-Caveat Lector- Pentagon CyberTroops
The National Security Apparatus Gears Up for Infowar by Charles Overbeck Matrix Editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] The next time you hear someone say, "This Internet thing is just a fad," slap them upside the head for me, will you? Not that I normally condone physical violence, but in this case, you'll be doing them a favor. They need to snap out of their walking comas. For better or worse, the information revolution is here. The basis of our economy is steadily shifting from the means of industrial production to the knowledge that enables industrial production. As a result, ordinary human beings suddenly have access to sophisticated information technology, allowing unprecedented access to the marketplace of ideas. But will this same technology be turned against us in the name of "national security?" As the military and the intelligence community begins exploring the frontiers of information warfare, the answer to that question is more ominous than ever. This ParaScope special report will take a look at what is being planned, and who is doing the planning. (c) Copyright 1997 ParaScope, Inc. http://www.parascope.com/articles/0297/infowar.htm Freedom is Slavery National Security and the Information Revolution As far as freedom of speech goes, the information revolution is a dream come true. Steep barriers to entry have been removed from the marketplace of ideas, and the implications are staggering. For the first time in history, ordinary human beings have access not only to a massive, rapidly-expanding archive of human knowledge, but also to a means of mass distribution. And if you have the skills and don't mind bending the "official" rules a little, an open door is an invitation. Energy, like information, wants to flow free; the only barriers are those erected by human beings, for whatever reasons or justifications. If you know the system better than the people who erected those barriers, whether it's an operating system or a tax system or an alarm system, you can breeze through like Casper the Friendly Ghost. For whatever reasons or justifications. Hence, for those entities which view the unrestricted flow of information as a potential threat, it's a full-on Freddy Krueger nightmare. The Pentagon has not done a fantastic job of managing security on its labyrinthine web of 2.1 million computers and 10,000 local-area networks. For one thing, the idea of all those hundreds of thousands of unauthorized intrusions into unclassified U.S. military systems scares the hell out of them. But not nearly as much as the idea that they have created a system they neither understand nor control. The Pentagon is also uptight about "losing" several infowar skirmishes against a relatively low-tech opponent during the United Nations' Somalia operation. The proposed response thus far has been predictable based on past experience: 1) spend a ton of money and 2) blow the crap out of somebody. Dozens of articles and strategy papers on information warfare have been written by military consultants, and a Defense Department task force recently recommended allocating $3 billion over the next five years to line the information superhighway with barbed wire. It also recommended legal revisions to allow the Defense Department to retaliate with debilitating force against suspected attackers. The third major proposal would create an Information Warfare Center, which will fuse together all the various intelligence capabilities of the National Security State. Whether or not these steps will actually deter, thwart or hinder non-sanctioned computer activity is yet to be seen. It'll probably separate the big dogs from the runts, but as man is imperfect, no system is truly secure. That won't stop them from moving forward with the proposals, though, and their actions could have major ramifications for your digital freedom and civil rights in the very near future. So let's take a closer look at what they're planning to do, and who's doing the planning. Ignorance is Strength Information Warfare in the New World Order On July 15, 1996, President Clinton issued Executive Order #13010, which addressed "threats of electronic, radio-frequency, or computer-based attacks on the information or communications components that control critical infrastructures ('cyber threats'). Because many of these critical infrastructures are owned and operated by the private sector, it is essential that the government and private sector work together to develop a strategy for protecting them and assuring their continued operation." If your Big Brother alarm isn't going off yet, you better make sure it's plugged in. During the reign of dictator Benito Mussolini, corporate and government power in Italy were merged into a hybrid form of corporatism which came to be known as fascism. Under the Third Reich, Hitler's Nazi Party (National Socialist Worker's Party) placed Germany under a similar system of government corporatism. The line between the private sector and the public sector in the United States is gradually blurring along a similar path. To point out just a few examples, corporatization of government programs is all