[iwar] news

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-08-28 06:38:45


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Brief excerpts from a long and detailed MSNBC story of 20 August 2001

Posting only the portions about China that India should be wary of.

Full story at MSNBC.com August 20, 2001

The U.S.-China Information War By William Arkin and Robert Windrem, 
Special To MSNBC

`Machine-to-machine' battles a backdrop to EP-3 incident 

Ravi V Prasad

=============================================

China: Info-War Superpower

But the virulent Chinese reaction to the EP-3 incident, officials say,
is a sign of just how critically important information warfare has
become to China. 

Throughout the 1990s, information warfare theory grew in China, and its
People's Liberation Army (PLA) began shifting its focus from the Mao
Zedong model of the "People's War," a protracted, large-scale conflict,
to smaller-scale "local wars under high-tech conditions."

On the offensive side, according to the Defense Department's annual
report to Congress on Chinese military power: "China appears interested
in researching methods to insert computer viruses into foreign networks
as part of its overall [information operations] strategy." Some reports
suggest the Chinese military plans to elevate IW to a separate service
on par with its army, navy and air force.  This would include
detachments of network warriors organized into "shock brigades," says
Timothy Thomas, an analyst at the U.S.  Army's Foreign Military Studies
Office. 

Many Western specialists on China are more concerned about the pace of
information warfare than the growth of Chinese nuclear or conventional
weapons modernization.  At a 1995 Chinese military forum, more than 30
high-ranking experts called for the development of weapons that can
"throw the financial systems and army command systems of the
"hegemonists" - i.e., America - "into chaos." U.S.  intelligence has
since monitored China's own integrated IW effort, including, the Defense
Department says, stepped-up "attempts to penetrate foreign information
systems" and the development of high-powered microwave and other
directed-energy weapons to attack information systems. 

China's emerging IW capability was first detected during an October 1998
exercise conducted in the Lanzhou Military Region in the far west of
China, where an electronic "confrontation" was simulated, including
reconnaissance, interference and destruction.  Chinese engineers are
also known to have conducted experiments in introducing viruses into
adversaries' computer systems from long distances via wireless means. 

Prelude To A No Contact War?

Today in China, secure communications, computer networks and a
nationwide fiber-optic network reflect China's commitment to information
warfare, both offensive and defensive.  Fiber-optic cables, in
particular, are enormously effective because they transmit data that
cannot be remotely intercepted, the way radio or microwave
communications can.  In the 1998 exercise, the Beijing Military Region
used its new fiber-optic "military information superhighway" for the
first time on a large scale.  Intelligence sources say these and other
exercises have demonstrated that China's capabilities in "information
denial" are now some of the best in the world. 

A Defense Department assessment of these efforts concludes that "many
officials in the PLA view the Kosovo conflict as the first example of a
purely `no contact' war, in which control of aerospace and information
systems were the deciding factors."

In fact, the U.S.  intelligence community's assessment of the EP-3
incident is that China viewed it as part of a larger, ongoing struggle
in which Beijing's resolve and capabilities are constantly being probed
and tested by the United States.  Among the events that make up this
Chinese perception: the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade,
Yugoslavia, during the Kosovo war, Chinese success in obtaining secret
nuclear and ballistic missile secrets from Washington, and the frictions
surrounding the Wen Ho Lee case. 

Rude Awakening

For China, integration into the global economy poses enormous tradeoffs. 
The proliferation of Microsoft and Intel technology in China's national
security network, for example, has been identified by Beijing as a cause
for concern.  China became aware of its vulnerability to computer
failures in 1992 when 12 national railroad computer systems failed and
wreaked havoc on its transportation system.  It was "a rude awakening
for China's leadership," says Mark A.  Stokes, a Chinese intelligence
expert and former U.S.  air attachi in Beijing. 

Today, more than 90 percent of computer users in China depend upon
Microsoft Windows products, leading many in the Chinese military and
national security institutions to worry about foreign attempts to insert
viruses into their information systems.  Within the military, there are
efforts afoot to decrease dependence on external sources of software and
integrated circuits.  Chinese newspapers, too, have jumped into the
debate, fanning "rumors" of cyber "Trojan horses" embedded in Windows
software.  The newspapers alleged that these backdoors sent user
information back to a huge database at Microsoft headquarters, the
Workers' Daily newspaper said last year.  A spokesman for Microsoft
denied the rumors at the time. 

For the time being, a high-ranking U.S.  intelligence official says,
U.S.  info-war capabilities far outstrip those of China or any other
potential adversary. 

"The countries who would pose the greatest threat to us in terms of
information warfare are increasingly dependent on the same systems we
use," said the official.  "Something like 90 percent of China's military
computer systems use Windows and Intel chips.  They know if they attack
us, we have an even greater capability at NSA [the National Security
Agency] to go after them.  No one has been working on offensive info-war
longer than we have."

But as in many things - from economic reform to military modernization
to population control - China's planning appears to focus on the distant
horizon, and experts agree that their activity to date has put them on
the info-war map in a very big way. 

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