[Back][Home][Search] [Image] [Image] [Image] [Bomb2] [Image] Information warfare and the real threat Government should use caution in responding to foreign info-threats COMMENTARY By Brock N. Meeks, MSNBC WASHINGTON — A peek behind the classified digital curtain that hides the “real truth” of the information warfare threat to our nation’s critical infrastructure recently revealed that the Russians and Cubans have developed computer viruses, with the intent of using them as offensive weapons. That finding was included in a now-declassified document obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and made available to Robert Windrem of NBC News. THAT DOCUMENT, titled “Nonlethal Information Effectors Worldwide” (a title that begs the question: what about the lethal information effectors?), provides new evidence on how foreign intelligence services are developing and deploying information warfare strategies. Prior to 1991, the KGB “was developing computer viruses with the intent of using them to disrupt computer systems during times of war or crises,” the report says. No other information is provided on the intended targets of those viruses; however, intelligence sources tell MSNBC that the KGB planned to use the information warfare “against perceived internal threats” as well as NATO countries. THE CUBAN OPERATION Perhaps the most disturbing revelation in the report is that in early 1991, the Cuban Military Intelligence Directive began a project to “obtain information to develop a computer virus to infect U.S. civilian computers.” The report says that the Cubans spent about $5,000 on the open world market to buy unclassified data on computer networks, viruses, SATCOM (satellite communications)and “related communications technology.” Although the report says, “details of this specific endeavor are not known” the bottom line is that “such efforts continue to be made and could potentially cause irreparable harm to any nation’s defense.” The Cuban effort is particularly troublesome because its supposed targets were civilian computers. Although Cuba isn’t exactly a hotbed of technology, the government has long been involved in trying to obtain high-tech information on the “open source,” or unclassified, market. MY CUBAN READERS The Cubans honed their information collecting skills in the late 1980s. I know this first hand because as columnist during that time for Byte Magazine, I used to receive requests from Cuba for “more information” about column subjects. The requests were typewritten in the clumsy font of a manual typewriter on the back of a plain white postcard. I soon learned that other Byte columnists received similar requests, which were all turned over to the FBI. Cuba also happens to be a particularly convenient information-warfare staging ground. A Russian-built and manned high-tech communications center in Cuba, a Cold War holdover called Lourdes, is still in operation. Walter Deeley, who was director of communications security at the National Security Agency in the 1980s, told NBC News that the agency feared the Soviets could use Lourdes to insert viruses into the U.S. communications system. Deeley said that if you can intercept a signal, you can jam it, perturb it, or insert a virus into it. SUPPORTING THE PUBLIC RECORD This new information underscores the threats outlined in the report of the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection. Recently a sanitized version of that report was made available to the public and which, taken on its face, seemed to rely on scare tactics. The report could easily be taken as stalking horse for powers inside the government seeking to consolidate control over cyberspace policies. The Infrastructure report is certainly flawed in some areas. For example, it endorses the development of an encryption scheme in which government agents of all stripe have easy access to any of your private messages via a kind of digital “spare key.” Under this plan, the law would require you to deposit a decoding key for every coded message with a government approved key holder. The entire infrastructure report should be viewed with skepticism. Despite the revelations in the previously classified document, there is not a single recorded case of malicious intrusion by an enemy of the United States. Both the president’s report and the classified document back this up. “Although there have been no verified incidents of deliberate use of malicious software against the United States by an adversary, it could, and may in the future,” the classified report says. Regardless of that fact, caution must be exercised and cooler heads must prevail in developing an over-arching information warfare policy. Without restraint, we could well see all cyberspace policy emanating from behind the cloaked doors and black budgets of the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. If such a scenario is allowed to happen, these agencies will operate in virtual darkness. Allow that and the extent of abuse, if and when it occurs, might never be known. Meeks out ... -- EmergencyNet News Service Emergency Response & Research Institute 6348 N. 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