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Dec 11, 2015·Advances in computers
13 cites
Cryptocurrencies

Xun Yi, Xuechao Yang, Andrei Kelarev, Kwok‐Yan Lam · 5 authors

Kriptovalute su digitalni novac utemeljen na kriptografiji i decentraliziranom sustavu. Postoje samo u elektroničkom obliku kao jedinstveni digitalni novčići ("tokeni"). Iza njih ne stoji autoritet drĆŸave niti ih je moguće svojevoljno proizvesti. Rad se fokusira na značajkama, postavkama, razvoju i svim međuodnosima vaĆŸnih ekonomskih faktora koji utječu na kriptovalute. U prvom poglavlju navedena su obiljeĆŸja kriptovaluta. Drugo poglavlje daje primjere i govori o primjeni kriptovaluta u svakodnevnom ĆŸivotu. U trećem poglavlju je raspravljano o trenutnim i budućim regulacijama najmoćnijih zemalja svijeta (G20) , kao i njihovoj zajedničkoj suradnji u ĆŸelji za jedinstvenim i standardiziranim pravilima, a sve u svrhu ĆĄto kvalitetnijeg nadzora nad kriptovalutama kako bi se spriječile malverzacije i zaĆĄtitili potroĆĄači. Četvrto poglavlje govori o inicijalnoj ponudi kovanica, a peto poglavlje je namijenjeno sigurnosti kriptovaluta. Cilj istraĆŸivanja je utvrditi koliko je studentska populacija upoznata i usmjerena prema novim oblicima digitalnog novca, koje značajke kriptovaluta smatraju pozitivnima, a koje negativnima i u kojoj su mjeri investirali ili su spremni investirati dio svojih ulaganja u kriptovalute i sl. Metode istraĆŸivanja koriĆĄtene u radu su kompilacija na temelju proučavanja postojeće literature o temi rada, prikupljanje i analiza podataka vezanih uz kriptovalute, ponajprije podataka vezanih uz cijene i trĆŸiĆĄnu kapitalizaciju, anketiranje studenata Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci i metoda dedukcije putem koje su pokazane sve vaĆŸne karakteristike i obiljeĆŸja kriptovaluta. Na temelju provedene ankete u kojoj je sudjelovalo 90 studenata Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci zaključak toga dijela istraĆŸivanja je da je mlada populacija dobro upoznata s kriptovalutama i njenim glavnim značajkama, ali i određenim nedostatkom informiranosti o tehnologiji (trećina studenata nije čula za pojam "blockchain") i nedovoljnoj odlučnosti oko investiranja i trgovanja u kriptovalute. Povrh toga, dokazan je i negativan utjecaj hakerskih napada i određenih kriminalnih radnji, kao i nestabilnost trĆŸiĆĄne cijene na povjerenje studenata, ali i ukupne populacije vezane uz globalni financijski sustav u kriptovalute. Ishod istraĆŸivanja omogućio je da zaključimo kako su kriptovalute trenutno u ranoj fazi razvoja i nisu se dovoljno implementirale za ĆĄiroku primjenu u trgovini roba i usluga ili općenito kao sredstvo razmjene. Faktor koji je uključen u istraĆŸivanje kako bi opisao veličinu, odnosno obujam neke kriptovalute je trĆŸiĆĄna kapitalizacija u dolarima. Temeljna ideja ovog rada je informirati čitatelja o pozitivnim i negativnim značajkama koje se se veĆŸu uz kriptovalute. Na taj način čitatelji će biti bolje informirani i educirani o potencijalnom riziku ulaganja u kriptovalute, kao i većoj razini zaĆĄtite prilikom posjedovanja neke digitalne valute.

Open access
35 source records
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Cybercrime and Law Enforcement Studies
Spam and Phishing Detection
Original source
Jan 1, 2015·IACR Cryptology ePrint Archive
0 cites
Secure Comparator: a ZKP-Based Authentication System.

