. companies are actively looking for people for cyber security. cortland, new york, joseph, democratic caller -- hi, joseph. one last call for joseph. eileen, in on to glencoe new york, independent color. you are on the air. i'm a previous

generation of what you folks are talking about. i worked at headquarters and am an air force veteran and i ran their intelligence messaging system in the late 1980's and early 1990's. i have been watching this whole thing with edward snowden with great interest. know about what our military is capable of, i have noticed a trend in domestic to startnce purview singling people out based on their religion, their gender preferences, their politics. there has been this syndrome rising in the united states and all over the world called a targeted individual where people are being harassed electronically with electronic

weapons, they are using more wireless technology to survey houses. au can actually arrange wireless perimeter around the house and you can spy on the people inside using wireless technology now. the fcc does not seem to be interested.in addressing this the press is completely ignoring the issue. about thee said possibility of looking at this. we are starting to organize now. the people being targeted, including myself, are starting to organize and talk to each other and share our experiences and we want to go to the government and say help us. it has not gotten a lot of tension. -- i tension. -- a tension. the security of the phone system on the wireless on system is an issue that is getting some

attention. washington is a city with lots of foreign officials and embassies on a lot of intelligence gathering going on in this city. there are devices right now that are sold cheaply on the open market. they are stingray devices. the technology to literally sit outside a building and start down during all of the phone signals in that building is very cheap right now. uri could probably go out and put it in our car and sit outside a building into some very basic surveillance if we wanted to. a number of people at the aclu and other x and -- organizations have been raising the question as to why the government is not doing more to secure those systems and make them less vulnerable to spying to say nothing of monitoring buyer on government but by anybody who wants to go out and monitor someone or foreign intelligence organizations that are monitoring embassies.

the answer is because the government needs to keep vulnerabilities so it can monitor it as well. it points to one of the really unusual and interesting aspects of cyberspace. the government has this incentive on the one hand to try to make medications networks safer and defend the networks but on the other, to keep fundamental weaknesses and vulnerabilities in them so we can spy on other people and we can do things to other people and possibly in this country as well. those are very conflicting missions. sorting out which side youerr in ahat is really a policy political challenge and that will be something that future presidents will have to start to reconcile. austin, texas, sue, democratic caller. , before i sayre anything else, when you tell a caller to tender -- turned down their tv come you should also tell them not to watch it. host: ok. caller: there are visual cues

that happen and i often hear and stutter because they expect to see your reactions that they will not happen. host: good advice. go ahead with your question or comment. code foram 63 and i games. in doing this, you have to be able to figure out all the ways the people using your code can abuse it. that is just a game. it can take a long time. came out,bama website it's not the first website that came out horribly. we come as americans, most of us do not code. most of us watch tv. tv, you can fix the hacking problem in an hour. on tv, you can see what's wrong with code in 30 seconds just

reading it. that's just not how it works. -- there are so much more involved in it and you have to be able to have guile to understand how people are going to misuse the code you are writing. you can write code that has that couldentions still have workarounds for people to abuse. guest: you are absolutely right. coding is externally, located. it is in many ways an art as well as a science. it's beautiful, really. ,hat she's pointing out is that particularly in complex systems, orre will always be some way some flaw of vulnerability. that's what hackers are doing is finding those weaknesses. it's incumbent on the people designing these two think one step ahead.

what i find fascinating about the engineering of this is that to be a really brilliant hacker, it requires you not just a figure out how you might undo a system but how you might build it so nobody else can manipulate it. this is where you get into the ,eeds of cyber operations people trying to find the weaknesses and flaws in each other's code and exploit that. these are the kinds of minds that are working both sides of those issues. it's really quite fascinating. it's a field that will grow. i know the administration and others are trying to encourage young people to get into this. they want more women to get involved in coding. this is a feel that has been largely dominated by men in computer science and engineering. teaching kids how to code can i sometimes wonder if it will be like when kids build soapbox derby cars and kids grow up writing codes and programs and apps on they probably will. reservoir ofthe

knowledge from which all of this activity will spring in the future. host: from twitter -- there is a lot of similarities. one similarity is that if you take cyber attacks as a category of military operations, you might put them in the category of something like remote warfare, things we can do without having to send troops to a battlefield. drones are the same thing. the drones that we have now are becoming more sophisticated and advanced. they talk to each other over computer networks and their run over computer and satellite networks. there is a question of whether those networks might be vulnerable to our adversaries. we put all of this in the category of future kind of war being the ones fought remotely for it is not about sending troops into harm's way. it's all most entirely dependent on technology and can indication systems to run. clifton park, new york,

independent -- sorry, i have to push the button. now you are on the air. caller: hello, i'm curious to this involves changing legal tender laws to digital currency. affect -- i think he is concerned with national security and the military and how that relates to the military. if he could comment on that. i would like to take his comments off the air, if i may. guest: it's not something i look at much in the book, digital currency. it's a fascinating subject. that comesquestions up is how do you secure a digital currency system question mark how do you make sure that the essential bank and if you think of it that way, is not hacked. it is a fascinating field of study and i think security is

the underpinning of that area. host: the book is "at warp your r." we've got about 10 it's left and we will go to arnold in tennessee, democratic caller. caller: good morning, how are you all doing? you were talking earlier about code being as much an art as it is a science. i would like to ask you a question -- i have written a book and i put the book online and it's free, there is no charge for it. godislove.org. on pages 31 and 32 of that book, you will see something that is either the signature of god, the signature of intelligent design or it's the signature of just

coincidence. from an alignment of 7's the book of revelation. want to say it's nothing but coincidence, host: what does this have to do with the topic? caller: ok, got as a programmer. carbon-based,n a three-dimensional, virtual reality game called life. just as people turn to god all the time in times of trouble, you know, controlling computer systems and stuff like that will be no problem.for a superior being host: travis in atlanta georgia, the lady had mentioned coding being the responsibility of the coder and before that it was mentioned the

israeli attack on the centrifuges. some people talked about the massibility of the fukushi being a recoding. how do you feel about responsibility question mark ,uest: this raises the question do you blame the victim in an attack? up question has often come of whether or not companies and manufacture pieces of software that have flaws and vulnerabilities in them should be held to some degree of liability. that has been something that has been a big debate. we should underscore that persistent hackers who want to break into networks and disrupt the's are always going to have an advantage which is time. they will constantly devote time to get out a system. if someone was to break into your house, you can protect your self as much as possible but they may find a way into it.

