News, analysis and context on enterprise technology for the CTO
Information warfare is thought to be a product of what, broadly speaking, is considered the "information" era. However, if we correctly understand what information war is, we can see that it stretches back to the dawn of organized conflict itself. Dorothy Denning defines information warfare (IW) as “operations that target or exploit information resources.” Information resources consist of containers (information media that contain forms of … [Read more...]
How would you describe the threat to the US information infrastructure? If you are a technologist or a national security expert or both I hope you would use your background and experience and expertice and produced a fused-all source assessment based on facts. But it is also ok to cite the masters, folks who really know what they are talking about and are paid to produce the most accurate possible reports. Below is an assessment I extracted from a … [Read more...]
I enjoyed listening to the President today as he provided an update on where we are in our efforts to enhance our freedom of action in cyberspace. All the details are on the White House website and I hope you visit there yourself to download the 60-day cyberspace policy review. Details are here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/CyberReview/ I have been reading the report already-- and will also read all the papers and studies referenced there. So far I have … [Read more...]
INSA, the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, is a group of professionals from academia, industry and government who seek to enhance innovation, discussion, debate and progress on key national security issues. I've been involved as a member for years and get the pleasure of interacting with folks from a wide swath of the community. One of the many services INSA provides the community is providing a venue for speakers and community leaders to … [Read more...]
Last week at the InfowarCon my friend Dan Kuehl handed me a copy of Cyberpower and National Security. Cyberwar has been a topic Dan has been exploring in some detail for quite a while. I first met Dan in 1996 when I was a student at the USMC Command and Staff College, and at that time Dan was already writing and exploring concepts related to cyber power and information warfare. His deep focus and insights into this still emerging mission area … [Read more...]
Michael Tanji brings a perspective forged in years of intelligence work and a successful stint protecting information in the financial sector. He is a well published author who focuses on national security issues and is also a thought leader in the computer security domain. At Haft of the Spear he writes primarily about technology related/enabled national security issues, which includes a heavy dose of information warfare. Read HOTS at: … [Read more...]
For enterprise technologists and national security professionals and most of all for those who fit both of those descriptions, please check out Johns Hopkins University's 2009 Unrestricted Warfare Symposium at: http://www.jhuapl.edu/urw_symposium This symposium seeks to advance our understanding of and solutions for some very complex problems related to our nation's defense. I'll be speaking on a panel at the conference (on issues of cyber war and … [Read more...]
Below I'm going to post, in its entirety, the text of an e-mail I received from the ODNI notification service. The subject is an op-ed written by Melissa Hathaway, a senior leader who has been spearheading significant coordination action in the federal government (opinion: Melissa is perhaps the most effective SES-level leader in the US government today, IMHO). I wanted to post this in totality for a couple reasons. One is it is something all of … [Read more...]