Ignat Korchagin, Eugene Pilyankevich

This paper presents Secure Comparator, a way to implement Zero Knowledge Proof algorithm called Socialist Millionaire’s Problem, to compare secrets between two parties. Compared to existing implementations, Secure Comparator provides better security guarantees, stronger cryptographic math, and, possibly, more integration-friendly architecture.

Intelligence, Security, War Strategy
Original source
Jan 1, 2010·Homeland security affairs
11 cites
Information Sharing Exploring the Intersection of Policing with National and Military Intelligence

Kathryn Scarborough, Gary W. Cordner

This article explores the intersection of (1) policing and police intelligence with (2) national intelligence and military intelligence. The premise is that for more than 150 years, prior to the events of September 11, 2001, police intelligence had little connection to national or military intelligence. Basically, national intelligence focused on serious world-wide political and economic threats to the nation's well-being; military intelligence focused specifically on military threats to the national security; the police focused their intelligence work on criminals who posed threats to individuals and local communities. A fairly clear division of labor was in place, based largely on the type and scale of threats.Since 9/11, however, it has become plausible that a small group of non-state actors, such as terrorists, could launch a serious attack against the nation using weapons of mass destruction, or even small arms, as in Mumbai. These individuals might live in a local U.S. community or halfway across the world, yet plan and execute a massive and violent attack against a local U.S. community. They might also commit ordinary crimes to help finance their larger intentions. In this new context of terrorism and asymmetric threats, a local police department might develop intelligence of significant interest to national and military intelligence, or vice versa.Important historical, conceptual, and policy issues associated with the intersection of national, military, and police intelligence are discussed more fully elsewhere. 1 This article presents the results of a small-scale study in which subject matter experts were asked to respond to several scenarios related to intelligence and sharing, asking both what should happen and what would actually happen.U.S. POLICINGPolicing in the United States is civilian (non-military), predominantly local (funded and directed by local governments), and extremely fragmented. It is not just that police are distributed all around the country 2 - they mostly answer to local elected officials. The U.S. has almost 18,000 separate law enforcement agencies, roughly 16,000 of which are local. Of the remaining 2,000 agencies, the vast majority represent special jurisdictions (university police, transit police, park police, etc.), followed by state agencies, and lastly by federal non-military agencies. Out of 837,000 full-time sworn police personnel (armed with arrest authority), 74 percent work for local agencies, 13 percent work for federal law enforcement, and 13 percent work for state or special jurisdiction law enforcement agencies. 3The two largest components of U.S. policing are both local: municipal police departments (cities, towns, townships, boroughs, villages) and county sheriff's offices. 4 Two characteristics of these types of law enforcement agencies are absolutely essential for understanding their capabilities and contexts: most are small (77 percent have fewer than twenty-five full-time sworn officers), 5 and they are all independent of each other. There is no chain of command in the police industry - within individual agencies, yes, but among and between the 18,000 agencies, no. 6Along with industry structure, it is important to note a thing or two about police work and police culture. Particularly at the local and state levels, police officers in the field frequently act alone and without immediate supervision. Much of their work involves making low visibility - especially when an officer's decision does not result in a report or an arrest (and most police actions and decisions do not), it is rarely subject to review. If an officer's decision does not result in a report or arrest, it probably will not produce any official for later analysis. As Peter Manning notes, information in police departments can best be characterized as systematically decentralized. 


Open access
Policing Practices and Perceptions
Intelligence, Security, War Strategy
Gun Ownership and Violence Research
Original source
Jan 1, 2005·M/C Journal
2 cites
Distributed Terror and the Ordering of Networked Social Space

Mark Nunes


 
 
