Military eyes virtual war on terror

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk () c4i org>

http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/34817-1.html

By Susan M. Menke 
GCN Staff
01/14/05 

Terrorists are turning our own inventions against us, says military
theorist Capt. Terry Pierce, an associate dean at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

"The 9/11 terrorists took existing technology that we
invented.airliners.and turned them into bombs," he said. Terrorists
are using other technologies we invented, such as the Internet, mobile
phones and instant messaging, that have a global reach.

The U.S. military is "very good at fighting force-on-force or
state-on-state," Pierce said. "The terrorists can't compete with us at
that level, so they go to a different level. They become embedded
within the population. We have to go to a different method. to
separate them from the civilians".

Pierce said the postgraduate school, Office of Naval Research and
Homeland Security Department are all working on so-called
precipitating technologies to decloak the terrorists. "We've accepted
that terrorists are operating in this new domain, he said."

Although Pierce cited technological innovations such as unmanned
aerial vehicles and microsatellites as "potentially very disruptive,"  
he said it is equally important to develop social science constructs
by studying how terrorists form worldwide networks.

Another weapon, he said, is the joint expeditionary strike group,
commanded by leaders who are not afraid to exploit technology in
unexpected ways.

In one ESG exercise he participated in, Pierce said, "we took
advantage of the fact that we were so far away from Washington and
could do some innovative things. The sailors and Marines experimented
with technology in different ways without the typical oversight by
contractors telling them how to use it."


 
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