All Hell's Breaking Loose on the Electronic Superhighway and It's Not My Fault. Introduction to the First Edition of Information Warfare Six months ago who would have known? Who could have known the Information Warriors battling over control of Cyberspace would have been so kind as to live out nearly every prognostication I made. Thanks guys. It's really been quite amazing to watch. and here it is already, time again to create yet another eloquent and stimulating introduction. Forget about it, I don't have to. Events both natural and unnatural overshadow anything of importance I could hope to make up at this point. Truth is stranger than fiction. Old puns die hard. "Information Warfare" was intended to be a prophetic warning of things to come. .but. so soon? Hackers have been taking down the 'Net. Hundreds of thousands of passwords to businesses and schools and government all stolen and compromised using network sniffers and Trojan Horses. The Pentagon finally realized that their machines connected to the Internet were wide open and an unclassified NATO memo underscored the military's vulnerability to Computers Everywhere. And what about that OSI cowboy investigation that crossed over into Secret Service areas and blew up in their faces? (**Chapters 5, 6 & 11.) Phil Zimmerman, under continued scrutiny for alleged export violations was stopped and harassed by US Customs for returning to his country. (See more in Chapter 8.) Congresswoman Maria Cantwell (D-Microsoft) attempted to add sanity to the export issue and then lost her seat. The US Post Office tried to make FedEx deliveries a crime and is thinking about getting in the Email business. First CD-ROMS with viruses. Bombs land in the financial sector of London. (Chapter 1 and 16.) Yes, it's been quite a year, 1994, quite a year. Aldridge Ames—spy a la Carre extraordinairre—was found to be a professional hacker and broke through the CIA:s security systems. (Chapters 1, 2, 13 & 16.) He may have also spilled the Clipper beans according to. well, you know, close sources. It seems entirely possible now that the FBI investigation into Ames' treasonous indiscretions was successful in part because of the techniques described in Chapter 7. In January, over 100,000 New Yorkers were charged twice for their ATM withdrawals by Chemical Bank (Chapter 5) and Lotus got nailed for poor security in cc:mail. 1994. Hate email becomes all the rage with Nazis on the Net. Then the New York JDL asked hackers for help to put the anti-Semites in their place—freedom of speech means nothing to the hate-monger-haters. The professional German hackers from Kohl's Project Rahab (Chapter 15) wanted to know more about the techno-savvy hate NED-WAR Thule Network. And, almost, not quite, Clinton's quasi-technical mouthpiece. Al Gore, semi-aorta kinda maybe backpedals a little bit on Clipper. Too much fear and loathing among the voters. Cyber-politics is felt for the first time and the forever media-sensitive Ted Kennedy shuts down his Internet connection so as not to violate campaigning ethics. (Jeez—So don't post, already!) Hacker conventions are more fun than ever—and my latest quasi-fictional character, CyberChrist, showed up everywhere: I got to write two novelettes called "CyberChrist Meets Lady Luck" and "CyberChrist Bites The Big Apple." Read-em. They're almost X-rated but terrific insight and fun. Lots of fun. Then Mark Ludwig of Virus-writing contest fame held yet another overblown-by-the- media-without-a-clue virus writing competition and Bob Bales, head honcho of the virulently antivirus National Computer Security Association won—even though he wasn't one of the three entries. He used the $100 prize for a romantic evening with Linda. Not a bad start, eh? 1 In 1992 editor Mike Alexander, formerly of Infosecurity News battled me endlessly, claiming that Computer Terrorism is a figment of my imagination. Then he ran an entire issue called Cyber Terror and told authors, "Don't talk to Winn!" Wrong again, Mike. If he were dead he'd be turning in his grave. He's not, so he just ignores me. GM accused VW of stealing industrial secrets (See Chapter 15) and the RSA-129 cryptographic system is cracked and an AT&T engineer found a way to further embarrass the government's claim that Clipper is infallible. Not. (Chapter 8.) My World War II fighter-ace/hero and cousin Bill Wells was nailed by criminal goof balls who adapted his electronic identity, ran up huge bills and left him on the hook. He died shortly thereafter. (Chapter 14.) The ballsy wanted-by-the-FBI cyberoutlaw Kevin Mitnick assumed my electronic identity