 Truth be told, the “Y2K bug” was quite a disappointment. While the technopundits wooed us with visions of network failures worthy of millennial fervor, Jan. 1, 2000, came and went without even a glimmer of the catastrophic. Yet the Y2K “bug” did reveal the degree to which the American apocalypse now took the form of the network itself. The spaces of everyday life in America and elsewhere in a developed world produce and are produced by network structures that Manuel Castells has called “spaces of flow.” As such, Catastrophe today is marked more by dispersion and dissipation, rather than breakdown — a dis-strophe of social forms, structures, and experience. The dissipation of enactive networks does not, however, equate with a system failure. With the Internet “bubble burst” of March, 2000, the very exuberance of market flows were very much the conditions of possibility for both the irruption of a new economy and its sudden evaporation. It is not the ephemerality of these social forms and structures that disorients activities of everyday life in a network society, but rather our lack of control over distributed processes. The bubble burst, then, by no means sounded a death knell for distributed network functions. Rather, it marked a moment of increased misrecognition of the forms, structures, and practices that were the conditions of possibility for the event itself, as an ideology of authentication eclipsed a rhetoric of emergence and flow. Billions in capital disappeared in a matter of weeks, but the network forms and structures that allowed individual users “direct access” to the flows of capital remained in place for a normative virtual class, articulated as personalized and privatized spaces of control. As the bubble burst signaled an instance of digital dis-strophe, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center marked a similar dissipative moment, articulated in the material terror of over 1,300 feet of skyscraper steel and human bodies turned to wreckage and dust. Much as the market crash of 2000 represented a collapse from within of the same network processes that enabled the market’s phenomenal growth, for all the “foreignness” of the terrorists, al Qaeda as an organization appeared decidedly at home in the globalized network society that it threatened to destroy. In an instance of Baudrillardian “ironic revenge,” terrorism appropriated all the trappings of a global space of flows in the name of subverting that same social structure (Baudrillard, “Spirit” 17-19). Only within the conditions of possibility of networked social space could such attacks occur. As such, terrorist cells functioned (the media informed us) as nodes in a distributed network, a human articulation of a space of flows capable of enacting horrifying acts beyond control. While in the years leading up to the market collapse of March, 2000, a growing number of an emerging virtual middle class (from cyberhippy to day-trader manquĂ©) began to understand distributed networks as material expressions of a social revolution, the image of a distributed network changed after 9/11, becoming a global spatiality of fear and danger. As independent scholar Sam Smith notes on his weblog: I expect the organizing principle of the coming age – the era that began on September 12
 – will be the distributed network, and we already have some early indications of what this period might look like. The decentralized potency of the Internet is a perfect metaphor in so many ways, and al Qaeda itself provides an apt demonstration of the character and power of the distributed network
. As our ill-prepared military has discovered, it’s hard to kill something you can’t find. Thank goodness for the Taliban, eh? Although figured as an anti-modern fundamentalism, the terrorist networks associated with September 11 served as an image of contemporary network structures themselves. The enemy, it seemed, was not some reclusive figurehead, but rather, the spatiality of the network itself, enacted by distributed, autonomous agents. Carl Conetta, writing on the nature of al Qaeda as a distributed network, notes in particular its ability to “[link] subnational elements together in a transnational web,” to thrive in nation-states that have collapsed or are about to collapse; in short, al Qaeda “lives in the interstices” of modern global space (Conetta). As globalization’s ironic revenge, distributed terror maps the interstitial flows that exploit the inability of centralized authority to coordinate emergent, enactive forms of network agency. In response, the US Congress passed the Patriot Act as an attempt to introduce modes of control into distributed networks and place them at the fingertips of state-based agencies. In an era of global flows, the Patriot Act reestablished the homeland as both a concept of social space and a delimited space of practice, articulated through global network structures. As part of President Bush’s “war on terror,” the