Chapter 1
Cyberwar and its Borders 1
In recent decades, military ideology has produced a plethora of concepts, each time indicating a “new war” or a never-before-seen method of war. These are all supposed to reflect evolutions in technology and emerging political factors (and all of them must be sent to the dusty shelves of history, as a “classic” or “Clauswitzian” war1).
The non-initiated person struggles to find his place between asymmetric warfare and fourth generation warfare (4GW), and image warfare and information warfare. He will find it difficult to grasp the slight difference between the PSYOPS (psychological operations) and public diplomacy, and a computer network exploitation (CNE), infodominance, electronic warfare, or I-War2.
Yet, in this flowery if not conceptual language, at least one term follows a media criterion: cyberwar. The term is contested by those who, much like the author, believe that it is not truly a war. Businesses selling security products often use the term for indicating facts which unmask simple, self-interested criminality, and by no means, a real conflict… But cyberwar is upon us, and we must pay homage to a success which it is not forbidden to question or even explain.
1.1. The seduction of cyberwar
Can we lead a conflict with, by, and against computers and networks? This hypothesis is indeed attractive, because several factors are involved:
Everybody has, at least once, been subjected to a computer attack, often a relatively benign form of malware ...
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