the rage in Washington, and corporate use of prison labor is rapidly becoming the status quo in America's criminal rehabilitation system. Welfare assistance to America's impoverished is being slashed while welfare to corporations is at an all-time high. The tax burden carried by the American people has quadrupled over the past forty years, while the tax rate on corporations has remained virtually unchanged. Corporations fund politicians on both sides of the ballot box, and the winners make it worth their while. Meanwhile, the military, having no all-consuming global enemy such as communism to obsess over, is being used for domestic purposes ranging from providing training and equipment for quasi-military police operations to direct participation in drug interdiction efforts. One of Executive Order #13010's offspring is the recently-released Defense Science Board Task Force report on "Information Warfare-Defense." Among other startling proposals, the report recommends relaxing legal restraints on what measures the Department of Defense may take in carrying out reprisals for cyberassaults. "Confusion... stems from uncertainty over when or whether a wiretap approval is needed," the report stated. "Government-wide guidance, and perhaps legislation as well, are needed in the areas of Department assistance to the private sector..., tracing attackers of unknown nationality (intelligence versus U.S. persons), tracking attackers through multiple systems, and obtaining/requiring reports of computer-related incidents from the private sector..." The "confusion over wiretap approval" is clarified later in the report: "The Task Force found some confusion among the Department's representatives regarding the scope of their authority to monitor systems and networks for the purpose of assessing the security of the systems and networks." Department of Defense "assistance" to private industry? Requiring reports of computer-related incidents from the private sector? Surveillance of systems and networks in order to assess their "security"? Spooky stuff, to say the least! And what happened to America's law enforcement apparatus? The report makes little mention of prosecuting computer crimes through traditional, conventional police agencies. Instead, it recommends the establishment of an Information Warfare Center to harness the technology necessary for waging cyberwar. After all, the report states bluntly, "information warfare is a form of warfare, not a crime or act of terror." The Defense Science Board Task Force also suggests granting "unequivocal authority for Department users to monitor, record data, and repel intruders in computer systems for self protection" and "direction to use banners that make it clear the Department's presumption that intruders have hostile intent and warn that the Department will take the appropriate response." In other words, trespassers will be shot. This brings to mind the time my dad tried to locate my aunt's home page. She's a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force who was stationed at the Pentagon at the time. Being a web newbie, the old man accidentally keyed in the wrong URL and randomly ended up in what was apparently a restricted area of the Air Force's web server. Numerous banners warned him that he was in a restricted area and ordered him to leave immediately. The problem was, he wasn't real sure how he got there in the first place. He fumbled through several more "restricted" pages before leaving the site. This is a true story. So, with security like that, the Defense Science Board Task Force is definitely correct that the Pentagon's firewall could use a little more kerosene. But the task force's chairman, Duane Andrews, told the Wall Street Journal that he would like to see the law changed to allow the Pentagon to retaliate against intruders using "a polymorphic virus that wipes out the system, takes it down for weeks." So here's my dad with a polymorphic virus rendering his LCIII an electronic vegetable, if the Department of Defense follows through on the task force's recommendations. Note that task force chairman Duane Andrews is currently the vice president of corporate development at Science Applications International Corporation, a defense technology consulting company with strong historical ties to the intelligence community. Admiral Bobby Inman, former head of the ultra-secretive National Security Agency, is on SAIC's board of directors, as well as Melvin Laird, Nixon's defense secretary, and General Max Thurman (retired), commander of the Panama invasion. It is the DoD's prerogative to protect its systems from intrusion and attack. But the Pentagon seems bent on applying a coercive black-and-white warfare model to a complicated problem with a thousand shades of gray. They want a magic smart bomb to blow up all the hackers with, further testament that they truly are operating within a system that they do not understand. The task force repeatedly yanks the "evil hacker" hobgoblin out of its bag of horrors and justifications. "The hackers and the cyber criminals are very efficient," the report states. "The current state of technology favors the attackers, who need