[ISN] As battlefield moves online, DOD needs new technologies to fight terrorists

[InfoSec News]

Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk at c4i.org>

http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/37350-1.html

By Dawn S. Onley 
GCN Staff
10/19/05 

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J - Fighting al-Qaida marks the first time in world
history that a guerilla faction has moved war from the physical domain
to cyberspace, said the Army CIO.

The concepts of warfare have not changed in over 2,000 years, but the
tools used for war have, Army Lt. Gen. Steven Boutelle said during a
lunch address yesterday at the MILCOM 2005 conference.

Boutelle implored the audience not to get comfortable about the
advances that have been made by commercial technologies. Those same
technologies, Boutelle warned, are being used by terrorist groups like
al-Qaida, and in some instances, America's adversaries are better at
obtaining and using information to their advantage.

These groups have "fully embraced the Internet and fully embraced the
technology, and they are using it to kill your people," he added.

Today, members of the terrorist network use the Internet to
communicate with each other and to recruit new members, Boutelle said,
adding that they have posted recipes for ricin poison, outlined the
chemicals needed to make a bomb and described in vivid language the
best way to shoot and kill an American soldier.

"Your enemy, your adversary, is using your information, and they do it
faster, better and cheaper," Boutelle said.

The best counterattack to al-Qaida's increasing use of IT is to spiral
new technologies into Iraq as soon as possible, Boutelle said. He
encouraged contractors to "think about what you're bringing to the
table for us."


 
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"Communications without intelligence is noise;  Intelligence
without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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