Cyber C&C

According to Ellen Nakashima, the Pentagon is looking at the creation of a “Cyber Command Center” designed to be the central resource on the war on cyber-terror. The U.S. Military is discussing how they could best protect the national military cyber-assets, national security online resources, and the civilian government in the chance that there would be a cyber attack on civilian computer networks.

The centralization of any type of online protection leads to questions regarding individual privacy and civil rights. The NSA used the “War of Terror” as a justification to warrantless wiretapping, which has not to be revoked by the current administration. Another problem this raises is that a centralized focus is not effective with this type of attack. Richard Bejtlich makes several excellent points regarding this subject. The major point is a specific goal or objective designed by the military may be virtually impossible to pull off. Only an informal structure that is the basis of the hacker community would be able to work out a solution that would provide the same effect. But, that type of structure is in direct conflict with the formal structure of the U.S. Military’s C&C. A military cyber C&C, based on former case studies, would more likely than not fail at objective goals.