A fundamental philosophy which underpins Information Warfare is a theory that defense always loses (“Information”). In the physical world, it is possible to build a fence to fortify a building, but that fence does not protect against a person digging a tunnel under it, nor by any means defend against a missile shot at the building. There are endless means that could justify the end of your building which a simple fence could not protect against. In the world of information, an attack is limited only by the imagination of the attacker. Thus, security must be equally imaginative to deny those attackers the exploits they envision, but this will never be good enough, as the defense is always on the reactive side to new threats.
The best defense against network-centric warfare is illusion and deception. The threat of failure or discovery does not need to be real, however, it must be perceived by the enemy as real. Psychological games can be played to make an attacker think they have something worth while, but in reality, its data is skewed or outdated (Office). For example, setting up a decoy system that appears to contain valuable information but actually has useless information is a form of deterrence. Simply having a defensive posture is not effective in information warfare because ‘hackers’ find defenses an inconvenient obstacle to their destination. However, if they view an attack as a risk to their personal safety, they are less likely to attempt it.
Because ‘hackers’ are typically viewed as the bad guys in the computer world, the term is often used with some spite toward people with computer knowledge. The public, in general, views ‘hackers’ and computer experts in the same light and is afraid of these users because of the unknown factor. Since the concept of network-centric warfare is so new, society has a difficult time distinguishing between good and bad because they are unsure of what ‘hacking’ actually consists of. To a great extent, people with computer knowledge know absolutely nothing about ‘hacking’ systems, and often time the negative ‘hackers’ that are discussed on the news are simply corrupt or disgruntled employees of a corporation who use their trust to betray the system. True hackers, computer security experts, are geniuses in their trade who work for both good and bad.
Computer security experts are hackers by nature because they use the same creative enthusiasm that is used to break systems illegally, except they are hired by corporations and government to find and patch exploits before the illegal users do. Security experts, while exploiting systems, ultimately do the system good because it is the most effective way to be proactive about insecure systems. If a ‘good hacker’ finds a bug before a ‘bad hacker’ does, they have the potential to save the government or corporation millions of dollars. Security experts also help strengthen the critical national infrastructure by finding and plugging holes in the communications networks that are used to transmit mission-critical applications to maintain a functioning economy. They are also the best source to detect attacks by others on potentially vulnerable systems.
Society has a stereotypically negative view of hackers because the press reports only negative things that are accomplished by hackers, and not the positive changes that hackers produce. Hackers also cause billions of dollars in damage every year – more money than any other crime in the jurisdiction of the FBI – which is definitely a negative. A stereotypical hacker is also someone who is a societal recluse, hiding behind a computer to inflict damage on untold numbers of people without any remorse, and this view is not helped any by movies such as Live Free, Die Hard and other Hollywood acts. The thought that a hacker could view every tiny bit of personal information about someone also scares people into thinking that all hackers are horrible people.
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