only minimal resources to accomplish their objectives. They have accumulated considerable knowledge of various devices and commercial software by examining unprotected sites. This know-how... is shared on the 400-plus hacker bulletin boards, worldwide. This includes hacker bulletin boards sponsored by governments (for example, the French intelligence service sponsors such a board). These boards are also used to distribute very sophisticated user-friendly 'point-and-click' hacker tools that enable even amateurs to attack computers with a high degree of success." The report also mentions a few hacker tactics that have become very familiar to AOL users: "Attacks are not just based on the use of smart tools. Simple social engineering -- impersonation and misrepresentation to obtain information -- remains very productive. The ruses are many: 'cyber friend,' providing a free software upgrade that has been doctored to circumvent security, a 'customer' demanding and receiving support over the telephone from a customer-oriented firm." Say, buddy, have you downloaded your free copy of AOL 4.0 yet? Oh, and by the way, I'm with AOL customer service, and if you don't send me your password in the next two to three minutes, your account will be deactivated. Don't worry, though! The Pentagon plans to protect you from these data insurgents, and then some. The task force pushes hard for an Information Warfare Center, emphasizing the "need" for federal police and intelligence agencies to make information freely available to one another. "In some cases, the military, law enforcement and intelligence communities are restricted by law, executive order, or regulation from sharing certain information," the report states. "Historically, these communities are notoriously bad at sharing information." But isn't that actually a good thing? As Lawrence Dennis said, "Integration of governmental agencies and coordination of authority may be called the keystone principle of fascist administration." Ever heard of Lawrence Dennis before? He was the American fascist economist who wrote in his 1936 book, "The Coming American Fascism," that defenders of "18th-century Americanism" would soon be "the laughing stock of their own countrymen." He predicted that the adoption of economic fascism would intensify the "national spirit," using it to fuel "the enterprises of public welfare and social control." In 1936 -- eerily echoing the spirit of 1997 -- Dennis wrote that the biggest stumbling block to the development of economic fascism in America was "liberal norms of law or constitutional guarantees of private rights." Like Hitler and Mussolini, Dennis and many other elite intellectuals of their day saw corporate/government hybridization as an "enlightened" form of social organization. Many federal programs created under their guidance are still functioning, albeit in less "enlightened" form, today. And now, the Defense Science Board Task Force is recommending that a $3 billion tug boat be used to tow the information economy into the shipping lanes of economic fascism. For our own good, of course. Information warfare has been a significant aspect of human conflict since long before Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War. The difference now is that the very basis of our economy is information-dependent. Information is no longer merely a tactical consideration; it is the source of the host nation's vigor, and a target as well. This isn't just war games and theory, either. In fact, the U.S. has already fought a few violent skirmishes in the new frontier of infowar. One of these -- the United Nations-supervised fiasco in Somalia -- provides some insight into where the task force's recommendations may be leading us. War is Peace Much of the Defense Science Board Task Force's report makes for boring reading, focusing on bureaucratic issues and abstract theory far removed from the dynamic context of real life. But another recent report on information warfare in Somalia provides a glimpse at where the task force's recommendations may be leading us. "Information Warfare in Multilateral Peace Operations: A Case Study of Somalia" was prepared by Rick Brennan and R. Evan Ellis for the Secretary of Defense in 1996. The report was created under the auspices of -- guess who! -- defense and intelligence-entwined Scientific Applications International Corporation. Remember that Duane Andrews, SAIC vice president for corporate development, was the chairman of the Defense Science Board Task Force that created the "Information Warfare-Defense" report discussed earlier. The 1993 "peacekeeping" occupation of Somalia was a bloody nose for the interventionist policies of the United States and the United Nations. Four U.S. petroleum monopolies -- Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips -- had signed deals with Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre before he was overthrown. These agreements, according to a Los Angeles Times report, gave these oil giants access to two thirds of Somalia's unexploited, oil-rich territory. Conoco allowed its corporate compound to be used as the de facto American embassy preceding the landing of U.S. military