Cyberwarfare: An Introduction to Information-Age Conflict

Cyberwarfare: An Introduction to Information-Age Conflict
Author: Isaac R. Porche, III
Publisher: Artech House
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2019-12-31
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1630815780

Conflict in cyberspace is becoming more prevalent in all public and private sectors and is of concern on many levels. As a result, knowledge of the topic is becoming essential across most disciplines. This book reviews and explains the technologies that underlie offensive and defensive cyber operations, which are practiced by a range of cyber actors including state actors, criminal enterprises, activists, and individuals. It explains the processes and technologies that enable the full spectrum of cyber operations. Readers will learn how to use basic tools for cyber security and pen-testing, and also be able to quantitatively assess cyber risk to systems and environments and discern and categorize malicious activity. The book provides key concepts of information age conflict technical basics/fundamentals needed to understand more specific remedies and activities associated with all aspects of cyber operations. It explains techniques associated with offensive cyber operations, with careful distinctions made between cyber ISR, cyber exploitation, and cyber attack. It explores defensive cyber operations and includes case studies that provide practical information, making this book useful for both novice and advanced information warfare practitioners.

Information Warfare in the Age of Cyber Conflict

Information Warfare in the Age of Cyber Conflict
Author: Christopher Whyte
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2020-07-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429893922

This book examines the shape, sources and dangers of information warfare (IW) as it pertains to military, diplomatic and civilian stakeholders. Cyber warfare and information warfare are different beasts. Both concern information, but where the former does so exclusively in its digitized and operationalized form, the latter does so in a much broader sense: with IW, information itself is the weapon. The present work aims to help scholars, analysts and policymakers understand IW within the context of cyber conflict. Specifically, the chapters in the volume address the shape of influence campaigns waged across digital infrastructure and in the psychology of democratic populations in recent years by belligerent state actors, from the Russian Federation to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In marshalling evidence on the shape and evolution of IW as a broad-scoped phenomenon aimed at societies writ large, the authors in this book present timely empirical investigations into the global landscape of influence operations, legal and strategic analyses of their role in international politics, and insightful examinations of the potential for democratic process to overcome pervasive foreign manipulation. This book will be of much interest to students of cybersecurity, national security, strategic studies, defence studies and International Relations in general.

In Athena's Camp

In Athena's Camp
Author: John Arquilla
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 529
Release: 1997-10-07
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0833048589

The information revolution--which is as much an organizational as a technological revolution--is transforming the nature of conflict across the spectrum: from open warfare, to terrorism, crime, and even radical social activism. The era of massed field armies is passing, because the new information and communications systems are increasing the lethality of quite small units that can call in deadly, precise missile fire almost anywhere, anytime. In social conflicts, the Internet and other media are greatly empowering individuals and small groups to influence the behavior of states. Whether in military or social conflicts, all protagonists will soon be developing new doctrines, strategies, and tactics for swarming their opponents--with weapons or words, as circumstances require. Preparing for conflict in such a world will require shifting to new forms of organization, particularly the versatile, hardy, all-channel network. This shift will prove difficult for states and professional militaries that remain bastions of hierarchy, bound to resist institutional redesign. They will make the shift as they realize that information and knowledge are becoming the key elements of power. This implies, among other things, that Mars, the old brute-force god of war, must give way to Athena, the well-armed goddess of wisdom. Accepting Athena as the patroness of this information age represents a first step not only for preparing for future conflicts, but also for preventing them.

Technology, Development, and Democracy

Technology, Development, and Democracy
Author: Juliann Emmons Allison
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2012-02-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0791489299

Technology, Development, and Democracy examines the growing role of the Internet in international affairs, from a source of mostly officially sanctioned information, to a venue where knowledge is often merged with political propaganda, rhetoric and innuendo. The Internet not only provides surfers with up-to-the-minute stories, including sound and visual images, and opportunities to interact with one another and experts on international issues, but also enables anyone with access to a computer, modem, and telephone line to influence international affairs directly. What does this portend for the future of international politics? The contributors respond by providing theoretical perspectives and empirical analyses for understanding the impact of the communications revolution on international security, the world political economy, human rights, and gender relations. Internet technologies are evaluated as sources of change or continuity, and as contributors to either conflict or cooperation among nations. While the Internet and its related technologies hold no greater, certain prospect for positive change than previous technological advances, they arguably do herald significant advances for democracy, the democratization process, and international peace.

Young People's Literacies in the Digital Age

Young People's Literacies in the Digital Age
Author: Luci Pangrazio
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2018-11-12
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1351395157

What do young people really do with digital media? Young People's Literacies in the Digital Age aims to debunk the common myths and assumptions that are associated with young people's relationship with digital media. In contrast to widespread notions of the empowered and enabled 'digital native', the book presents a more complex picture of young people's digital lives. Focusing on the notion of 'critical digital literacies' this book tackles a number of pressing questions that are often ignored in media hype and political panics over young people’s digital media use, including: In what ways can digital media enhance, shape or constrain identity representation and communication? How do digital experiences map onto young people’s everyday lives? What are young people’s critical understandings of digital media and how did they develop these? What are the dominant understandings young people have of digital media and in whose interests do they work? These questions are addressed through the findings of a year of fieldwork with groups of young people aged 14 to 19 years. Over the course of eight chapters, the experiences and views of these young people are explored with reference to various academic literatures, such as digital literacies, media and communication studies, critical theory and youth studies. Starting with their early socialisation into the digital context, the book traces the continuities, contradictions and conflicts they encounter as part of their practices. Written in a detailed but accessible manner, this book develops a unique perspective on young people’s digital lives.

