Review of Cyber War Posted

Amazon.com just posted my four star review of Cyber War by Richard Clarke and Robert Knake. From the review:

The jacket for "Cyber War" (CW) says "This is the first book about the war of the future -- cyber war." That's not true, but I would blame the publisher for those words and not the authors. A look back to 1998 reveals books like James Adams' "The Next World War: Computers Are the Weapons & the Front Line Is Everywhere," a book whose title is probably cooler than its contents. (I read it back then but did not review it.) So what's the value of CW? I recommend reading the book if you'd like a Beltway insider's view of government and military information warfare history, combined with a few recommendations that could make a difference. CW is strongest when drawing on the authors' experience with arms control but weakest when trying to advocate technical "solutions."

Comments

Andrew Hay said…
I'll admit, I started reading it and then got bored and abandoned my Kindle downloaded version of the book. Perhaps I'll try and find time to pick it up again.
2:46 PM
Destroying Angel said…
One of Clarke's assertions is that we need to stop playing defense and go on the offense. One of my own flights of fancy (okay, I'm a novelist with the beginnings of an idea) is that pursuant to US Constitution Article 1 Section 8 the Congress authorize bonded cyber privateers and make security really profitable (see www.TheMorganDoctrine.com). The idea is still rough, so don't throw out the baby with the bath water, but privateers substantially financed and won the Revolutionary War. Maybe this could be part of the new equation. Or maybe it just makes for a good movie?
12:25 AM
Anonymous said…
Seymour Hersh's latest article in the New Yorker (November, 2010), is about Cyberwar and includes quotes from Clarke and others. The article isn't one of his best, technical details need to be fact checked however the first few paragraphs are very interesting.
Remember that altercation with China where a spy plane crash landed on an island in China, after a Chinese fighter "accidentally" came too close? Apparently, either the spy team screwed up, and didn't properly wipe the systems, or the NSA procedure was faulty, but it seems the Chinese were able to learn enough such that they are now able to eavesdrop and understand U.S. communications! To me, amateur that I am, this is akin to the British cracking Enigma contributing more to the end of the war than any number of bombs. If memory serves, the ability of the Brits to get an intact Enigma, from a captured u-boat, and code book, was what enabled them to solve the encryption technique. The Chinese fighter "accidentally" hit the spy plane, conveniently forcing it to land on the military island? Right, and I have a bridge to sell. Sure, this could be disinformation (Hersh offers the point that this is a great way to push for the budget for a new OS), but the whole stupidity of the situation makes me think it isn't.
7:45 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zeek in Action Videos

Image
This is a quick note to point blog readers to my Zeek in Action YouTube video series for the Zeek network security monitoring project .  Each video addresses a topic that I think might be of interest to people trying to understand their network using Zeek and adjacent tools and approaches, like Suricata, Wireshark, and so on.  I am especially pleased with Video 6 on monitoring wireless networks . It took me several weeks to research material for this video. I had to buy new hardware and experiment with a Linux distro that I had not used before -- Parrot .  Please like and subscribe, and let me know if there is a topic you think might make a good video.
Read more

MITRE ATT&CK Tactics Are Not Tactics

Image
Just what are "tactics"? Introduction MITRE ATT&CK  is a great resource, but something about it has bothered me since I first heard about it several years ago. It's a minor point, but I wanted to document it in case it confuses anyone else. The MITRE ATT&CK Design and Philosophy document from March 2020 says the following: At a high-level, ATT&CK is a behavioral model that consists of the following core components: • Tactics, denoting short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack; • Techniques, describing the means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals; • Sub-techniques, describing more specific means by which adversaries achieve tactical goals at a lower level than techniques; and • Documented adversary usage of techniques, their procedures, and other metadata. My concern is with MITRE's definition of "tactics" as "short-term, tactical adversary goals during an attack," which is oddly recursive. The key word in the tacti...
Read more

New Book! The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4

Image
  I've completed the TaoSecurity Blog book series . The new book is  The Best of TaoSecurity Blog, Volume 4: Beyond the Blog with Articles, Testimony, and Scholarship .  It's available now for Kindle , and I'm working on the print edition.  I'm running a 50% off promo on Volumes 1-3 on Kindle through midnight 20 April. Take advantage before the prices go back up. I described the new title thus: Go beyond TaoSecurity Blog with this new volume from author Richard Bejtlich. In the first three volumes of the series, Mr. Bejtlich selected and republished the very best entries from 18 years of writing and over 18 million blog views, along with commentaries and additional material.  In this title, Mr. Bejtlich collects material that has not been published elsewhere, including articles that are no longer available or are stored in assorted digital or physical archives. Volume 4 offers early white papers that Mr. Bejtlich wrote as a network defender, either for technica...
Read more