INSTRUMENTAL CORRECTIONS FOR A DEFINITION OF CYBERWAR - Cyberwar-Netwar: Security in the Information Age - page 3

Chapter 1
INSTRUMENTAL CORRECTIONS FOR A DEFINITION OF
CYBERWAR
Serge S. Azarov 1 , Alexander G. Dodonov 2
1 LuckyNet, 24 Boulevard Lesia Ukrainka Street, 01133 Kyiv, Ukraine
2 Institute for Information Recording, National Academy of Sciences, 2 Shpak Street, 03113 Kyiv, Ukraine
Abstract. This paper is devoted to the problem of a multifold conception of cyberwar and the necessity for
specifying this conception through tool-oriented attributes, i.e., technological terms. In this connection,
the development of the conception of cyberwar is investigated by means of an S-figurative curve and an
analysis of some modern cyberwar-oriented technologies. In conclusion, the conception of a 'latent
cyberwar' is offered, as a 'deterrence mission'.
Key words : Information and communication technologies, information superiority, S-curve, cyber-attack, cyber-
target, information operations, psychological operations, control superiority, deterrence mission, latent
cyberwar.
1. INTRODUCTION
The terms 'information war', 'netwar' and 'cyberwar' are not synonyms or convertible
terms. At the same time, as all these terms are connected directly or indirectly with the
phenomena of the Internet; they have many common attributes in their definitions. The
use of these terms has the following chronology: The conception of 'information war'
for the first time was introduced, according to common opinion, in 1976 by Dr. Thomas
Rona, and as a 'strict' conception this term was put into a professional information
security lexicon in the middle of the 1990's by the documents 'Joint Publications' 1-3 .
The conception of netwar was developed in 1993, and its authors are two analysts
from RAND: John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt 4 . The same authors introduced a
conception of cyberwar in 1993 by making the following statement - 'Both Netwar and
Cyberwar Are Likely' in their paper 'Cyberwar Is Coming!', where they described many
features characteristic of both concepts.
Obviously we can realize intuitively that cyberwar is warfare in cyberspace. However
it is necessary to take into account that today's conception of cyberspace is constantly
changing. Indeed, cyberspace is absent in the very popular Joint Publications JP 3-13
(1998), and was introduced much later in the JP 2-0 (2000) and in the JP 1-02 (2001)
where cyberspace was interpreted as 'the environment in which digitized information is
communicated over computer networks'.
Today we can catch the idea of a modern understanding of cyberspace, for instance, in
the finely-visualized 'Atlas of Cyberspace', where this conception is presented by
various interpretations 5 . Moreover, without doubt, cyberspace is a fruit of modern
technology, that can destroy this fruit as such, and that is why the question - which
modern technologies are allowed in cyberspace, and which are not allowed - has the
right to existence, by analogy with today's prohibition of using mines against infantry.