[iwar] [fc:U.S..Prepares.for.Cyberwar.--.the.War.Next.Time]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-11-08 11:30:52
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2001 11:30:52 -0800 (PST)
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U.S. Prepares for Cyberwar -- the War Next Time

By Jim Wolf, Reuters, 11/8/2001
<a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011108/tc/tech_cybersecurity_infowar_dc_1.html">http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011108/tc/tech_cybersecurity_infowar_dc_1.html>

Even as it fights in Afghanistan (news - web sites) with bombs and guns
and allies on horseback, the U.S. military is gearing up to use
computers and code as potentially decisive weapons in the next phases of
its campaign.

The goal would be to disable air defense systems, scramble enemy
logistics and perhaps infect software through tactics being honed by a
joint task force set up in 1999 under the Colorado Springs,
Colorado-based U.S. Space Command.

The U.S. military has been working on tools that could wreak electronic
havoc on countries accused of harboring terrorists as well as on ways of
defending global networks against cyberattack.

``Transformation cannot wait,'' Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said
last week, using military jargon for souping up U.S. forces to meet
21st-century threats and to cash in on high-tech covert capabilities.

``We must act now to prepare for the next war, even as we wage the
current war against terrorism,'' he wrote in a Nov. 1 Washington Post
guest column.

After the Sept. 11 blitz that turned civilian airliners into missiles,
killing some 4,800 people, the United States must plan for new and
different foes who will rely on ''surprise, deception and asymmetric
weapons,'' or those meant to overcome the lopsided U.S. edge in
conventional arms, Rumsfeld said.

``To deal with those future surprises, we must move rapidly now to
improve our ability to protect U.S. information systems and ensure
persistent surveillance, tracking and rapid engagement of an adversary's
forces and capabilities,'' he said.

CYBERARMS JOIN U.S. ARSENAL

The Defense Department has been readying to make cyber blitzes on enemy
computer networks a standard tool of war, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers,
now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this year as he
left the Space Command.

Army Gen. Henry Shelton, Myers's predecessor as the top U.S. military
officer, confirmed that the United States had jabbed electronically into
Serbian computer networks throughout the 78-day NATO (news - web sites)
bombing campaign over Kosovo in 1999.

``We only used our capability to a very limited degree,'' Shelton said
on Oct. 7, 1999.

At the same time, unspecified hostile countries have probed U.S.
computer networks for ways to spark mayhem in wartime, Richard Clarke,
the White House National Security Council staff coordinator for
security, infrastructure protection and counter-terrorism, said in June.

``This is not theoretical. It's real,'' Clarke said at the time. He was
tapped by President George Bush on Oct. 16 to head a new senior advisory
board on critical infrastructure protection -- in other words, the
country's vital communications, transportation, food and health care

systems.

CIA (news - web sites) and Pentagon (news - web sites) war games already
feature foes using bits and bytes, not bombs or ballistic missiles, to
attack U.S. financial institutions, communications hubs and spy
satellites.

SAT OUT Y2K

If Afghanistan were home to anything but one of the world's least
computer-reliant societies, U.S. forces might have kicked off the
campaign they began Oct. 7 with keyboard-launched strikes to disrupt the
Taliban militia's command and control.

But a cyberblitz would have had scant impact on Afghanistan, one of only
a handful of nations that never even bothered to touch base with a
United Nations (news - web sites) network that prepped governments for
feared Year 2000 computer disruptions.

``They're just not connected,'' said information security strategist
Bruce McConnell, who tried unsuccessfully to include the Taliban in the
International Y2K Cooperation Center he headed under U.N. aegis.

Since the start of the U.S.-led campaign against Afghan protectors of
terror suspect Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), ``We've seen
absolutely no indication of terrorists attacking via cyberspace,'' Space
Command spokesman Army Maj. Barry Venable said.

But guerrilla forces are bound to turn to cyber weapons to wage their
battles in an increasingly networked future, just as political activists
have used denial-of-service attacks and Web page defacements to amplify
their messages.

``As we harden our bridges, airports and other infrastructure,
terrorists are going to seek the path of least resistance,'' said Steven
Roberts, a computer security expert at Georgetown University. ``That
means they're likely to embrace information warfare tools such as
viruses, Trojan Horses and password crackers.''

LEGAL ISSUES

From the standpoint of international law, there are two big questions to
tackle before unleashing any kind of military response, whether it is
clubs and spears or bits and bytes.

The first is whether a strike -- including one in cyberspace -- amounts
to a ``use of force'' or an ``armed attack'' under international law,
said Thomas Wingfield of Falls Church, Virginia-based Aegis Research
Corp., a national security consultancy that has worked on the issue for
U.S. government clients.

If so, four distinct tests would have to be met before the use of cyber
weapons or other arms would be considered lawful self-defense.

The first is discrimination -- targeting combatants and not civilians.
The second is necessity -- using no more force than required to
accomplish a mission nor using inhumane means such as chemical or
biological weapons.

The third is proportionality, or balancing the military advantage
against harm to civilians, said Wingfield, a naval intelligence officer
turned national security lawyer.

Finally comes the age-old principle of chivalry. It permits ''ruses of
war'' to trick a foe but not ``perfidy'' -- defined as treacherous
deceit about the legal status of the combatants. ''Tactical deception:
OK. Legal deception: war crime,'' he said. ''And all of these things
extend into cyberspace.''

Because these are the newest weapons in the U.S. arsenal, many of the
questions surrounding their use are being confronted for the first time.

``They will have to be resolved on a case-by-case basis, much as new
legal doctrines were developed for aircraft at the beginning of the last
century,'' Wingfield said.

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