From: Mike McNally <m5@vail.tivoli.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 14:35:55 +0800
To: David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com>
Subject: Re: New Infowarfare Panel
In-Reply-To: <v03007607ae142d52fbb1@[192.187.162.15]>
Message-ID: <31EEEFFD.386B@vail.tivoli.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


David Sternlight wrote:

> >My personal recollection... high speed fighter-bomber aircraft ...

> I'm talking about some of the information that started slowly leaking out
> later, not the prime-time TV pyrotechnics.

Well, a lot of stuff "leaked out", but I'm not sure how much was actually
acknowledged to be true.  There was the thing about the "virus" in the
printer drivers, or something like that, but I seriously don't see how
any sort of software "attack" would have much significance once the 
Iraqi national microwave network was blasted into oblivion.

The point is that I don't personally believe that there's much of a
credible threat of one of these "Infowar Attacks" that this new 
commission plans to anticipate (by some means of divination; I am
really eager to see what that turns out to be).  Commercial systems
are disparate enough and so inherently flaky that I doubt some terrorist 
agency could do much worse than your run-of-the-mill catastrophic 
system failure.  The power grid is an exception, perhaps, but to 
attack that with any sort of real effect would probably require a
physical attack, and in any case even the grid seems capable of
random failures that bring about random chaos without the need for
creepy foreigners.

I also dispute the "lighthouse" story.  That setup only is meaningful 
when there's a service necessary to the well-being of the community in a 
situation where no mechanism for ready cash flow to a provider exists.  
I question the premise that commercial suppliers of security systems &
consulting can't solve corporate security problems effectively.  Indeed, 
a good argument could be made that we're better defended by a wide 
variety of different security systems, rather than a single General 
Issue Uncle Sam Security System.

______c_____________________________________________________________________
Mike M Nally * Tiv^H^H^H IBM * Austin TX    * For the time being,
       m5@tivoli.com * m101@io.com          *    
      <URL:http://www.io.com/~m101>         *    three heads and eight arms.