Hello and Happy New Year! I hope that you had an amazing holiday. I had a break from school which was nice and a cold, not so nice, lol. The dang thing is still lingering! Seriously, ugh.
I kind of struggled on what topic I wanted to write this week and I guess we aren’t lacking in subject matter in 2017, but I am thinking we should discuss something before this year began since its very critical to our current world affairs. This blog post might not be as light as my previous ones and you will soon see why.
Information Warfare vs. Cyber Warfare
I brought up that Information Warfare and Cyber Warfare are different. This was a couple weeks back and I think we need to talk about this now. There is a reason for this. One is Russia. Our Russian friends have a pretty extreme Information and Cyber Warfare policy. Basically Russia’s policy has declared that a nuclear response is an acceptable reaction for Cyber or Information Warfare. Yeah, I did a double take when I read this in my last class.
While each country governs their policies different that each other on Information and Cyber Warfare, it's still surprising to see that word nuclear floating around in doctrine that most wouldn’t think would be a justifiable reaction. However, I have to give them kudos, they are definitely providing a strong response and a gutsy one too. While each country is taking these types of crimes seriously, let’s look at what the difference is.
Information Warfare is Information based. Think Newspeak or Media Manipulation. Information Warfare isn’t based on hacks or attacks. That is where Cyber Warfare sits. While both are combinable, you can have one without the other.
The Approach & Fake News
One reason I bring this up is the media is going nuts about Trump’s election and possible voting tampering from Russia. Hmmmm? I mean maybe, but considering Russia’s stance on these types of “attacks”, I am not so sure. I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but I can say they take this stuff rather seriously. While Russia takes nuclear approach with some psychological play in there. Seems they like mind games/control as well.
China and the US take different approaches. And while China has a similar approach to the US, their take is more of a dominance approach. Dominate the information and the technology. While the US is more reactive in our approach.
Besides the whole Trump election thing, another consideration is that of “Fake News”. Kinda sounds like Information Warfare to me. What is real, what is fake, what is ____. This is problem for a couple of reasons.
- Why can’t we be provided information and discern if it's valid or not?
- Who decides what is to be shared?
- Why are they controlling it?
So above I posted something about Media Manipulation aka Information Warfare. I kind of have to question the legitimacy of blocking “fake news” since someone has to decide what is fake and whoever that is, what is their goal? Are they playing the world in Information Warfare? Sounds like a play for Information dominance to me.
Food for thought
While I could go on and on there is one really import piece of this that people I don’t think understand. Cyber Warfare and Information Warfare are different and because most people don’t know and they fail to realize that Information Warfare is far more present and happening around us than Cyber Warfare. This is HUGE because we as people are either unaware of manipulation or not taking the time to research issues and what's actually happening.
Cyber Warfare is scary and it does happen. However Information Warfare is already happening and most people don’t even know it.
Until next time, stay safe out there and research! The true is out there, you have to look though. AND incase you wanted to know about Russia, China and US policies there is some great references below.
References
Heickero, R. (2010). Russia’s Information Warfare Capabilities. Current and Emerging Trends Cyber Operations. Retrieved from http://www.foi.se/ReportFiles/foir_2970.pdf
Lewis, J. (2005, December). Computer Espionage, Titan Rain and China. Retrieved from https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/media/csis/pubs/051214_china_titan_rain.pdf
Krekel, B. (2009, October 9). Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation. Retrieved from https://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB424/docs/Cyber-030.pdf
Thomas, T. (2004, February). COMPARING US, RUSSIAN, AND CHINESE INFORMATION OPERATIONS CONCEPTS. Retrieved from http://www.dodccrp.org/events/2004_CCRTS/CD/papers/064.pdf
Week 4 CIS 650 Blog Post
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