The international legal limitations of information warfare

Abstract

We live in an age that is driven by information. Technological breakthroughs... are changing the face of war and how we prepare for war. Information war has no front line. Potential battlefields are anywhere networked systems allow access to oil and as pipelines, for example, electric power grids, telephone switching networks. In sum, the U.S. homeland may no longer provide a sanctuary from outside attack. A panel of Defense Department experts recently warned the nation about the prospect of an electronic Pearl Harbor, a crippling sneak attack on the nation's defense and civilian information systems in which cyberterrorists and other unknown assailants cripple the nation's, or the world's, computer-networked communications, financial, and national defense systems.