Patriot Act declared war on the dispersive and dissipative nature of distributed networks by introducing what Deleuze and Guattari would call state-based apparatuses of capture. But as Deleuze notes, in a world of flows, “capture” occurs as a modulation, not an enclosure — a system of distributed control that is itself expressed in flows (4). The Patriot Act acknowledges networks themselves as modes of agency (noted in its frequent reference to an “intelligence service or network of a foreign power”), and as such institutes a legislative structure to “trap and trace” emergent network structures. In effect, the Patriot Act marks a modulation of networked social space that affirms the primacy of global flows in contemporary life at the same time that it initiates state-based systems of distributed control. Apparatuses of capture modulate flows by eliminating the interstitial and regulating transmission as a mode of order. The “homeland security” measures, then, are precisely this sort of effort to modulate the forms, structures, and practices of a space of flows. As the US military force mounted, one heard less and less talk of the distributed network form of terror, as an uncontrollable threat coalesced in the modulated image of a handful of figureheads: a “line up” in its most literal sense connecting bin Laden, Zakawi, and Hussein. The infamous Most Wanted card deck shifted our imagination from the shuffling networks of global terror to a linear ranking of Ba’ath Party players — a chain of command in a “rogue nation,” from ace of spades to the two of clubs. The topology of fear had changed. Within months, the U.S. government’s rhetoric had swayed our attention from terrorist networks to an “Axis of Evil.” Gone were the references to the complex webbings of distributed systems, and in its place, the reassuringly linear, gravitational orientations of good and evil. The “axis” not only revived the relatively clear lines of geopolitics of the Second World War; it also attempted to reestablish a representation of space predicated upon unidirectional movements and centralized control. Meanwhile, back in the homeland, DARPA’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) Program (renamed the Terrorist Information Awareness Program for better PR) promised a means of capturing flows of information through distributed control over the network. Whereas terrorist organizations exploit the interstitial spaces of a global network society, TIA as a state-based apparatus of capture promised to utilize these same networks to modulate a space of flows and extract orderly patterns of information. The agent of the state doesn’t necessarily control the flow of these networks, but rather, extracts mappings of emergent connections enacted by the network itself. Patterns of informatic exchange and transmission, then, provide distributed control over a network environment that can only be defined by flows and virtualities. In contrast to the data mining we are all used to in a commercial setting, where patterns of aggregate data give rise to “meaningful” market analysis, distributed control systems would instead focus on “rare but significant connections” mapped by the relational structures of a situated subject (DARPA A-14). Lines of contact emerge as pattern recognition allows authorized agents to “connect the dots” (a favored expression throughout DARPA’s report to Congress) within an undifferentiated network of data-flow. Distributed control creates a means for modulating what would otherwise appear as abject noise or aberrant links; the very fact that terrorist networks are represented as abject, interstitial social formations (and vice versa) becomes the condition of possibility for their recognition and capture. In a world in which networks of flows shape both state structures of power and the attempts to destroy those same structures, the lines have been drawn — and modulated. Through systems of distributed control, enactive networks now increasingly speak to a social space in which agency itself maps an emergent network. Less than two years after the Patriot Act was signed into law, DARPA lost Congressional funding for TIA. Again, it was the potential for success that induced our visions of digital catastrophe — that such a large body of data subjected to distributed control presented the potential for the network’s ironic revenge. Yet in many ways the modes of distributed control enacted by networks of pattern recognition are already matters of everyday life, misrecognized as “conveniences” in a network society. While spam filters and software agents hardly equate with the sophistication of TIA programs, the goal of each is the same — to modulate flows and cast off or capture the interstitial within programs of order. While information may want to be free, the forms, structures, and practices of everyday life reveal the degree to which a normative virtual class exerts a will to control, and an ir

