Forwarded From: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05@uow.edu.au>
29-11-1998 RUSSIA: 'LOGIC BOMB' ARMS RACE PANICS RUSSIA.
By Matthew Campbell, Washington.
FEARING it has slipped behind America in an arms race involving secret
weapons of the future, Russia is proposing an international treaty to
control "information warfare", an invisible but deadly threat that could
be used as effectively as missiles and bombs.
It may sound like science fiction, but around the world military planners
are acknowledging that "cyber warfare" will play an important role in
future conflicts. Not since the advent of nuclear bombs half a century ago
has the world confronted weapons with such potential for altering the way
in which warfare is waged.
Already secret army research departments in Russia and America are racing
to perfect "logic bombs" and computer viruses designed to create havoc in
an enemy country by destroying computer networks controlling weapons
systems, financial transactions and even traffic.
Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, wrote to Kofi Annan, the United
Nations secretary-general, last month warning that the effect of
information weapons "may be comparable to that of weapons of mass
destruction".
In another development the Russians presented a proposal for
"international legal regimes to prohibit the development, production or
use of particu larly dangerous forms of information weapons" to the UN.
According to Peter Feaver, an information warfare expert at Duke
University, North Carolina, the secrecy and lack of official guidelines
surrounding the research are reminiscent of America's early years as a
nuclear power "before the political leadership understood what nuclear
weapons could do". A military official once told him: "If we waited around
for political guidance, we wouldn't be able to do anything."
The full extent of America's information warfare capabilities is a closely
guarded secret. According to some reports, the American military has been
developing ways of implanting "worm viruses" in foreign computer networks
to spread confusion. The Pentagon fears that Russia, China, Iraq and Libya
have similar programs.
An announcement by President Bill Clinton in May of measures to build
ramparts against the threat of a "digital Pearl Harbor" made no mention of
America's capacity to conduct its own attacks. But George Tenet, director
of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has told Congress: "We're not
asleep at the switch in this regard."
He testified last year that information warfare techniques were already
being deployed in the battles against terrorism and drugs. Computer hacker
technology, he said, had been used to disrupt international money
transfers between Arab businessmen supporting suspected terrorists.
Clinton has pledged to make America safe within five years from
"asymmetrical" threats, a term used by experts to describe the theoretical
danger of a relatively weak and insignificant adversary taking on - and
defeating - a superpower with a few taps on a laptop computer. America's
extreme dependence on computer technology makes it the most vulnerable
nation on earth. At the same time, however, its technological advantage
renders traditional adversaries wary.
Russian anxieties about being left behind in the information weapons race
have been heightened by reports that the CIA has sabotaged some computer
systems exported from America to the former Soviet Union. This involved
putting "bugs" in computers that could be activated by CIA hackers
thousands of miles away.
The Russians are pressing for a UN debate about information warfare,
urging Annan to submit a report at the 54th session of the general
assembly next year.
"We cannot permit the emergence of a fundamentally new area of
international confrontation, which may lead to an escalation of the arms
race based on the latest developments of the scientific and technological
revolution," Ivanov wrote to Annan.
With its political instability, low military morale and lack of resources,
Russia is in no position to compete with America in the field of high
technology. It has already fallen behind in tackling the "millennium bug",
expected to cripple computer systems at the start of the next century.
Russia's ineffectiveness in making its imported computer systems immune to
the bug has raised fears in the White House that the Kremlin might
misinterpret any disruption over the millennium as an information warfare
attack and retaliate with nuclear weapons.
A US defence department report earlier this year described how an
information warfare attack might unfold. It starts with an unexplained
power blackout in a large city. Telephone systems across the country
become paralysed. Freight and passenger trains collide. Civilian air
traffic control systems go haywire. Malfunctioning pipeline-flow control
mechanisms trigger oil refinery blasts.
As alarm spreads, "logic bombs" disable the financial system, disrupting
money transfers and causing stocks to plunge on world exchanges. Automatic
teller machines randomly credit or debit customers' accounts. Sensitive
weapons systems malfunction.
"(An) information war has no front line," says the study. "Potential
battlefields are anywhere."
In a military exercise involving senior Pentagon and intelligence
officials last year, a scenario was mapped out in which India and Pakistan
were on the verge of using nuclear weapons.
The participants were asked whether America should interfere, using
information warfare techniques to alter the capability of both countries
so that neither had a clear picture of the battlefield. The debate was
inconclusive.
SUNDAY TIMES 29/11/1998 P28
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Received on Tue Dec 8 08:56:48 1998