CDR: NSA into cyberwar soon

[anonymous at openpgp.net]

U.S. spy chief: Cyberspace a
                   potential battlefield

                   BALTIMORE, Maryland
                   (Reuters) -- The head of the
                   super-secret U.S. National
                   Security Agency (NSA) said
                   Monday that cyberspace had
                   become as important a potential
                   battlefield as any other and held
                   out the prospect of attacking
                   there as well as defending. 

                   "Information is now a place," Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael
                   Hayden told a major computer security conference here. "It is a
                   place where we must ensure American security as surely as ...
                   and, sea, air and space." 

                   He cited moves to define the "legal structure into which we
                   must fit" before offensive "information operations" --
                   cyberattacks -- were officially added to the arsenal that U.S.
                   commanders can use against a foe. The NSA is the Defense
                   Department arm that intercepts communications worldwide. 

                   The world of information "has taken on a dimension within
                   which we will conduct operations to ensure American security,"
                   Hayden said, adding that the NSA had not been authorized to
                   do "that attack thing," or go on the offensive in cyberspace. 

                   "But as the United States government begins to think about
                   what it should or wants to do when it is under attack, it raises a
                   really interesting question that we all have to work through in
                   the context of our overall democracy," he said. 

                   A year ago Army Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint
                   Chiefs of Staff, disclosed that the United States tried to mount
                   electronic attacks on Serbian computer networks during the
                   NATO air campaign over the province of Kosovo. 

                   "We only used our capability to a very limited degree," Shelton
                   told reporters at the time. 

                   Hayden said a key challenge to the NSA today was to protect
                   U.S. telecommunications in a world where the adversaries
                   might be "cyberterrorists, a malicious hacker or even a
                   non-malicious hacker." 

                   "All can cause great harm" to the networked systems that tie
                   the industrialized world together, he told the conference
                   co-sponsored by the NSA and the National Institute of
                   Standards and Technology, an arm of the Commerce
                   Department. 

                   Hayden said the NSA, the Pentagons codemaking and
                   codebreaking agency, was committed to developing its
                   partnerships with industry to boost computer network security. 

                   "Weve done pioneering work to better protect e-commerce" as
                   well as to develop biometrics, ways in which computers
                   authenticate identities from unique traits such as fingerprints,
                   iris scans and voice recognition, he said. 

                   Ultimately the NSA must become the "security statement" of
                   the U.S. telecommunications and computer industries, just as
                   he views the Air Force as the "military statement" of the
                   aviation industry, he said. 

                   "How else does our society develop the tools we need to do
                   what it is that our agency has been charged to do?" he asked.
                   The NSA designs codes to protect the integrity of U.S.
                   information systems and searches for weaknesses in foes
                   systems and codes. 
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/10/17/tech.internet.security.reut/index.html