CYBER-TERRORISM – HOW MUCH OF A THREAT IS IT? - Cyberwar-Netwar: Security in the Information Age - page 56

terrorism. Among them we have Bin Laden with his personal capabilities who can
blackmail countries such as Saudi Arabia into changing their tradition of religious beliefs
into political beliefs. For instance, in June 2003, a religious Saudi, C.B. Fyed, a
supporter of Al Qaeda, wanted to call a fatwa, a religious pronouncement giving
legitimacy to his followers to use non-conventional weapons against the US and the UK.
It was a declaration that this was a kind of defensive war and the followers were allowed
to carry out their activities even if women, children and even Moslems could be harmed.
I have seen it in Saudi Arabia and regretfully I have also seen it in Turkey recently. So
the world is full of small groups fanatically against the result of the world. We have
spoken about cyberterror as a crime, but it cannot be until it is defined as such. This is
the main problem.
Heurlin : I would like to return a little bit again to cyberwar because I think we have
to consider what can be done. We have discussed the cost of cyberwar. We have
thousands or millions of computers which are combined together. This is cyberspace. I
think the physical part of this is very important. All those computers are combined by
telephone lines, but they also mostly use satellites and this situation is to do with real
space. To my knowledge, the US and NATO do not really emphasise space-war as such.
First of all space is deminiaturised according to treaties, but the problem is in the long
run that there will be possibilities of shutting down satellites in one way or another. We
have to consider in the US and NATO how to manage this situation. There are two ways
of course to try to protect the satellites. But another thing, which is so important is
research and development. Those leading states of NATO could suddenly be taken by
surprise by organisations which are able to conduct research and development and come
up with inventions. If you look at the US, there is one part of its strategy which is totally
new. We have not seen this before and the US will say directly to the world that it has
one aim and this is to dominate. The domination is first of all in research and
development; they do not want to be taken by surprise and that is the reason for investing
so much money in the future. The question is what are other NATO countries doing
concerning research and development in this area? In the 21 st century, research and
development in inventing technology can be a tool to, for instance, dominate our
weather.
Handy : Not so much domination as being the leader in research and development.
Domination means doing whatever it takes to keep you from ever being caught up and
that would be a violation, I think, of free competition.
Heurlin : The strategy first of all is to say not just to the Allies but also to rogue states
that they should not try to compete because they will never be able to catch up. You
would be better to use your money to create a better society.
Handy : From the military strategy point of view, of course. But from a commercial
strategy, you have competition. I would have to submit that NATO does need to look at
some way to combat cyberwar. To me it should be somewhat of a layer strategy. The
first thing is indications and warnings which means we have to know who the bad actors
are. It could be China or any other nation with an aggressive information warfare or
cyberwarfare strategy. We tend to pay attention to the rogue actors such as terrorists or
the narcotics traffickers, etc. But we would need indications as to who has the capability,