Open access
Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies
Intelligence, Security, War Strategy
Original source
Jan 1, 2003·SIAM Review
0 cites
SIGEST

Authors unavailable

The editors of SIAM Review are delighted to present a SIGEST paper about cryptography, a topic that appears frequently these days in mainstream news media. Stories about computer security, defenses against terrorism, privacy, and file swapping invariably refer to cryptographic systems, which thus represent an extraordinarily visible example of the practical application of mathematics and computer science. Encryption systems depend on a stream of new mathematical results and algorithms; it may take years of study by experts to prove that a proposed technique is secure (or not). An additional wrinkle is that humans tend to avoid any encryption procedure that they perceive to be too much trouble, which means that researchers in cryptography need to consider criteria like ease of use as well as more precise properties. Cryptographers are blessed with, and continue to devise, engaging terminology and even some implied personalities. No discussion of cryptography is complete without Alice and Bob---so much more appealing than A and B---whose roles may, however, vary. For example, Alice and Bob are sometimes friends eager to communicate secrets without others learning them, and sometimes two people who need to communicate but do not know or trust each other; new variations on Alice, Bob, and their relationship are constantly emerging. Another fixture in cryptography is the presumably evil adversary, who may be passive (an eavesdropper limited to observing the information traffic sent between Alice and Bob) or active (someone who can see and modify the traffic). Wide use is made of "zero knowledge proof systems" (an apparently contradictory term), and this paper defines an evocatively named "garbage/not garbage" oracle that is useful in validity checks. The standard requirement of semantic security for cryptosystems means that an adversary learns nothing about the original text (the "plaintext") from its encrypted form (the "ciphertext"). The stricter requirement of nonmalleability, needed to hide information from active adversaries, means, roughly speaking, that an adversary cannot use the ciphertext associated with an original plaintext to produce an encryption of a related plaintext. This issue's SIGEST paper, "Nonmalleable Cryptography," by D. Dolev, C. Dwork, and M. Naor, which first appeared in 2000 in volume 30 of the SIAM Journal on Computing, identified and addressed the concept of nonmalleability. The paper has been extremely influential, is widely cited, and has inspired a substantial level of related research. For the paper's appearance in SIGEST, the authors have added an extended and completely new preface, intended for the general SIREV reader, that introduces much of the terminology, presents easily understood examples, and brings the reader up-to-date on related problems. Section 1.4, on deniable authentication, clarifies some of the many complications in defining new protocols and their desired (or undesired) security features. The original paper itself explores in detail the implications of nonmalleability, presenting nonmalleable schemes for three key problem classes and proving security against strong ciphertext attacks. We are grateful indeed to the authors for their extra efforts to make this important paper accessible to nonexperts in cryptography.

Intelligence, Security, War Strategy
Chaos-based Image/Signal Encryption
Original source
Dec 1, 2002·Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
4 cites
Information and the War Against Terrorism