to carry out his mean spirited diatribes and a man named Bob was thrashed about with unsubstantiated accusations of rape. The details were plentiful but the accuser remained anonymous. Bob's reputation? Shot to hell. The world got more wired than ever before and the World Wide Web opened up multi- media availability across the 'Net at least 2 million more people signed up for on-line services and there is no end in sight. Bootleg, an ex-con who spent time in the "Big House" for methamphetamine manufacturing, legally released Oregon's two million driving licenses and three million car registration files on a single CD for $129. (Chapter 14.) Texas and Florida records are to lead the 48 state parade next. My wife, Sherra, got hit in a traffic incident and within days we were solicited by over 120 ambulance chasing, bottom sucking lawyers, who would work for a mere 1/3 of the $2 million she was sure to get. Turns out there's a list of accident victims for sale weekly. Can you believe the gall? Two incorrigible, opportunistic attorneys arrogantly inundated the 'Net with thirteen gazillion unwanted advertisements pitching their "Help your local immigrant with a Green Card" lawyerly services. They set back the "1995 Lawyers Are People, Too, Campaign" by at least 40 years with that dumb stunt. Hackers decided to declare war on foreign countries who wage industrial espionage against the United States...the first shots to be fired allegedly in June of 1995. (Chapters 11 & 14) Software piracy is up to almost $8 Billion per year and now we have India and China (2+ billion people) getting PC's. Think they're gonna pay a hundred bucks a crack for the privilege of using Mr. Bill's Word 6.0? No way. Employees of the Immigration and Naturalization Service got caught selling thousands of work permits to illegal aliens. And then the Florida traffic computers had me incorrectly labeled as a criminal, thereby supporting the thesis that "In Cyberspace, you are guilty until proven innocent." Ex-CIA officer and intelligence guru Robert Steele called hackers a "National Resource" and FBI Director Louis Freeh says it might, maybe, one day, be necessary to outlaw cryptography. That went over real well. Of course we can't forget that MCI got hit for some $50 million in toll fraud by one disgruntled ex-employee who double whammied everybody by reselling the stolen telephone access codes to folks from Redondo Beach to Russia. (Chapter 6) Phew. It was a very good year. But Cyber-nuts are appearing everywhere. Chapter 9 correctly predicted more chipping: some jokers made one company's keyboards display an unwanted message when the typing stopped and BIOS's are becoming suspect. The Pentium debacle. Several dozen missing transistors prove that a 586 can't divide and the IRS rejects the argument of failure to compute taxes properly. Accidental or digital sabotage? But it's the nuclear weapons of the Information Age, magnetic weapons, HERF Guns and EMP/T Bombs, that really blow people's skirts up. It appears that their ubiquitous uncontrolled deployment is occurring even faster than I had thought. (Chapter 10.) Seems like suddenly everyone from Tokyo to London wants some advice...so read the book! These bits and pieces are just a sampling of the fun and games we got to play in Cyberspace this last year—but because the publisher didn't want to let me rewrite the whole book (publishers are funny that way) all I could do in this NEW introduction was give you a $1.387 review of 1994. The rest of the book is as it was originally printed in June of 1994. 2 I guess I kinda summed up what this book is about in a talk about Cyber-Civil Disobedience to a crowd of 800 raving New York hackers. I dared, "If my generation—of the 60'S and 70'S— had had the technology you guys have, the 80'S never would have happened." A gaggle of guffaws. So right, Slick. At this rate the 90's are going to make the 60'S look like the 50's. ("Flashback ' with Dennis Hopper.") It was a very good year. For Information Warfare, that is. Happy surfing. Winn Schwartau January 2,1995 (* *The chapters mentioned cover the topic, not these specific very recent events. Remember, the publisher wouldn't let me rewrite the whole thing. To keep really up to date on the craziness in Cyberspace, take a look at my newsletter, "Security Insider Report" for "News, Reviews and Opinion." (See Resources Chapter.) Thanks. Sorry for the ad, but I have kids to feed. :-) 3 A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S “To the future generation of cybernauts who will be born, live, breathe, and die in Cyberspace.