As the Libyan war came to a close, the computer networking blogosphere was chock-a-block with speculation that the U.S. government chose not to employ cyber attacks against Gaddafi’s air defense network on the principle that it would not be the first country to do so.

Perhaps it did. According to Henry Bar-Levav*, head of ace cyber security firm Recursion Ventures and a pioneer of the commercial Internet, “War is deceit. Forensics depends on attribution. Falsification is trivial these days.”

Hidebound Governments Unprepared for Cyber Threats
by James Colbert

As the Libyan war came to a close, the computer networking blogosphere was chock-a-block with speculation that the U.S. government chose not to employ cyber attacks against Gaddafi’s air defense network on the principle that it would not be the first country to do so.

Perhaps it did. According to Henry Bar-Levav*, head of ace cyber security firm Recursion Ventures and a pioneer of the commercial Internet, “War is deceit. Forensics depends on attribution. Falsification is trivial these days.”

Speaking with JINSA Policy Director James Colbert, Bar-Levav, asked whether he thought that, like Israel’s assumed nuclear arsenal, America’s cyber warfare capabilities were purposefully being kept opaque, replied, “Can you imagine a country ‘declaring’ cyber warfare?

Smoking guns are often wishful thinking… Geography is largely irrelevant. One group can ‘mass their “cyber” troops’ with almost no possibility of detection or attribution.”

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