Absher Annotated Bibliography

Cyber Warfare Serves as Modern Battlefields: How are computer viruses and hacking being used in modern day warfare and espionage?

Bradford Absher

Professor Malcolm Campbell

English 1103

October 17, 2012

Absher Annotated Bibliography

Denning, Dorothy E. Sutxnet: What Has Changed? Future Internet 4:3 (2012): 672687. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. This scholarly paper covers how Stuxnet has affected cyber security and cyber defense. Stuxnet was used on an industrial control system, and it had a physical effect. The focus of this paper is to cover weapons that have similar targets and effects. Furthermore, the paper examines the different domains where cyber attacks are used, including state-level conflict, terrorism, activism, crime, and pranks. Posed is the question whether or not Stuxnet has been a game changer in these domains. The paper concludes that Stuxnet could serve as a building block for future cyber weapons, and it can provide a more moral alternative to bombs. The U.S. defense policy has already been focusing on industrially control system security and cyber security in general; Stuxnet has not caused a major shift. This academic paper comes from the journal Future Internet, which is published by Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. The paper was written by Dorothy Denning, an information security researcher who is a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. I can use this paper to show where Stuxnet fits in the current state of cyber war and cyber espionage.

Mahnken, Tom.Why Cyberwar Isnt the Warfare You Should Worry About. Foreign Policy. Foreignpolicy.com. 23 July 2012. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. This article examines the governmental and media reactions to the impact of Stuxnet and Flame viruses. In it, the author, Tom Mahnken, argues that cyber warfare, while significant, is not that big of a deal; Mahken says that it is misleading to talk about

Absher cyber war since the uses of computer viruses have fallen under three traditional categories of sabotage, espionage, and subversion. Mahken goes on to say that weak powers will probably not even use cyber attacks due to escalation dominance, which relates to a weaker powers limitations. Mahnken writes, If a cyber attack by a weaker power on a stronger one fails to achieve its aim, the attacker is likely to face retaliation.

Tom Mahnken is currently the Jerome Levy Chair of Economic Geography and National security at the U.S. Naval War College. Mahnken is a graduate of the University of Southern California and was a fellow at Harvard University. Most opinions toward cyber warfare represent it as the future of war and believe that terrorist groups and weaker states are going to use it to attack stronger governments; however, Mahnkes article maintains that cyber war is not as much of a threat as it is made out to be. This article represents a contrasting opinion.

Maurer, Tim, David Weinstein. Flame Thrower. Foreign Policy. Foreignpolicy.com. 29 May 2012. Web. 08 Oct. 2012. This article is about the computer virus Flame. Flame has been found in computers worldwide; the United States and Israel are the probable origins of it. Flame has been compared to Sutxnet, which was also probably developed by the United States and Israel. Stuxnet destroyed some of Irans nuclear centrifuges, but, as the article points out, Stuxnet and Flame have two different purposes: Stuxnet was meant to destroy, while Flame only spies. Flame takes screenshots and records keystrokes on infected computers, among other things. Also, Flame is much larger than Stuxnet. This article

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appears in the bi-monthly popular magazine, Foreign Policy. Writers of this article were Tim Maurer and David Weinstein. Maurer is a non resident fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute and a research associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Maurer is a graduate of the Freie Universitat, Berlin, Germany and Harvard University. He has worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees in Geneva and for the UN in New York and Kigali, Rwanda. David Weinstein is a graduate student at Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign Service. This article will be useful to me because it shows that current cyber espionage is not restricted to Stuxnet. It also shows that viruses can be used not only to destroy but to gather intelligence via infected computers.

Newton-Small, Jay. A War on Two Fronts. Time 25 June 2012: 46-50. Print. In this article, Jay Newton-Small, the congressional correspondent for TIME, a popular publication, writes about how United Sates backed training has metaphorically leveled the playing/battlefield between Syrian rebels and Bashar al-Assads regime. Newton-Small provides a holistic view of the situation while, seemingly, she is sympathetic to Syrian government protestors. The article exhibits three photographs portraying various protesters who have been slaughtered by the firepower of Assads armed forces. Newton-Small individualizes the concept of rebel by focusing on Abu Ghassan, pseudonym used for anonymity, a twenty-six-year-old revolutionary whom she describes as decked out in a pink shirt and black jeans, he clutches a pack of cigarettes and begins to talk hesitantly about his activitiesand how Americans helped turn him

Absher into a cyberwarrior. After nearly being shot to death while filming an anti-regime

demonstration, Ghassan reports he received an opportunity to go abroad for sophisticated training in computer encryption, circumvention of government firewalls and secure use of mobile phonescourtesy of the U.S. State Department. Newton-Small points out the discrepancy between American governmental vows of non-interference versus passiveaggressive actions, such as coordinating congressional and non-profit funding of software and cyber defense training for dissidents in the Middle East and China. One of the various defensive strategies revealed is the Internet in a suitcase. This device provides access to the Web when authorities have shut it down. The author reveals the catch-22: An ongoing challenge is that the flow of software goes to both sides. The Assad regime has imported technology from the U.S. in order to spy on Syrians. Newton-Small covers events and perspectives from three entities, the Syrian government, an individual from Syria, and the United States government. This article fits into my research in that it goes beyond theory and provides examples of cyber warfare in the real world, on the ground level.