Lee S. Strickland

September 11th was a pivotal day in American history. While only the fourth time in the history of the United States that foreign forces have invaded our territorial limits, it was the first time that substantial numbers of American civilians have been victims and remain under the cloud of realistic, recurring threat of further death and destruction. Osama bin Laden's terrorist network has warned of a "new storm of planes" (Associated Press, 11/14/2001) and he has directed his followers "to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it" (PBS' Frontline, 2/28/98). Indeed it is a threat of terror not unlike that faced by the British people at the hands of the Nazis during the Blitz where random, purposeless violence against the civilian population was also the intent. Unfortunately, our risks will not change soon, yet America will persevere and see victory: "Time and again, America has demonstrated a resilience that is rooted in the remarkable diversity of her people." ("Mongrel Nation," Smithsonian Magazine , November 2001, pp. 18-19.) In defeating this evil, tactical munitions and forces will play significant roles, but it is information that will be the single key to success for the United States. Indeed, information is the single most important factor in any comprehensive discussion of our war against terrorism. It is this proposition that defines the scope of this paper. We will consider information and information theory as our most effective war tool – as well as the legal and political authority for their covert use. Bombing alone, whether from cruise missiles, B-2 stealth bombers or venerable B52s, will not win a war. History is replete with examples where the most extensive bombing campaigns have not altered the resolve of the civilian population and have damaged but not destroyed the enemy war machine or the will of a population and its government to continue the fight. Similarly, ground forces, in the form of a punitive expedition, may bolster public and political morale but have minimal chances for quick success in either general or specific historical terms. Eighty years ago Britain, and the USSR more recently, learned that Afghanistan could not be conquered. Our own experience in Mexico in 1916 with a punitive expedition to punish a marauding Mexican revolutionary, involving ultimately over 10,000 cavalry forces, suggests the emotional and often illogical triggers for such events, the difficulty of retribution and the lack of certain success in such exercises. 1 Enterprise, 1799, 12-gun schooner, capturing a Tripolitan corsair in 1801; photograph of original art courtesy National Archives and Records Administration (NARA #19-N-12435). Thus in considering our potential course of action today, we should examine in some detail a striking historical analogue involving the use of traditional military forces against non-traditional enemies. Specifically, we will examine the first war fought by the United States against a foreign power – the Barbary Pirates – and the first raising of the Stars and Stripes in the Old War – at the taking of Tripoli. The details, factual parallels and lessons learned are significant, the primary lesson being the extreme difficulty as well as the time necessary to overcome decentralized threats. Who Were the Pirates?The pirates were individuals acting as a law unto themselves preying on the Western world for individual profit but in league with the temporal and religious rulers in Tripoli (the Bashaw), Algiers (the Dey) and Tunis (the Bey of Morocco) and more significantly, the supreme Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The enemy? The enemy was Western civilization unless it would pay exorbitant tribute to their rulers. While in part a local "protection racket" intended to extort money from the then-superpowers, this contest also had substantial religious and state sponsorship elements. Although the Sultan's theocratic empire had become corrupt and weak and the local Barbary rulers were effectively autonomous in local affairs, the Sultan remained supreme and was the primary director and beneficiary of the piracy. The pirates, the local chieftains and the Empire were partners with the latter providing state authority, economic imperative and religious direction for the piracy. In effect, the Barbary pirates were in service to the grand Sultan fighting his continuation of the Crusades against Western interests. What Was the Cost of the Piracy? The contest began in 1785 when Algerian pirates seized two American ships and crews and it continued for years, especially after 1793. The patience of the United States began to end the next year (1794) with a Congressional authorization to build six ships of the line. But a peace, sometimes popular at any cost, was reached the next year (1795) with the Dey of Algeria. The terms required annual tribute of over $500,000 and the gift of a state-of-the-art 36-gun frigate. But appeasement seldom works, and, as a result of envy, the Bashaw demanded even greater payments and his own new American warship. Although U.S. reaction was delayed by the conflict with France, it was clear that the situation was intolerable, as evidenced by the 1799 letter from U.S. Counsel William Eaton to the Secretary of State in 1799 where he wrote that "... there is but one language which can be held to these people, and this is terror." And How Was the Piracy Brought to an End? By 1801 it was equally clear that the Bashaw had misjudged the new President Jefferson when he continued his demands, tore down the U.S. flag at the embassy and effectively declared war at that time. Jefferson promptly ordered the deployment of U.S. naval forces. Unfortunately, the 38-gun frigate Philadelphia ran aground outside the Tripoli harbor and was seized by the Bashaw's forces. Not one to surrender to the moment, the U.S. commander ordered a raiding party under Lt. Stephen Decatur into action, but without land forces, the United States could not take the city. Congress dithered and the problem continued. Four years later, the United States was forced to launch one of the first special operations. A U.S. Marine-led Arab army marched across 500 hundred miles of desert from Alexandria, Egypt, to Tripoli and seized the fort and palace of the Bashaw – thus giving rise to the commemorative line in the Marine Hymn "to the shores of Tripoli." But the United States was unable to install a permanent and more agreeable government there, and the troubles continued. Five years later, in 1810, the Algerians declared war on the United States and another naval expedition was launched, which attacked Algiers in 1815 and secured