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List:       isn
Subject:    [ISN] Infowar part of NATO arsenal?
From:       mea culpa <jericho () dimensional ! com>
Date:       1999-03-26 15:19:29
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Forwarded From: William Knowles <erehwon@kizmiaz.dis.org>

[Fluff, No NATO aligned journalists left in Kosovo, the Internet is the 
 only method of seding information to the outside world, and who needs 
 really to jam signals when you have F-117's doing Kosovo Urban
 Renewal. :)  -WK]

'Infowarfare' part of NATO arsenal?
By Maria Seminerio, ZDNN
March 25, 1999 3:36 PM PT
URL: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2231976,00.html
 
The barrage of cruise missiles raining down on Yugoslavia in the ongoing
NATO offensive is only the most visible element of the campaign. Behind
the scenes, military technologists are using 'infowar' tactics borrowed
from hackers to disrupt the Serbian telecommunications infrastructure. 
 
While infowar can describe everything from cracking into a military
computer network to disabling an enemy nation's telephone system, in the
case of the Serbian conflict, NATO's efforts are likely to be targeted
more at radar transmissions than at Web-connected computers, according to
military experts. 
 
That's because Yugoslavia has little in the way of an Internet
infrastructure, and its military isn't likely to be using the Web to
communicate. 
 
"The question is, how dependent is your adversary on the Net, and my sense
here is, not a lot," said Hal Gershanoff, publisher and editor of the
Journal of Electronic Defense in Norwood, Mass. 

"This is groundwork that was laid months ago," he said. "The places they
are going to bomb have to be mapped out." 

One self-described hacker agreed. 

"I don't think Serbia has enough of a computer network to target," said
the author of the 1998 book "Maximum Security: A Hacker's Guide to
Protecting your Internet Site or Network." The hacker, who published the
book as "Anonymous," said NATO is certainly "jamming a lot of radio
transmissions." 

A spokesperson for the Pentagon refused to comment on the NATO strategy,
saying such tactics are top-secret during a continuing conflict. 

Preparing for the big push?  Infowarfare tactics are critical to
reconnaissance prior to a bombing attack, said Mark Fabro, worldwide
director of assessment services at Secure Computing Corp. 

"You need to be able to extract certain elements of information to disrupt
radio frequencies or telephone service," said Fabro, who has served as a
remote server security consultant to the Pentagon. 

The process of mapping out those locations is a combination of
old-fashioned military reconnaissance and high-tech hacking. NATO forces
need to find out where Serbian munitions are stored -- which could be as
simple as getting tips from locals about military vehicle traffic -- but
they also need to target "IT-dependent sites," said Frank Cilluffo,
director of the information warfare task force at the Center for Strategic
& International Studies, a military think tank in Washington, D.C. 
 
"We'll go after command and control sites, but strictly through
munitions," said Cilluffo. He said he does not believe NATO would
specifically target the Serbian IT infrastructure, such as it is, because
such an action would open NATO nations up to cyber counter-attacks. 

"We have lots more to lose than they do if we go that route," he said. 
"Then we expose our own IT infrastructure." 

-o-
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