forces. Keep that in mind as we take a look at information warfare in Somalia. Brennan and Ellis determined that "because of the nature of the peace operation environment, 'legitimacy' should be viewed as the center of gravity for U.S. and coalition forces operating in theater. Once legitimacy has been lost, the operation will collapse either because of the loss of indigenous support, coalition and international support, and/or the domestic support necessary to sustain the mission." In other words, the sight of the headless corpse of an Army Ranger being dragged through the dusty streets of Mogadishu like some ghastly rag doll did not advance the cause of global corporatism one bit. Brennan and Ellis contend that Somali militia leader General Mohamed Farah Aidid "staged" various confrontations with U.N. forces in order to use media footage of Mogadishu's corpse-littered streets as a form of information warfare, because these images undermined the operation's "legitimacy" in the eyes of the public. This assertion is, in itself, suspect. One of these "staged" attacks was actually precipitated not by Aidid, but by United Nations provocation. On June 5, 1993, U.N. forces seized (or, to quote Brennan and Ellis, "inspected") Radio Mogadishu, an organ of the Somali free press. In a live broadcast that evening, General Aidid urged his supporters "to be calm about this situation" and advised them "not to shoot anybody unless you are attacked." Somali militia members, possibly acting without orders from their clan commanders, later carried out a series of ambushes that left dozens of soldiers dead. Brennan and Ellis claim Aidid used intelligence culled from U.N. support personnel to stage this entire incident. In their analysis, Radio Mogadishu not a legitimate organ of the free press. It was an information warfare asset of forces opposed to the UNOSOM II operation. It was not providing an alternative viewpoint to UNOSOM propaganda; it was attempting to "undermine the legitimacy" of the operation. Several Radio Mogadishu broadcasts just before the June 5 clash openly thanked the United Nations and various relief agencies for providing humanitarian assistance. No doubt Brennan and Ellis would consider these broadcasts part of Aidid's elaborate plot to embarrass the United Nations in front of CNN's cameras. Indeed, their report constructs a theory behind the Radio Mogadishu incident which is far more bizarre than anything you'll read on alt.conspiracy. To solve the "problem" of "maintaining legitimacy," Brennan and Ellis propose an information warfare policy "divided into the functional areas of perception management, information degradation or denial, and information exploitation. Perception management, in the context of a multilateral peace operation, seeks to manage the flow of information in order to gain and maintain legitimacy." In other words, disseminate information that makes the operation look good, and suppress information that makes the operation look bad. From that perspective, individuals and groups who are opposed to the "peacekeeping" operation do not represent an opposing viewpoint, but an infowar adversary to be neutralized. For example, the report states, "Multinational forces are strategically and operationally vulnerable to information war, especially in the area of perception management. Statements, information releases, and staged events for the press by leaders of parties that may be opposed to portions of the peace process may have both strategic and operational military implications." Got a problem with your homeland being overrun by foreign military forces? Shut the hell up, it's for your own good. Resistance is futile. The report on information warfare in Somalia dovetails quite nicely with the Defense Science Board Task Force report, which is probably not a coincidence. See if any of this sounds familiar: "No one organization in the U.S. government currently has responsibility for the totality of information warfare. Rather, various responsibilities and capabilities are diffused across staff sections, agencies, and departments -- many of which have little opportunity or incentive to share information with each other. The result is an increasingly stovepiped organization that is resistant to coordination and integration. While this type of organizational structure may have been acceptable for information operations in the industrial age, it is a hindrance to the level of integration necessary for effective and efficient use of information warfare in the information age. While fundamental organizational changes may be required in the future, DoD should support the immediate creation of a standing interagency task force with the explicit charter of integrating information warfare into broader political, military, economic/humanitarian policies and strategies." The report also states, "The international media is the most powerful offensive and defensive information warfare asset available to lesser-developed countries and/or parties to a conflict. Television news networks were a powerful tool for both the United States and the opposition in Somalia -- although it was the opposition that most