 |  |  |
| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
| | |
| Return to: Left History: a digital archive | Return to: Say no to imperialist wars! | Return to: NATO-Yugoslav War Internet Resources |
IN THE Cold War days, the planners of Armageddon reckoned that the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by nuclear explosions would short out or burn up unshielded electronic systems, knocking out key public utilities even if they managed to survive the atomic bomb blast.
In today's technological era, war planners are thinking more in terms of a digital Armageddon, a cyber warfare strategy in which computers would become the weapons of mass disruption.
Cyber warfare films such as War Games and Matrix, which show how computers in the hands of technical wizards could threaten the world, are no longer the preserve of Hollywood fantasy.
Information war has no front line and with Western economies becoming increasingly reliant on complex, inter-connected computerised systems, future cyber warriors will have the potential for disrupting societies by causing computer mayhem - leading, for example, to power blackouts, rail crashes and chaos at the New York and London stock exchanges.
The United States, which has the capability to mount a cyber attack to disrupt a country's public utilities, banks and computer networks but chose not to in the case of Yugoslavia during the recent Kosovo campaign, has given warning of the importance of protecting its most vulnerable systems from the threat of cyber terrorism.
George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence in the United States, cautioned in a speech last month: "We face a growing cyber threat, the threat from so-called weapons of mass disruption. Potential targets are not only governmental computers, but the lifelines that we all take for granted - our power grids and our water and transportation systems."
There is already an arsenal of cyber weapons of war available to the official or unofficial computer hacker, with names such as gremlins, worms, Trojan horses, logic bombs, trap doors, "chipping", nano machines, microbes, Herf guns and EMP bombs.
Viruses are already familiar to every computer owner. It is a code fragment that copies itself into a larger program, replicating itself, thus infecting other programs as it reproduces. For the cyber warfare expert, this presents opportunities for mass disruption. For example, computer viruses could be inserted into the switching networks of an enemy's phone system, causing massive failure or breakdown.
Similarly, high energy radio frequency (Herf) guns can shoot a high power radio signal at an electronic target and put it out action.
Cyber warfare is bloodless and yet it opens up a raft of questions about whether such weapons in wartime could be a breach of the Geneva Convention. Earlier this week, it was revealed in Washington that the Americans held back from all-out attacks on Yugoslav computerised networks, other than those controlling the air defence systems, because of concerns about the legality of cyber warfare and whether it might lead to charges of war crimes.
The first known cyber attack on a country's computer systems took place in Sri Lanka in 1997, when Tamil guerrillas mounted a cyber strike to try to swamp Sri Lankan embassies with e-mails. One American official warned: "This is a portent of worse things to come."
During the 78-day Nato bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, hackers, some of them allegedly with Chinese Internet addresses, attempted to take down Nato networks. The attacks from Chinese Internet addresses began after Nato's "accidental" bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, according to Lieutenant-General William Donahue, director of communications and information for the US Air Force, speaking at a conference in Alaska in September.
When asked if the US launched offensive cyber operations against the Serbs, General Donahue was quoted as saying: "I don't know, and if I did, it's too sensitive to talk about."
An unclassified report by the US Defence Science Board's task force on information warfare gave a warning three years ago: "Information warfare offers a veil of anonymity to potential attackers. Attackers can hide in the mesh of inter-netted systems." The task force said that such warfare was relatively cheap, simple and "ubiquitous".
When appearing before a committee in Washington last year, George Tenet, the CIA chief, said: "We know of several nations that are working on developing an information warfare capability." He quoted from an article in China's official People's Liberation Daily, which said: "An adversary wishing to destroy the United States only has to mess up the computer systems of its banks by high-tech means."
Furthermore, according to Paul Beaver, of Jane's Information Group: "At present, there is no legal reason why cyber warfare should be banned, because it is a non-lethal weapon which is not covered by either the Geneva or The Hague Conventions. So it is becoming increasingly important to build safeguards into computer systems."