US Cyberwar Policy

[B Potter <gdead@shmoo.com>]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000105/tc/military_computers_1.html

"The Pentagon plans to make cyber blitzes on a foe's computer networks a
standard war tactic, the incoming No. 2 U.S. military officer said
Wednesday.

 After policy and legal issues are sorted out, cyber tactics should take
their place in every commander's arsenal alongside bombs, cruise missiles
and attack helicopters, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers told a Pentagon
briefing."
........
"Among the thorny policy issues is the potential blurring of the line
between military and civilian targets. Myers cited the case of knocking
out a communications network handling civilian  applications as well as a
nation's air defense."


OK, this has a lot of implications.  If this "info war" is carried out in
the operations theatre (ie: in Kosovo or wherever) by soliders physically
present (or via nothing but goverment networks linking to the local access
points) that's one thing.  But there's a whole nother can of worm that get
opened up if these attacks are carried out across the public internet.
And more likely, the relatiatory attacks carried out across the same
internet.

The NSP's in the middle of this little battle will probably get ticked off
a having to carry this wartime traffic (all of EvilCountry tries to DoS
some critical public info site like...  eBay in retaliation for a cyber
attack) and start shutting off ppl and hammering routes to the floor.
This stops their problems, but it also stops the attacks, which I doubt
either country would like (esp the US).  So then the US would put pressure
on GTE (for example) to keep the EvilCountry connected so the ops can
continue.  This is the first step (first rationalization) for
nationalization of the Internet.  When privated companies get in the way
of a war, the private company usually gets squashed in one way or another.

Any way you slice it, this is gonna be a mess.

later

bruce
http://www.shmoo.com