Cyber weapon in 21st century Part 2

Based on the magnitude of the impact, the weapon classifies viruses type Flame or zombie network used to send spam and organization of the distributed attacks that attempt to overload the information systems and from it a denial of service (DOS and DDOS) attacks. This error has become so widespread that there is a need at least to formalize a set of features, which makes the passage of the program code weapons. And why, actually, it is the program code?

Error that leads to confusion in definitions is that authors of publications on the topic of cyber warfare and other acts of aggression in cyberspace constantly mix the concepts of weapons and guns. The instrument is, for example. Can it be used as a weapon? Undoubtedly a wide variety of types of bladed weapons of ancient times originated from farm tools. So "militarized" hoe turns into an axe or the axe. A weapon: a device that initially structurally designed for killing or destruction of the infrastructure of the enemy.

Use is not intended to infringe guns with destructive purposes in aggressive actions (wars) is as old as humanity itself. The peasant army and the militia successfully used their sickles, hoes, shovels and pitchforks. Modern "cyber pony", does not have high qualifications and access to specialized development, just used available a simple software that was not created with any destructive purposes since existing in every modern operating system ping utility. The principle remains the same: poorly trained army, armed with improvised means, it is able to win at the expense of its mass. The ping utility is a cyber weapon? By itself, definitely not. That does not prevent it to remain a primitive tool (instrument) for conducting cyber warfare.

In this section we try to formalize the signs of cyber weapons, while further consideration will also be back, and to methods of cyber warfare, including the use of specialized tools for this purpose. Let's start with the second typical errors in the use of the term: a strong Association of cyber weapons the software code. This is fundamentally wrong: the weapon affects the system, which absolutely is not necessarily a computer. The proliferation of digital devices, microprocessors, and software systems, unfortunately, have narrowed the range of consideration of the properties of cyber weapons to programmable systems. However, the subject of the impact of cyber weapons can be any system with feedback, any machine. A necessary condition for this is controllability, the predictability of its responses. Computers meet this requirement. But not only them.

Consider the example of effects on the feedback system. For many years, there are homing missiles with infrared guidance. Without going into details of the actual design of the guidance system, a missile can be considered a machine, whose function is aiming at the source of infrared radiation and its subsequent defeat. One of the ways to counter the missiles with the specific type of guidance system is a device generating a periodic or stochastic signals in the IR spectrum. In extreme simplification, this device is a flashing light. Creating false signals for the system maintenance purpose, the device intervenes in the feedback system of the machine. Disrupting the normal operation of the feedback loop (caused by a failure expected frequency of pulse repetition) leads to failure of the guidance.

Pay attention to that and considered the (now outdated) diagram of the homing, and the kind of jamming device are analog. Is not used in these digital systems, computers, or software; they are electro mechanical devices. At the same time, the effect of interference is by far the information, occurs within a closed controlled system, operating on predetermined laws. Thus, the task of disrupting the guidance of the machine the rocket is a task for Cybernetics (a stretch it can be considered a nonstandard way of programming this machine). Can we consider the situation described in this example, the use of cyber weapons (flashing lights)?