Gibson Warfare

[nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)]

URL: http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/inss/strforum/forum28.html


   Forum, Number 28, May 1995 
   
  WHAT IS INFORMATION WARFARE?
  
   Martin C. Libicki, National Defense University
   
   
   Is Information War (IW) a nascent, perhaps embryonic art, or 
simply
   the newest version of a time-honored feature of warfare? Is 
it a new
   form of conflict that owes its existence to the burgeoning 
global
   information infrastructure, or an old one whose origin lies 
in the
   wetware of the human brain but has been given new life by 
the
   information age? Is it a unified field or opportunistic 
assemblage?
   
   Since March 1993, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Memorandum of
   Policy Number 30 (MOP 30) has set forth definitions and 
relationships
   that have guided the joint community in its thinking about 
the related
   concepts of information warfare and command and control 
warfare. As
   these seminal ideas have evolved, their definitions and 
relationships
   have changed as well. MOP 30 is under revision, and both 
higher level
   policy documents for the Department of Defense and doctrinal
   publications of the Joint Staff and Services are either in 
draft form
   or under revision.
   
   In light of the unformed state of these concepts, 
alternative
   definitions and taxonomies for twenty-first century warfare 
are
   proposed:
   
    1. command-and-control warfare [C2W];
       
    2. intelligence-based warfare [IBW];
       
    3. electronic warfare [EW];
       
    4. psychological operations [PSYOPS];
       
    5. hackerwar software-based attacks on information systems;
       
    6. information economic warfare [IEW] war via the control 
of
       information trade; and
       
    7. cyberwar [combat in the virtual realm]. ...
       
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URL: http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/inss/actpubs/act003/a003ch07.html

Hacker Warfare


   The hacker attacks discussed here are attacks on civilian 
targets
   (military hacker attacks come under the rubric of C2 
warfare). Note 41
   Although attacks on civilian and military targets share some
   characteristics of offense and defense, military systems 
tend to be
   more secure than civilian systems, because they are not 
designed for
   public access. Critical systems are often disconnected from 
all others
   -- "air gapped," as it were, by a physical separation 
between those
   system and all others.
   
   
   From an operational point of view, civilian systems can be 
attacked at
   physical, syntactic, and semantic levels. Here, the focus is 
on
   syntactic attacks, which affect bit movement. Concern for 
physical
   attacks (see above, on C2W) is relatively low Note 42 
(although some
   big computers on Wall Street can be disabled by going after 
the little
   computers that control their air-conditioning). Semantic 
attacks
   (which affect the meaning of what computers receive from 
elsewhere)
   are covered below, under cyberwarfare.
   
   
   Hacker warfare can be further differentiated into defensive 
and
   offensive operations. The debate on defensive hacker warfare 
concerns
   the appropriate role for the DoD in safeguarding nonmilitary
   computers. The debate on offensive hacker warfare concerns 
whether it
   should take place at all. In contrast to, say, proponents of 
tank or
   submarine warfare, only a few hackers argue that the best 
defense
   against a hacker attack is a hacker attack.
  
   
   Whether hacker warfare is a useful instrument of policy is a 
question
   that defense analysts and science fiction writers may be 
equally well
   placed to answer. Hacker warfare would, without doubt, be a 
new form
   of conflict ...

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URL: http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/inss/actpubs/act003/a003ch09.html

   
Cyberwarfare

   
   Of the seven forms of information warfare, cyberwarfare -- a 
broad
   category that includes information terrorism, semantic 
attacks,
   simula-warfare and Gibson-warfare -- is clearly the least 
tractable
   because by far the most fictitious, differing only in degree 
from
   information warfare as a whole. The global information 
infrastructure
   has yet to evolve to the point where any of these forms of 
combat is
   possible; such considerations are akin to discussions in the 
Victorian
   era of what air-to-air combat would be. And the 
infrastructure may
   never evolve to enable such attacks. The dangers or, better, 
the
   pointlessness, of building the infrastructure described 
below may be
   visible well before the opportunity to build it will present 
itself. ...
   
   
   The difference between a semantic attack and hacker warfare 
is that
   the latter produces random, or even systematic, failures in 
systems,
   and they cease to operate. A system under semantic attack 
operates and
   will be perceived as operating correctly (otherwise the 
semantic
   attack is a failure), but it will generate answers at 
variance with
   reality.
  
   
   The possibility of a semantic attack presumes certain 
characteristics
   of the information systems. Systems, for instance, may rely 
on sensor
   input to make decisions about the real world (e.g., nuclear 
power
   system that monitors seismic activity). If the sensors can 
be fooled,
   the systems can be tricked (e.g., shutting down in face of a
   nonexistent earthquake). Safeguards against failure might 
lie in, say,
   sensors redundant by type and distribution, aided by a wise
   distribution of decisionmaking power among humans and 
machines.
   
   
  GIBSON-WARFARE

   
   The author confesses to having read William Gibson's 
Neuromancer
   Note 61 and, worse, to having seen the Disney movie "TRON." 
In both,
   heroes and villains are transformed into virtual characters 
who
   inhabit the innards of enormous systems and there duel with 
others
   equally virtual, if less virtuous. What these heroes and 
villains are
   doing inside those systems or, more to the point, why anyone 
would
   wish to construct a network that would permit them to wage 
combat
   there in the first place is never really clear.
   
   
   Why bring up Gibson's novel and the Disney movie? Because to 
judge
   what otherwise sober analysts choose to include as 
information warfare
   -- such as hacker warfare or esoteric versions of 
psychological
   warfare -- the range of what can be included in its 
definition is
   hardly limited by reality. ...
   
   
   Possible? Actually, yes. Relevant to national security? Not 
soon.