Hello again! After a short hiatus, I’m back and blogging at Crossroads.  This blog will be updated regularly from here on out, so please keep visiting!

And what better way to return to blogging than to consider this interesting story from Raphael Satter and posted to the Huffington Post.  According to Mr. Satter, Marine Lt. Gen. Richard P. Mills recently claimed that he used cyber weapons.  Specifically, the Gen. said “I was able to use my cyber operations against my adversary with great impact . . . I was able to get inside his nets, infect his command-and-control, and in fact defend myself against his almost constant incursions to get inside my wire, to affect my operations.”

That’s pretty interesting.  I’m curious as to who our “adversary” was; although I could be wrong, the Taliban and/or Haqqani probably don’t have great command-and-control capabilities, “nets,” or the ability to get inside our cyber perimeter.  Is there a nation-state targeting U.S. forces in Afghanistan with cyberattacks?  Probably.

Also, how important are cyber ROEs if we’ve been consistently launching offensive cyber operations anyways?  And at what level were these cyberattacks approved?  A few months back, news reports were saying offensive cyberattacks might require presidential approval.  Did Gen. Mills have to go all the way up the chain to get approval for these?

Along the same lines, Noah Shachtman wrote for Wired on DARPA’s new “Plan X.”  Plan X, according to Shachtman, is “designed to make online strikes a more routine part of U.S. military operations . . ..”  Plan X is not so much about building new cyberweapons, but giving military planners “a sort of digital battlefield map.”

Hello again! After a short hiatus, I’m back and blogging at Crossroads.  This blog will be updated regularly from here on out, so please keep visiting!

And what better way to return to blogging than to consider this interesting story from Raphael Satter and posted to the Huffington Post.  According to Mr. Satter, Marine Lt. Gen. Richard P. Mills recently claimed that he used cyber weapons.  Specifically, the Gen. said “I was able to use my cyber operations against my adversary with great impact . . . I was able to get inside his nets, infect his command-and-control, and in fact defend myself against his almost constant incursions to get inside my wire, to affect my operations.”

That’s pretty interesting.  I’m curious as to who our “adversary” was; although I could be wrong, the Taliban and/or Haqqani probably don’t have great command-and-control capabilities, “nets,” or the ability to get inside our cyber perimeter.  Is there a nation-state targeting U.S. forces in Afghanistan with cyberattacks?  Probably.

Also, how important are cyber ROEs if we’ve been consistently launching offensive cyber operations anyways?  And at what level were these cyberattacks approved?  A few months back, news reports were saying offensive cyberattacks might require presidential approval.  Did Gen. Mills have to go all the way up the chain to get approval for these?

Along the same lines, Noah Shachtman wrote for Wired on DARPA’s new “Plan X.”  Plan X, according to Shachtman, is “designed to make online strikes a more routine part of U.S. military operations . . ..”  Plan X is not so much about building new cyberweapons, but giving military planners “a sort of digital battlefield map.”