Information Warfare: Its Application in Military and Civilian Contexts

The lexicon of information warfare (IW), or cyberwar, to use a common variant, has been around for more than two decades (Adams, 1998), but for most of that time it has remained the preserve of the defense community. Within the cloistered world of the Pentagon and its satellite communities, a radically new concept of postindustrial warfare has crystallized, one that is designed to ensure continued U.S. military dominance in the post-Cold War era. There exists an extensive literature on information warfare theory and practice, much of which is in the public domain (De Landa, 1991; Libicki, 1995; Schwartau, 1996; Denning, 1999). Predictably, the prevailing language, images, and metaphors are classically militaristic in character, blurring the fact that many of the underpinning principles and assumptions have application well beyond conventional military contexts. This privileging of military thinking is myopic. Information warfare concepts deserve to be liberated from their military associations and introduced into other discourse communities concerned with understanding the social consequences of pervasive computing. Already, the principles and practices of information warfare are being exhibited, more or less wittingly, in a variety of civilian contexts (from computer-based fraud to cyberstalking), and there are good grounds for assuming that this trend will intensify, causing potentially serious social problems and creating novel challenges for the criminal justice system. To paraphrase a well-worn cliché, information warfare is too important to be left to the military.