War 2.0

War 2.0
Author: Thomas Rid
Publisher: Thomas Rid
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2009-05-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0313364702

Examines the relevance of the changes in the media environment for the conduct of armed conflict and war, particularly as it relates to irregular warfare. Argues that new media provide an advantage to unconventional forces and discusses the reactions that regular forces should have in order to temper this advantage.

Hegemony in the Digital Age

Hegemony in the Digital Age
Author: Stephen M. E. Marmura
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2008
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9780739117729

This book examines the relative benefits which the internet provides to a range of weak and powerful actors in American society. The Arab/Israeli conflict is utilized as a topic holding common interest to all of those considered. Evidence suggests that the Web's exploitation by countless competing interests is contributing to the consolidation of dominant discourses and policies surrounding American Mid-East policy, while exacerbating processes of social fragmentation in civil society.

Lewis Fry Richardson: His Intellectual Legacy and Influence in the Social Sciences

Lewis Fry Richardson: His Intellectual Legacy and Influence in the Social Sciences
Author: Nils Petter Gleditsch
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 154
Release: 2019-12-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030315894

This is an open access book. Lewis F Richardson (1981-1953), a physicist by training, was a pioneer in meteorology and peace research and remains a towering presence in both fields. This edited volume reviews his work and assesses its influence in the social sciences, notably his work on arms races and their consequences, mathematical models, the size distribution of wars, and geographical features of conflict. It contains brief bibliographies of his main publications and of articles and books written about Richardson and his work and discusses his continuing influence in peace research and international relations as well as his attitude to the ethical responsibilities of a scientist. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars. This book includes 11 chapters written by Nils Petter Gleditsch, Dina A Zinnes, Ron Smith, Paul F Diehl, Kelly Kadera, Mark Crescenzi, Michael D Ward, Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, Nils B Weidmann, Jürgen Scheffran, Niall MacKay, Aaron Clauset, Michael Spagat and Stijn van Weezel. Lewis F Richardson occupied an important position in two academic fields as different as meteorology and peace research, with academic prizes awarded in both disciplines. In peace research, he pioneered the use of mathematical models and the meticulous compilation of databases for empirical research. As a quaker and pacifist, he refused to work in preparations for war, paid a heavy prize in terms of his career, and (at least in the social sciences) was fully recognized as a pioneering scholar only posthumously with the publication of two major books. Lewis Fry Richardson is one of the 20th century’s greatest but least appreciated thinkers—a creative physicist, psychologist, meteorologist, applied mathematician, historian, pacifist, statistician, and witty stylist. If you’ve heard of weather prediction, chaos, fractals, cliometrics, peace science, big data, thick tails, or black swans, then you have benefited from Richardson’s prescience in bringing unruly phenomena into the ambit of scientific understanding. Richardson’s ideas continue to be relevant today, and this collection is a superb retrospective on this brilliant and lovable man. Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor, Harvard University, and the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment Now

Information Technology and Military Power

Information Technology and Military Power
Author: Jon R. Lindsay
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2020-07-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501749579

Militaries with state-of-the-art information technology sometimes bog down in confusing conflicts. To understand why, it is important to understand the micro-foundations of military power in the information age, and this is exactly what Jon R. Lindsay's Information Technology and Military Power gives us. As Lindsay shows, digital systems now mediate almost every effort to gather, store, display, analyze, and communicate information in military organizations. He highlights how personnel now struggle with their own information systems as much as with the enemy. Throughout this foray into networked technology in military operations, we see how information practice—the ways in which practitioners use technology in actual operations—shapes the effectiveness of military performance. The quality of information practice depends on the interaction between strategic problems and organizational solutions. Information Technology and Military Power explores information practice through a series of detailed historical cases and ethnographic studies of military organizations at war. Lindsay explains why the US military, despite all its technological advantages, has struggled for so long in unconventional conflicts against weaker adversaries. This same perspective suggests that the US retains important advantages against advanced competitors like China that are less prepared to cope with the complexity of information systems in wartime. Lindsay argues convincingly that a better understanding of how personnel actually use technology can inform the design of command and control, improve the net assessment of military power, and promote reforms to improve military performance. Warfighting problems and technical solutions keep on changing, but information practice is always stuck in between.

Stray Voltage

Stray Voltage
Author: Wayne M. Hall
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2003
Genre: Asymmetric Warfare
ISBN: 9781591143505

Enemies of America who have no hope of competing with conventional U.S. military forces, Wayne Michael Hall warns in the opening pages of this timely book, will instead seize upon the strategies, tactics, and tools of asymmetric warfare to win future conflicts. A retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army with thirty years of experience in intelligence, Hall has written the book primarily for the military community and civilians interested in or responsible for homeland security. He explains the notion of knowledge warfare as our adversaries' principal asymmetric strategy and information operations as their tactic du jour, and then offers a wealth of ideas on how to deal aggressively with these threats in the twenty-first century.

Along with knowledge war and information operations, the book discusses deception, information superiority, and knowledge management. It also recommends ways for the country to prepare for knowledge war through merging the country's brainpower and technology in Knowledge Advantage centres, developing a joint information-operations proving ground where leaders train their staffs in a cyber-world environment, and developing an internet replicator to prepare for conflict in cyberspace.