At 02:30 PM 10/17/00 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
"Infowar" will be -- is being -- fought by business, because government in this sphere is too damned slow -- too expensive -- to be of much use there.
Put another way, it won't be the NSA which does our computer security, and, if any third party does it at all, it'll be firms like Counterpane and L0pht/@Stake, operating like those fictional private protection "rackets" in Vernor Vinge's anarcho-capitalist chestnut novella _The Ungoverned_.
For defense, yes. The @stakes of the world will show vulnerabilities in generic systems. They will have automated tools for this. Having found a hole, they mark it and move on. However the TLAs will invest in mapping these holes (and not notifying anyone, including the public about new vulnerabilities) and in developing a different and more aggressive strain of tools. Different needs (defense vs. offense) yield different tools. dh