What is information warfare?

At the grand strategy level, nations seek to acquire, exploit, and protect information in support of their objectives. This exploitation and protection can occur in the economic, political, or military arenas. Knowledge of the adversary's information is a means to enhance our own capabilities, degrade or counteract enemy capabilities, and protect our own assets, including our own information. This is not new. The struggle to discover and exploit information started the first time one group of people tried to gain advantage over another.

Information warfare consists of targeting the enemy's information and information functions, while protecting our own, with the intent of degrading his will or capability to fight (5). Drawing on the definitions of information and information functions, information warfare may be defined as:

• Information Warfare is any action to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy the enemy's information and its functions; protecting ourselves against those actions; and exploiting our own military information functions (6).

This definition is the basis for the following assertions:

• Information warfare is any attack against an information function, regardless of the means. Bombing a telephone switching facility is information warfare. So is destroying the switching facility's software.

• Information warfare is any action to protect our information functions, regardless of the means. Hardening and defending the switching facility against air attack is information warfare. So is using an anti-virus program to protect the facility's software.

• Information warfare is a means, not an end, in precisely the same manner that air warfare is a means, not an end. Information warfare may be used as a means to conduct strategic attack and interdiction, for example, just as air warfare may be used to conduct strategic attack and interdiction.

Militaries have always tried to gain or affect the information required for an adversary to effectively employ forces. Past strategies typically relied on measures such as feints and deception to influence decisions by affecting the decision maker's perceptions. Because these strategies influenced information through the perception process, they attacked the enemy's information indirectly. That is, for deception to be effective, the enemy had to do three things:

• observe the deception,

• analyze the deception as reality, and,

• act upon the deception according to the deceiver's goals.

However, modern means of performing information functions give information added vulnerability: direct access and manipulation (7). Modern technology now permits an adversary to change or create information without relying on observation and interpretation. Here is a short list of modem information system characteristics creating this vulnerability: concentrated storage, access speed, widespread information transmission, and the increased capacity for information systems to direct actions autonomously. Intelligent security measures can reduce, but not eliminate, this vulnerability; their absence makes it glaring.

[http://www.iwar.org.uk/iwar/resources/wikipedia/information-warfare.htm]

Speaking

Work with a partner. Decide whether you agree or disagree with these statements about information warfare.

1. Counterinformation: controlling the information realm.

2. Information Operations: any action involving the acquisition, transmission, storage, or transformation of information that enhances the employment of military forces.

3. Any action against any element of the enemy's command and control system.

4. Command and Control: The exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned forces in the accomplishment of the mission.

5. Counterinformation: Actions dedicated to controlling the information realm.

6. Defensive counterinformation: Actions protecting our military information functions from the adversary.

7. Direct Information Warfare: Changing the adversary's information without involving the intervening perceptive and analytical functions.

8. Indirect Information Warfare: Changing the adversary's information by creating phenomena that the adversary must then observe and analyze.

9. Information: Data and instructions.

10. Information Attack: Directly corrupting information without visibly changing the physical entity within which it resides.

11. Information Function: Any activity involving the acquisition, transmission, storage, or transformation of information.

12. Information Operations: Any action involving the acquisition, transmission, storage, or transformation of information that enhances the employment of military forces.

13. Information Warfare: Any action to deny, exploit, corrupt, or destroy the enemy's information and its functions; protecting ourselves against those actions; and exploiting our own military information functions.

Listening Listen to Charles Robinson, lecturer at major business conferences throughout the world, and discuss the advantages of using e-mail effectively.

Language check Review of gerund and infinitive.

Change phrases in bold type into infinitive

1. It is certain that it will rain if you don't take your umbrella. 2. Don't promise that you will do it, if you are not sure that you can. 3. He was happy that he was praised by everybody. 4. He was very proud that he had helped his elder brother. 5. She was sorry that she had missed the beginning of the concert. 6. I am glad that I see all my friends here. 7. I was afraid of going past that place alone. 8. My sister will be thrilled when she is wearing a dress as lovely as that. 9. We must wait till we hear the examination results. 10. She is happy that she has found such a nice place to live in. 11. I should be delighted if I could join you. 12. He hopes that he will know everything by tomorrow.

Speaking

Task 1. Offensive and defensive information warfare.

Task 2. Cyber warfare.

Writing Write a complaint letter