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Bush Orders Guidelines For Cyber-Warfare
from the does-this-make-sense? dept
With all the scary stories being thrown around concerning cyber terrorist attacks against the US, someone in the government finally realized that perhaps we should have some offensive cyber warfare plans ourselves. Something kept bothering me, though, as I read through this Washington Post article about an executive order from President Bush asking that guidelines be developed for engaging in “cyber warfare”, which is compared to guidelines developed years ago for nuclear warfare. The problem here is that the technology is changing so rapidly that I wonder how long a set of guidelines remains relevant? I’m also not convinced of the power of “cyber warfare” to really be effective in any meaningful way, but no one seems to want to take chances. I still get the feeling that physically destroying infrastructure is many times more effective than zapping a hard drive with a virus.
Comments on “Bush Orders Guidelines For Cyber-Warfare”
'Course it is . . .
“The problem here is that the technology is changing so rapidly that I wonder how long a set of guidelines remains relevant?”
He’s commissioning the rules of engagement, not the operational blueprint, so the technology change is not a factor.
“I’m also not convinced of the power of “cyber warfare” to really be effective in any meaningful way, but no one seems to want to take chances. I still get the feeling that physically destroying infrastructure is many times more effective than zapping a hard drive with a virus.”
Agreed, but the rules and tech are in place for destroying traditional infrastructure. “Cyber warfare” is just another trick to pull out of the hat. Disrupting commo with DOS attacks, planting trojans in the telecom equipment, having the ATM system spew its contents as a civil disruptor. . .
Don’t get me wrong, even if they deploy this in the upcoming invasion it’ll be a minor, non-decisive factor. A lot of people are going to get dead in this one.
BTW, I like techdirt, it’s #2 on my morning hitlist (sinfest is #1).
Best,