Coding Is Maneuver

Coding is ManeuverAnd a few other very rapidly delivered thoughts and

axioms on Cyber Warfare

Jim StogdillCTO, Gestalt

jstogdill@gestalt-llc.comwww.limnthis.com

1. Coding is ManeuverIt needs to turn when you push the stick

From a blog post that seemed to resonate

In Physical Domain You Have:

Air + Physics +

S.H. Physical Assets

But, in Cyber...

• The Domain is Code

• The “platforms” are code

• And “the stick” inputs are often code

You can’t make up for crappy code with supremely performing physical assets in a domain without any.

What kind of code?

• Coding an exploit for a newly discovered vulnerability

• Adding a new attack vector to an existing tool

• Creating on-the-fly visualizations for newly discovered or suspected attack vectors

• Defending an exploit (patching in real time)

• Modifying an attack tool to mask it’s OS

• ...

So, in the Cyber Domain, technological agility will matter even more, because there will be no compensating physical

assets.

2. Cyber SA is DifferentBut it should be related to the geo-spatial battlespace

How do this...

this...

and this...

relate to this?

If you were the JFACC, wouldn’t you want to

know?

For the public Internet, are you prepared to use things like

Quova and Plazer (commercial / public) to find out where network devices

are?

Are you building a “Cyber MIDB” that can cleanly

integrate with the one with physical targets?

(you’ll want your COI talking to the C2 COI)

3. Culture Matters,you can’t do this on an island & it’s not your Internet

Would you hire this guy?

Do you have a problem with these?

Do you think callsigns should be:

Goose

Maverick

Viper

Instead of:

r0m1&

Sp3w

don’t let cultural “signals”

get in the way

SOF has a very different culture for important reasons, maybe Cyber will evolve one

too.

Get out in the world, participate in

Communities of Practice

Attend stuff like this:

And this:

Subscribe to this:

And figure out how to get this guy engaged and believing in what you are doing and he’ll join your

Civil Cyber Patrol

Otherwise, you are so gonna get

4. You’ll Have to Use Open Source

Or, Coding is Still Maneuver

To use this

And this

And, of course, this

(You don’t want to have the only hackers on the planet whose attack can be

identified coming from Solaris!)

Finally, all that other stuff could theoretically be bought, but...

Participate to get stuff you can’t otherwise get, to gather intelligence on what everyone else is doing, and make sure you can change your source code fast when you need to.

And, to wrap up, a few questions to ponder...

Does 8th AF heritage imply global strike on public public / sovereign networks?

If so, Are you learning by doing; playing Cowboy’s and Cossacks?

If you aren’t bumping into them, you ain’t learning.

During Bosnian intervention redux flying missions out of Aviano...

Do you know what you would do if Serb-sympathizing Russian hackers “Estonia’d” Italy?

Would you be prepared to help your ally?

Are we thinking about cyber power the way they thought about air power?

With as many as a million machines in botnets, who owns them? Are some state owned? Can the

exploits be exploited without having to build them?

If you had to guess, whose cyber force do you think has more American educated pHD’s in uniform? US Cyber

Command or Chinese PLA?

Are you considering how to incorporate Social Engineering into your attack vectors?

And...

Why not call it the EOC (effects operations center)?

-and-Will there ever be a JFCCC?

Oh, just one more thought experiment...

If this were Cyber’s1948 and we were standing up the

USCF, how would we organize it to focus on all of the

missions?

TCF? SCF? CMC?

Thanks!

Jim Stogdilljstogdill@gestalt-llc.com

www.limnthis.com