President Clinton created a Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection in July to craft a coordinated policy to deal with the threat. Within the Government, information warfare tactics and intelligence are highly classified issues. But the C.I.A. has recently created an Information Warfare Center. And the National Security Agency intends to set up an information warfare unit staffed by as many as 1,000 people, with both offensive and defensive expertise, as well as a 24-hour response team, according to a staff report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The report was initiated by Senator Sam Nunn.
Information warfare is a catch-all term.
The military, for example, often refers to information warfare broadly to include time-tested techniques and tools like disinformation, cryptography, radio jamming and bombing communications centers. But it is high-tech information warfare that has been getting most of the attention and funds lately. The weapons of information warfare are mostly computer software, like destructive logic bombs and eavesdropping sniffers, or advanced electronic hardware, like a high-energy radio frequency device, known as a HERF gun. In theory, at least, these weapons could cripple the computer systems that control everything from the electronic funds transfer systems of banks to electric utilities to battlefield tanks. For the military, information warfare raises the prospect of a new deal for America's adversaries.