Re: New Infowarfare Panel

At 8:01 PM 7/17/96, Dave Banisar wrote:
>If y'all have heard, Clinton signed an executive order 2 days ago creating a
>new panel to examine how to "protect" "critical" computer systems. The panel
>will be made of of the usual suspects with a non-govt person ($5.00 says it
>will be someone from one of those wonderfully independant companies like SAIC,
>MITRETEC, EDS, E-Systems).
>
>Needless to say, it looks an awful lot like NSDD-145 all over again with the
>panel recommending changes to the law to allo for greater coordination of LE,
>intell for govt computers and god knows what for non-govt computers.
>
>Anyway, the directive is now up on our site at
>http://www.epic.org/security/infowar/eo_cip.html

Thanks.

It's certainly beginning to look like "infowar" is the new
funding/legislation fount....I suggest it be given honorary status as a
"Horseman."

Winn Schwartau is running conferences, is talking about the imminent danger
of the nation's computer networks being knocked out (paraphrasing his
latest "Wired" item: "imagine your ATM network being knocked out and people
being unable to gain access to their money").

Schwartau is predicting/advocating a "fifth branch" of the military to deal
with the this threat. A cyberforce, as it were.

Color me skeptical, but I see this all as a lot of hype and fear-mongering.
Folks in the Pentagon, FBI, and NSA probably see it as a way to get more
funding, Folks in the consulting business probably see it as a way to crank
up the seminar prices and increase the number and frequency of "Information
Warfare" workshops and seminars.

And the anti-terrorism folks will use it to tighten up.

(Of course, tonight's explosion of the TWA 800 looks to be a bomb, from all
indications...this _could_ be the "Oklahoma II" incident that will trigger
more draconian surveillance legislation. Just a concern I have.)

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Licensed Ontologist         | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

At 8:30 PM -0700 7/17/96, Timothy C. May wrote:

>Winn Schwartau is running conferences, is talking about the imminent danger
>of the nation's computer networks being knocked out (paraphrasing his
>latest "Wired" item: "imagine your ATM network being knocked out and people
>being unable to gain access to their money").
>
>Schwartau is predicting/advocating a "fifth branch" of the military to deal
>with the this threat. A cyberforce, as it were.
>
>Color me skeptical, but I see this all as a lot of hype and fear-mongering.
>Folks in the Pentagon, FBI, and NSA probably see it as a way to get more
>funding, Folks in the consulting business probably see it as a way to crank
>up the seminar prices and increase the number and frequency of "Information
>Warfare" workshops and seminars.

Haven't there been some worked examples of information warfare that make
this fear and the need to deal with it legitimate?

As I recall my background reading in the public press, wasn't the etiology
that we figured out how to do some pretty nasty things (the Gulf war was
one presenting occasion) to enemies' info infrastructures to threaten their
entire social system. Then, as I understand it, someone smart said
something like "If we can do this to them, then someone can do this to us."
and we were off to the races.

It's the military and counterintel community's job to think like this and
act to protect us. I don't think imputing selfish motives is dispositive.

David

David Sternlight wrote:

> As I recall my background reading in the public press, wasn't the etiology
> that we figured out how to do some pretty nasty things (the Gulf war was
> one presenting occasion) to enemies' info infrastructures to threaten their
> entire social system.

My personal recollection is that many of the InfoWar techniques we crafted
during the Gulf War involved using high speed fighter-bomber aircraft to
drop guided munitions on top of selected pieces of the communications
infrastructure.

______c_____________________________________________________________________
Mike M Nally * Tiv^H^H^H IBM * Austin TX    * For the time being,
       m5@tivoli.com * m101@io.com          *    
      <URL:http://www.io.com/~m101>         *    three heads and eight arms.

Mike McNally <m5@vail.tivoli.com> writes:
> My personal recollection is that many of the InfoWar techniques we crafted
> during the Gulf War involved using high speed fighter-bomber aircraft to
> drop guided munitions on top of selected pieces of the communications
> infrastructure.

That didn't do much... Iraq's TCP/IP network proved too resilient for
U.S. bombs. Interestingly, one of the Russians who built it now works for
sprintnet.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

At 12:09 PM -0700 7/18/96, Mike McNally wrote:
>David Sternlight wrote:
>
>> As I recall my background reading in the public press, wasn't the etiology
>> that we figured out how to do some pretty nasty things (the Gulf war was
>> one presenting occasion) to enemies' info infrastructures to threaten their
>> entire social system.
>
>My personal recollection is that many of the InfoWar techniques we crafted
>during the Gulf War involved using high speed fighter-bomber aircraft to
>drop guided munitions on top of selected pieces of the communications
>infrastructure.

I'm talking about some of the information that started slowly leaking out
later, not the prime-time TV pyrotechnics.

David

>At 12:09 PM -0700 7/18/96, Mike McNally wrote:
>>My personal recollection is that many of the InfoWar techniques we crafted
>>during the Gulf War involved using high speed fighter-bomber aircraft to
>>drop guided munitions on top of selected pieces of the communications
>>infrastructure.

David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com> writes:
>I'm talking about some of the information that started slowly leaking out
>later, not the prime-time TV pyrotechnics.

Please elaborate.  Worked examples of info warfare would be useful for
us to study... making useful government policy based on unsupported
recollections and dubious anecdotes is difficult.  (I won't drag in the
more cypherpunk-related example I had in mind, for fear of derailing
this conversation from this specific topic.)

	Jim Gillogly
	Hevensday, 25 Afterlithe S.R. 1996, 23:13

David Sternlight wrote:

> >My personal recollection... high speed fighter-bomber aircraft ...

> I'm talking about some of the information that started slowly leaking out
> later, not the prime-time TV pyrotechnics.

Well, a lot of stuff "leaked out", but I'm not sure how much was actually
acknowledged to be true.  There was the thing about the "virus" in the
printer drivers, or something like that, but I seriously don't see how
any sort of software "attack" would have much significance once the 
Iraqi national microwave network was blasted into oblivion.

The point is that I don't personally believe that there's much of a
credible threat of one of these "Infowar Attacks" that this new 
commission plans to anticipate (by some means of divination; I am
really eager to see what that turns out to be).  Commercial systems
are disparate enough and so inherently flaky that I doubt some terrorist 
agency could do much worse than your run-of-the-mill catastrophic 
system failure.  The power grid is an exception, perhaps, but to 
attack that with any sort of real effect would probably require a
physical attack, and in any case even the grid seems capable of
random failures that bring about random chaos without the need for
creepy foreigners.

I also dispute the "lighthouse" story.  That setup only is meaningful 
when there's a service necessary to the well-being of the community in a 
situation where no mechanism for ready cash flow to a provider exists.  
I question the premise that commercial suppliers of security systems &
consulting can't solve corporate security problems effectively.  Indeed, 
a good argument could be made that we're better defended by a wide 
variety of different security systems, rather than a single General 
Issue Uncle Sam Security System.

______c_____________________________________________________________________
Mike M Nally * Tiv^H^H^H IBM * Austin TX    * For the time being,
       m5@tivoli.com * m101@io.com          *    
      <URL:http://www.io.com/~m101>         *    three heads and eight arms.