the responsibility and onus has to be on people creating software to make your they aren't as secure as possible but that aderstand persistent adversary will have time and possibly resources to come after you. most people are not equipped to deal with that. we should not be too quick even in a case like sony, there is a lot of blaming the victim that goes on in these cases. that may be an element of but let's remember that we don't go around blaming people for their houses getting robbed or for acts of violence perpetrated against them. there is a little bit of blame the victim mentality in cyberspace that should be modulated. host: another situation in the book is the relationship tween the government and tech giants like google and microsoft in this arena. what is going on there? guest: they are joining up largely because the government cannot protect all of these massive networks in the country on its own.

it needs companies to tell the government what kind of threats they are seeing and what are the signatures and patterns and trends they are seeing in their network. google processes so much of the world's into met traffic -- internet traffic and has a vantage point internetworks. a number of years ago, after google was actually hacked by spies in china and had some of its intellectual property compromise, they formed a secret agreement with the national security agency whereby google provides information to the nsa about the threats it sees and editing from its networks. an essay is supposed to in turn informed google about the kinds of things it sees perhaps from classified sources. this information sharing model which is unprecedented in american history -- companies becoming the beneficiaries of government intelligence derived from espionage and companies working with spy agencies to protect private systems is fascinating.

that is at the heart of how the government is doing cyber security on a broad scale. it's partnering with industries and companies and saying let's work together and share information to attack this problem. there are those in the government who would rather have the agencies like nsa come into those networks and take that job over entirely. the companies have resisted that and do not want intelligence agencies in their network that they're willing to form these partnerships as long it does not involve wholesale handing over the keys to your network. host: temple, texas, sam, democratic caller. good morning to you. you are on the air. caller: yes, you have to turn your tv off. listen through the phone. you are on. to cutler in new hampshire, democratic caller.

caller: yes. you are looking very nice this morning. i wish the staff merry christmas. the topic as i see is the rise of the military. i am ex navy from vietnam. i am in recovery and an alcoholic. i cannot justify any war we have been in except for world war ii and we did not enter that until we were affected by pearl harbor. i guess my feeling here is that we go into some of these wars looking for the best interest of the united states. oil or whatever. we have also supported corrupt dictators.

i think it's time for the people of this country to wake up to is a lot oft there collateral damage for heard a man speak this morning who was sent 13 times to afghanistan. ptsd, heck, he's got went to drugs and alcohol and today, through the grace of aa and god, he had dinner with his children who had turned away from him. host: we are running out of time. guest: as far as collateral damage, there is that risk in cyber wars. all of us who have to use the internet as well, the big question for policymakers in washington is if we are going to devote resources to defending our computer networks and the vital infrastructure in the

united states, at the same time, we will have a mission of trying , how do youtworks reconcile those? i think we need to have a real discussion about which side of that ledger will come down on. if defense is the business of the government to make the internet safer, there are a lot of things we are doing better making the internet less safe in trying to make it safer. there's a conflict between our missions now that we have not sorted out. host: what is the justification? guest: from the united states perspective, if we don't get their other countries will first. they will take over and dominate this space in the u.s. does not want to allow that to happen. we should also at the size that networks in this country are under assault. copies are having their intellectual properties stolen. the sony case has risen to the level of public optio consciousness and thousands of

other companies are being compromised for it is a real threat and needs to be addressed from host: that's what we'll talk about coming up next about the sony movie. do you plan to see a question mark guest: absolutely, hope they show it in washington. i want to see of it is any good. i think they set their expectations pretty high. i wanted to see before but i think it is a happening. i personally think that sony should air the film. i don't think we should bow to threats from whomever it was be -- that was behind this. it is free expression and i'm in the category of people who believe that. i will see the movie just as an active protest or a sign of solidarity. shane harris, rights for "the daily beast," covering cyber security and out with a new book "@war," thanks for your time. coming up next, we will get your thoughts on the sunny decision to have a limited viewing of "the interview" in some theaters

across the country and that will be happening tomorrow. we want to know if you plan to see it or don't plan to see it or are not sure. biden willsident joe be in suburban new york saturday to attend the funeral of one of the police officers killed in that weekend ambush in brooklyn. the family of the second officer will make arrangements after arriving from china. the number of americans applying for unemployment benefits has reached its lowest level in seven weeks, a sign that the u.s. economy and job market are steadily improving. the labor department says applications for unemployment benefits dropped by 9000 last week, to a seasonally adjusted 280,000. the number of people seeking jobless benefits has been at historically low levels for 14 of the past 15 weeks.

finally, the height no-show rate for immigrant families told to report back to immigration officials after crossing into the u.s. illegally has led to a new experiment to try to. keep track of their whereaboutsgps-enabled ankle bracelets. the homeland security department has told immigrant advocates that about 70% of immigrants traveling as families failed to report back after being detained and then released. those are some of the latest headlines from c-span radio. sunday, glenn kessler on the pinocchio awards. democrats tend to get more upset at them. i think they have bought into the myth of the liberal media and they think the media's on their side. believe in firmly the myth of the liberal media so