Re: [iwar] Information Warfare & terminology
From: Tony Bartoletti
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From: Tony Bartoletti
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Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 17:31:33 -0800
Reply-To: iwar@egroups.com
Subject: Re: [iwar] Information Warfare & terminology
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At 10:52 PM 12/15/00 +0000, Wanja Eric Naef wrote:
>Well, I looked at the recent emails in this group and asked myself what
>can we call the 'Middle East Cyber Conflict'. Cybergraffiti War or
>more likely Information Operations as Fred points out.
[snip]
>In any discussion/conversation one should establish a terminology (e.g.
>civilian pilots, ...) to have a common ground when one communicates with
>someone else.
This would certainly be valuable, and if done well, serve to foster more
accurate and responsible (more hype-free) reporting.
I think 50 years ago, the term "information warfare" was more closely
aligned with psy-ops and perception management. Dropping leaflets from a
plane, exhorting an adversarial public to withdraw support, spread false
(or true) information, etc. If an enemy agent could, with pencil and
paper, modify a train schedule or critical package shipping address, this
would have been considered sabotage (although technically it is still an
information operation, which might be most broadly defined as "interfering
with the intended flow of information to one's advantage." (Unfortunately,
check forgery might also fall under this overly broad definition.)
We need separate terms to identify (1) the nature of the medium or "means"
by which the attack or exploit is enabled, and (2) a separate set of terms
that hope to characterize the intended strategic or tactical effect to be
produced.
Example: Dropping leaflets from a plane, and effecting a (non-DOS) email
campaign, may both serve to "manage perceptions" (2), but are clearly
enabled by different means (1). Hence, the means to prevent the one will
be different than that which would prevent the other.
Similarly, to knock out a communications satellite with (a) a missile, or
(b) a laptop, the end effect might be identical (loss of satellite) but
again the means are very different, and so must be the defensive measures.
Alternately: A hacker, exploiting a set of servers, could trigger either a
political email campaign (to manage perceptions), or to launch a focused
DDOS attack and close down a commercial endeavor. In this case, the
"medium of exploit" is really the same (weak protocols, vulnerable
networked systems), but the intended effect a distinctly different act.
I tend to prefer the term "cyber" to indicate that the "medium of exploit"
is (electronic) protocol and software related, and "info" when I want to
stress that "modified data" was a critical part of making the exploit
work. Subversion of internet routing tables is a "cyber-enabled info-op".
Unfortunately, the term "info-op" is often employed to mean
propaganda/mis-information, etc. That is, it is often used to characterize
an "effect" rather than a "means".
___tony___
Tony Bartoletti 925-422-3881
Information Operations, Warfare and Assurance Center
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Livermore, CA 94551-9900
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