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Yes,
somebody
may be listening to your network. But that's CyberWar...
There's nothing that instils fear
more than a lack of
knowledge...Here's some food for thought.
From the rise of the Iron Curtain in 1946 to the collapse
of the Soviet Empire in 1991, the Cold
War was the central story of our times and will make
an important impact on how humanity shapes the future.
Information Warfare
is a 21 century reality for both military
human networks and human business networks and should be seriously
considered by all Information Officers in this age. Is there really a way to wage modern conflict without guns?
Well actually its been around for centuries...
Information warfare (IW) also known as 'infowar' - is a
military term used to describe a range of attempts by military or commercial forces in a conflict/struggle/relationship to deny or disrupt an
opponent's information and information systems, while preventing
the adversaries from doing the same to the information and information systems of
allied/friendly forces or networks.
IW is a central component currently transforming the US military, and is closely associated with related concepts such as:
cyber war, netwar, command and control warfare (C2W), information operations (IO); as well as older staples of US information strategy such as public diplomacy, psychological operations
(PSYOPS),
(SPEA), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and electronic warfare (EW).
Literary works such as Future Shock (1970) and The Third Wave (1980) - argue
that human history can be seen as the unfolding of three
successive and overlapping technological revolutions (i.e. the
agricultural, industrial and informational).
The perceived cost of loosing soldiers to modern battlefield weapons
is a serious decision factor for battlefield commanders
today. Humans are moving further and further out of range
from facing one another on the battlefield than ever
before, simply because of the destructive nature of the weapons being
employed.
Information technology has become the driving
force behind hi-tech weapons. Informational technology - with its
associated civilization transformations is influencing the ways
in which human societies wage war today.
Surprisingly in a country where the ignorant believe Military
Intelligence is a contradiction in terms, Information
Warfare (IW) is nothing new. South African Intelligence operators of both the former SADF and
opposing armies backed by the USSR during the Cold War
are just as familiar with the terms IW, EW (C2W) public diplomacy ops and
PSYOPS as are operators of the US or former USSR.
IW is kept under wraps for obvious reasons, as was South Africa's
advanced aerospace research of the 70's and 80's. The words RSA3
and RSA4 probably mean little to most people. South Africa has never been
asleep. Don't ever presume to
think we actually have all the information all the time,
its all simply a matter of security.
Today IW is used with
major success on many battlefields across the world. One
of the most recent being the war in Kuwait. US,
Australian, British, Chinese and Russian IW strategies exist
and are considered on modern battlefields today.
To the extent that information is increasingly implicated in
production systems, strategies of governance and modes of warfare;
it is quickly becoming a critical resource in 21st century
perceptions and concepts of power. In such a world, control over
the means of communication becomes an important element of power
(a force multiplier of perception).
If the goal of global information warfare is to disorient and
disrupt decision making processes and social cohesion of adversary
networks in order to achieve desirable results (Richard
Szazifrans) government and business should be more serious about
Information Security than ever before, there will always be
opponents with information needs to satisfy - as there is always
someone that is willing to satisfy those needs at the right
price.
As for CyberWar (a small component of IW), if the military is
considering to build "Honeywebs" by
building fake networks to divert hackers/ adversaries away from critical
systems and to gain intelligence on their attack methods. Should
business not be thinking down the same line of defence?
Let's not get paranoid, access to information can be good. But how much information is
enough, who is requesting your data and why?
Remember this ?
"Hackers target SA millions (Africa News Service;
07/03/98) South African companies are under constant
attack by computer hackers and crackers around the globe
and fears are growing that inadequate computer security
could let cyber thieves get their hands on millions of
Rands and confidential information. Ian Melamed, a
Johannesburg computer crime expert working with Interpol
to control the problem in Africa, said break-ins on the
continent's computer systems had reached crisis levels and
were getting worse."
Makes you think doesn't it? Send comments to iw@itworx.co.za
Links that make some interesting reading.
Dupuy
Institute ,North Virginia, Washington DC
-
Lessons
learned from modern military campaigns.
Human
Rights Watch: Africa
Harvard
Project on Cold War Studies (HPCWS)
Features declassified documents, information about The
Journal of Cold War Studies
BBC
Cold War Summary (A Media source)
CNN
Cold War perspective (A
Media Source)
Cold
War Museum
DefenseLink from
US DOD
Terrorism
& The Cold War
Desert
Shield Force Deployment
Military
Acronyms
Arms
Control Treaties
USAF
Doctrine
Boeing
707 - Special Missions
Milnet
Sources
Watching
& Knowing
British
IC Chicksands
South
Africa - Military Intelligence and Intelligence
Coordination
South Africa. Military
Intelligence and Intelligence Coordination.
The military
has a long history of intelligence gathering and
evaluation
Information Warfare - Military
Perspective
The Information Warfare Site.
Information
Warfare Cornerstones
The
Low-Tech Side of Information Warfare
by Capt Alex Berger
(Director of Joint Psychological Operations Course at USAF Special
Operations School)
Understanding an ancient Chinese / Soviet Persuasion
The Art of War
The
Art of War by - Project Gutenberg
Sun
Tzu The Art of War Strategy Site
The Art of War for
Traders and Investors
http://www.artofwar.com/index.html
Sun-tzu Art of
War in Information Warfare
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/siws/cont.html
U.S. National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
Understanding
Sun-tzu on the Art of War
http://www.artofwarsuntzu.com
Glossary
of Information Warfare Terms
A glossary of terms related to information warfare
IWS
- The Information Warfare Site
Resource that aims to stimulate debate on issues involving
information security, information operations, computer network
operations and more
For Fridays...On a less serious note
Hourly
STD DMSP/POLAR Auroral Activity Report
Real
Time Aurora Watch
Near-Real-Time
Maximum Usable Frequency Map
Propogation
Information
ACE
RTSW Solar Information
Today's
Space Weather
Also
read this lighthearted look at IW by Anton Coetzee
Ja,
well no fine....
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