fully realized and exploited its potential." Brennan and Ellis also assert that "Public Affairs and PSYOP must be recognized as central components of an information warfare system. In combination with military intelligence, electronic warfare, and other U.S. capabilities, PSYOP and Public Affairs must be coordinated, integrated, de-conflicted and synergized to magnify U.S. Information Warfare capabilities." Are the implications of all this starting to sink in yet? Welcome to the New World Order, where military analysts view the corporate media as an "information warfare asset" to be exploited and counter-exploited for the purposes of political and military expediency. The National Security Establishment is not interested in information warfare for defensive purposes only, no matter how the situation is framed. The Defense Science Board Task Force ominously warns of an "electronic Pearl Harbor" if something isn't done right now. In an artful combination of psyops and infowar, the task force uses one of the most emotionally traumatic and vulnerable moments in U.S. history to push its agenda. It's the old "Mr.-President-We-Cannot-Allow-A-Mineshaft-Gap" trick. They feign an exposed flank and produce detailed satellite photos of the sky falling. But the true motivation to develop new warfare technology is always offensive at some level. (Remember the MX missile?) Brennan and Ellis seem undeterred by the moral dilemmas implicit in their recommendations. In fact, they hardly seem to notice them. Rather, they assert that propaganda and "spin" capabilities are vital aspects of information warfare. Pressing further, the report points out some of the negative ramifications of disseminating propaganda through the American media: "With the increasingly critical posture adopted toward political figures by the media and the American public from the Vietnam/Watergate period through the 1980s, the American people have become conditioned to view any publicly disseminated information as being suspect. "The U.S. government is thus at an inherent disadvantage in conducting perception management operations because its attempts to disseminate information are regarded skeptically by the American media." Rah rah rah! Take a Unisom for UNOSOM! Believe what you're told, sheeple, or you'll fuck up everything! Information technology is a double-edged sword. It is not inherently good or evil. But it is extremely powerful. And powerful forces are seeking to exploit its potential in ways that may prove to be extremely antagonistic to our rights and our well-being as individuals and as a society. The only realistic option available -- besides pulling a Unabomber and heading for a cabin deep in the woods -- is to harness technology's power for mutual education and empowerment. Without an adequate knowledge base, there will be no basis for collective action in response to the coercive tactics of the globalist power elite. Hey, wait a minute... that sounds kind of like information warfare, doesn't it? Is that what the future holds for all of us? As Marshall McCluhan said, will World War III be a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation? Take a step back from the Defense Science Board Task Force report for a second. Is that report, itself, a cruise missile in the opening salvo of a global information war? How about Brennan and Ellis' SAIC report? Was it not one of the tactical pressure points which led Executive Order #13010? And if those reports are, in fact, part of an overall strategy for establishing a dominant position in the global theater of infowar, then is the very article you are reading right now part of an information warfare counteroffensive? Perhaps part of an overall strategy for undermining public support for the U.S. government's exploitation of infowar? Come a little closer so I can slap you upside the head. Sources Brennan, Rick & Ellis, R. Evan. "Information Warfare in Multilateral Peace Operations: A Case Study of Somalia." SAIC Document Number 03-9847-000. http://sac.saic.com/SOMALIA.HTM "Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Information Warfare - Defense (IW-D)." Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition & Technology, November 1996. http://jya.com/iwd.htm Ricks, Thomas R. "Information-Warfare Defense Is Urged." Wall Street Journal, January 6, 1997, p. B2. Jasper, William F. "Behind Our Defeat in Somalia." The New American, Vol. 10, No. 18, September 5, 1994. Pizzo, Steven. "Spies at the Gate." Wired, February 1996, p. 72. DiLorenzo, Thomas J. "Economic Fascism." The Freeman, Vol. 44 No. 4, June 1994. http://www.freedom-server.co.uk/Economic-Fascism.html Fineman, Mark. "The Oil Factor in Somalia." The Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1993. http://www.antro.uu.se/bh/nomadnet/fineman.html NomadNet's Somalia Archive. http://www.users.interport.net/~mmaren/somarchive.html "U.S. Networks Most Vulnerable of Any Nation." USA Today Online Edition, January 13, 1997. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ct033.htm __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Buy the perfect holiday gifts at Yahoo! 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