Re: Quick Review: Cyberwar as a Confidence Game by Martin C. Libicki

[delchi delchi <delchi () gmail com>]

Sorry if I  was unclear, that's what I was trying to say ... it is
it's own domain , but no different than the other domains that are
part of a whole. It doesn't deserve any special treatment or
considerations. It has it's strengths and it's weaknesses. There is a
time an a place for a cyber attack, there is a time and a place for a
predator to deliver a few pounds of high explosives on a doorstep, and
there is a time and a place to deploy a scout sniper team.

Also there seems to be some disbelief in the kind of destruction that
can be done. Tanks and missiles and things that go boom and explode
are considered more powerful than  cyber attacks which are painted as
only capable of disabling a navigation system or scrambling some
communications. There is no reason why more destructive results could
not be had purely with a cyber attack. A valve shut here, an increase
in fuel flow there , maybe a system strained beyond limits or a
misconfiguration in a mixture and then you have the explosions and so
on that the other domains are famous for. I feel we are strongly
underestimating the potential for damage and destruction that a cyber
attack could have.

Val Smith said it best though - unless you are directly involved in it
, then it's just speculation and a Sapphire & tonic while listening to
Alex Jones. I can speak to what I have seen in my time and in my SOC,
and not much else.




On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 7:38 AM, Robert Lemos <mail () robertlemos com> wrote:
> On Mar 22, 2011, at 7:39 AM, delchi delchi wrote:
> > "But in war more than in any other subject we must begin by looking at
> > the nature of the whole; for here more than elsewhere the part and the
> > whole must always be thought of together. "
> > -- Karl Von Clausewitz
> >
> > Cyber-war is nothing more than a buzword designed to discuss a
> > specific type of war. In the end it's no more or less than saying that
> > you are engaged in a 'shooting war' , a 'tank war' or an 'air war'. As
> > each new technology emerges it finds it's way into war sooner or later
> > and creates a new type of warfare.
>
> You only have half the answer here, IMO. Cyber can be a tool, but it's also its own domain, just like land, air, sea 
> and space are their own domains. A tank or a crossbow is a weapon. You can have a cyber component that could be a 
> weapon in another domain -- a virus disabling ship navigation systems, for example -- but an entire war could be 
> fought in the cyber domain as well. So it's more than just another tank.
>
> I've seen a number of public presentations -- Gen. Hayden at Black Hat Vegas 2010, for example -- outlining the 
> Pentagon's view of cyber and its developing doctrine there. I would highly recommend those as a starting point.
>
> I would say that Stuxnet is the first public, concrete example of that developing doctrine. So unlike Libicki, I 
> think there will be many cases of Special Forces type uses of digital sabotage, missions where deniability is a key 
> component.
>
> -R
>
> robert lemos | mail () robertlemos com
> cio.com | cso online | darkreading | infoworld | tech review | threatpost
> writer & journalist | http://www.robertlemos.com



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"Se li uomini sapessino le cagioni della paura mia, capir potrebbero
il mio dolor"
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