From: David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 06:32:44 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: New Infowarfare Panel
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At 8:30 PM -0700 7/17/96, Timothy C. May wrote:

>Winn Schwartau is running conferences, is talking about the imminent danger
>of the nation's computer networks being knocked out (paraphrasing his
>latest "Wired" item: "imagine your ATM network being knocked out and people
>being unable to gain access to their money").
>
>Schwartau is predicting/advocating a "fifth branch" of the military to deal
>with the this threat. A cyberforce, as it were.
>
>Color me skeptical, but I see this all as a lot of hype and fear-mongering.
>Folks in the Pentagon, FBI, and NSA probably see it as a way to get more
>funding, Folks in the consulting business probably see it as a way to crank
>up the seminar prices and increase the number and frequency of "Information
>Warfare" workshops and seminars.

Haven't there been some worked examples of information warfare that make
this fear and the need to deal with it legitimate?

As I recall my background reading in the public press, wasn't the etiology
that we figured out how to do some pretty nasty things (the Gulf war was
one presenting occasion) to enemies' info infrastructures to threaten their
entire social system. Then, as I understand it, someone smart said
something like "If we can do this to them, then someone can do this to us."
and we were off to the races.

It's the military and counterintel community's job to think like this and
act to protect us. I don't think imputing selfish motives is dispositive.

David