the release of American prisoners and the end of tribute there. The final resolution of this problem of international terrorism was not achieved until the world powers, acting in concert after the Napoleonic wars, ended piracy by force of arms, and the French captured and occupied Algiers in 1830. By that time this notable case of international terrorism – with state sponsorship, religious direction and substantial harm to U.S. commercial interests and civilians – had occupied America and its armed forces for some 45 years. It demonstrates further that short-term military successes may well not resolve intractable problems of this nature; rather it requires international commitment and a comprehensive destruction of the war-making capacity of the enemy. The present circumstances facing the United States are remarkably similar, yet even more intractable than the historical precedents. Against one prime enemy (the Taliban government of Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden), there are neither strategic infrastructure targets nor substantial government or military targets. Even the terrorist target hides in the shadows. 2 In sum, we do not have a contest between roughly symmetrical forces where we can effectively use the methods and mechanisms of historical military contests but an asymmetric war that requires new tools, foci and strategies. This we must not fear. Addressing change should not be considered traumatic or unique inasmuch as the necessity for military force changes and the prescience to recognize the needed change has been presented and successfully answered in the past and will be so today: "The methods and mechanisms of warfare have altered radically in recent times and they will alter still further in the future. But the United States is singularly fitted, by reason of the ingenuity of its people, the knowledge and skill of its scientists, the flexibility of its industrial structure, to excel in the arts of peace and to excel in the arts of war if that be necessary." – Vannevar Bush, president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and President Roosevelt's Science Advisor, June 1940. The new tools for today's war? Information, information network theory and information technology. As senior representatives of the Department of Defense have said, "This is the most information-intensive war you can imagine. I think it is going to put us to the test in many ways. It is going to require a new mindset." The foci? The diplomatic, economic and financial theaters. The strategies? Many, but one critical one comes from the Information Age we live in – information network theory. That is, if we are fighting a dynamic, amorphous network we must look to information, information theory and information technology tools to aid us in our struggle. This approach translates into three discrete functional assignments: Understand the basic elements of an information network and the flow of information in that network. Ascertain the specifics of the network in question; and Use information network (i.e., organizational) theory to disrupt the network. Information networks consist of and can best be understood in terms of people (i.e., nodes) and the flow of information. The nodes can take one of three forms: Some are actors – people who do things and whose skill bases range from experts to clerical support. Others are the directors – people on the throne or subthrone and whose importance and role will range from titular to truly influential and motivating. And others are perhaps the most important, I call them gateways and they affect (and effect) the flow of information and activity; they are the key people in getting things done. These gateways, one might call them routers in information technology networks, take two forms. First, there are pure gateways, people who have the information or assets or know where to find them. These people have many relationships (i.e., links) both formal and informal; they may or may not have a position and de jure authority but they have de facto power. Second, there are gatekeepers, the people around the throne who control access to the throne and often manipulate the decisions of the throne. They often know (or assume) their importance, and their value is often their access rather than their knowledge or abilities. With respect to the operation of the network – the flow of information – there are three primary models in which the described nodes may be arranged. The first is a chain or hierarchical network where information moves – and must move – sequentially through a series of nodes; this is the old business model. The second is the star or hub network where a number of actor nodes are connected directly to a gateway or manager node and where information between actor nodes must go through that central node; this is typical of sophisticated criminal enterprises. The third is the multi-channel network where every node is connected to every other node; this model is collaborative in nature, quick acting and effective, but can be difficult to maintain given the high-level of communications required. It is the network of the information age and, when organized by terrorists, can be very effective (can launch multiple, repeated attacks from different points), very difficult to identify (is it acephalous or polycephalous?), and very difficult to destroy in its entirety (nodes are redundant). 3 Types of Networks Often, those in an organization do not think in terms of a network, do not understand the forms of a network and the flow of information, and do not characterize their personnel in terms of the previously described nodes. But it is critical to do so in business and war and there are now centers and tools for just such purposes. Today, we use this theory to help understand and better manage an organization especially in times of downsizing or in efforts to increase efficiency. It follows then that there is no reason why this theory might not be used to disrupt an organization; in other words, one might intentionally introduce internal conflicts or process inefficiencies in order to degrade organizational efficiency. With this approach, one does not need to arrest or kill every member of a terrorist organization; rather, one may target and remove key gateways or otherwise interfere with the flow of information and assets through the organization via key people. With this approach our task is significantly more finite and the work of replacement becomes a difficult and time-consuming task for the enemy; no longer can the terrorist organization survive simply by a ready flow of raw, often illiterate recruits from a disaffected population. How does one collect the necessary information about a highly secretive, insular organization in order to use this theory of disruption? In my judgment, the potential for direct recruitment of members of dedicated terrorist organizations is limited. Human collection in this is best directed with the of who have better knowledge and access than the United States will have – in other words, And the traditional tools and communications will continue to be of but of U.S. in the are their is, potential in the use of and technology. there can be attacks where a or (i.e., a does no and does no but rather, does a collection and a single discrete getting the from a used by a node in a terrorist network would be a to the network. about the to the by of the to a a technology tool that is in use in the business and with the against organized targets. to this key information about a specific network would be in the form of a where the would the of and between nodes. In such an even that could not be would in the of with such it becomes a of tools, to manage that in time and network and relationships that are not on the or are otherwise in a of that we understand the network, do we The is organizational theory to disrupt the and of the target information network. will often in the of organizational this and specific are not and others have about organizations by the of (i.e., and or by needed elements. Thus if one the information network – the organization – one may do many different things to the is one and The is to communications – the flow of information – and thus increase and efficiency. The first of approach is a form of that to the of the communications by The second is a form of that communications or otherwise the target from the use of the is to force the target to use some other form of perhaps perhaps effective, perhaps one that may be to or that may more information on of the first form of would be the of communications to terrorist nodes to identify of the second form of would be the of certain the network to use more through are more to may also be more to and, if may greater information as to the of the and especially terrorist extensive use of outside – While the for may from profit to it can end that money could end if the in that their line would be by and there are to such a the best and the nodes in an information network are not and do not at the Specifically, every organization has a of but people – often only to those on the It is not in our to the in a target organization; rather, we should to them and the and to the we can and thus maintain their to U.S. In effect, the becomes an we must identify the best and them to the organization to their an that on and in this The is that the world every member of a terrorist organization and we must our against the key the of the The of every organization is the people who it with and the we can destroy the of the we can the the people and thus the of destruction. This approach not only information about the United States but also information about the terrorist and its We can about their and them and to the where they from to to should be the range of covert to that could be the that the of the does not terror and that America has been a of from to to We can the of that America is a better than an who does not their language and only continued and war. In sum, put information in the hands of the people and the – after as the of our the of foreign and will know more about and have better access to information terrorist organizations in their this knowledge with their territorial authority and it follows that are there are political risks given the potential for different and but these must be against our the is a between and for the latter may rise to a government that the of But a of American covert action as well as foreign over the years that can permanent change that is in the of the people and the United States. In sum, of need not Western or in American foreign it is that they against terror and for the and in their And from history. with organizations – whether on or – have that can critical We can and must from our the about and very effective to and destroy organizations that a such would be to our own organizations that could and thus access to the enemy. The model for this approach is "The which was as the of and which to be an dedicated to and for the of In it by the in it was a for that had been by for the of to them and then their These are some of the that information and information theory may be effective war tools in this new and against this new enemy. these are in as and, in many will not or I that we must these new history has two things – that the United States has been to the war and that resolve is needed to win any war. The then becomes not so can we but rather political will and can we in this fight. We can find bin his people, his his his tools and his We can them we must have the political resolve to that it will be in terms of the of of our of the United States as a of and of our to some In the as to the legal and political especially when the use of information and theory is in a covert and may well the Congressional of when the and in the and against foreign under the and A was that the decisions such action were that it is difficult to be certain at was and As a was by President in in detail and that order does the and in recently, to Washington President has legal that the order does not his taking action against individual of as nodes in this under his authority and for the in those legal would be on the clear authority of a President to any at any with or without public This authority then the of which nodes and to the there is substantial for the approach – of the key gateway nodes such as of As for the problem is more the business of force is not one for which American are any such action would be by foreign or assets of foreign and with the and access to the targets in The for information presented by this war are Some will play key in the collection and of information – providing direct to the war on the or in Others will continue in and of new tools to in collection and And of us must as to the for the of our government in the force of I that this war should be neither an of nor an of rather it is a of no than that faced by a The of to a of war against and of is an that be to is a with the has been a member of the and most as the for the of information and as well as the of information and release he is on detail to the of where he as a with the of Information and the can be reached by at

Intelligence, Security, War Strategy
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