Information Warfare Section:
I am not trying to build a complete listing of information warfare related books. Rather, these are books that (in a least a small way) take a cryptographic perspective on information warfare.
(If it’s here, I have it. If it’s reviewed, I have, at a minimum, read all of the crypto-relevant parts.)
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I occasionally review books here, not because they are predominantly cryptography oriented, but because they say something about cryptography that
other books do not. This book briefly discusses how cryptography (in the context of integrity shells) can stop computer viruses.
Since Fred Cohen was in the business of promoting his integrity shell, he of course demonstrates (with 2 pages of equations no less!) that
they are more cost effective than virus scanners, because in comparison, with virus scanners one incurs "the cost of cleanup for attacks
that monitors don’t detect." He summaries this argument with "Except under the most contrived circumstances, integrity shells are the most
cost effective of the anti-virus techniques currently available for untrusted systems, and this gap will widen with the passage of time." Yeah right.
Dr. Cohen is best know for "Cohen’s Result" -- a straightforward restatement of the Turing halting problem, where halting should occur if a
sequence belonging to a virus set is generated. This is obviously as impossible as predicting computational halting in the general case. Wish
I could have received a PhD for that.
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I decided to include this book because it covers encrypting viruses. Remove the virus, and
you can't read anything it has encrypted! The virus KOH uses a 128 bit IDEA key. On the
whole, this is an amazing book. There are assembly language source code examples throughout,
and even a disk in the back if you want to infect your PC.
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Information Warfare and Security
Denning, Dorthy E. 1999. 544 pages.
Categories: Information Warfare |
Despite the title, this book seems to have little to do with information warfare. It
reads like a collection of examples from recent periodicals and research. I guess if
you needed quick examples (with solid references) to add a scare factor to your
security-oriented Power Point presentations, than this would be a good reference. While
not a bad book, nothing in it will really surprise you. It is dated already.
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Information Warfare
Schwartau, Winn. 1996, 2nd edition. 768 pages.
Categories: Information Warfare |
Between the black covers are 768 pages of articles not just on encryption, but also TEMPEST,
directed energy weapons, "chipping", electromagnetic hardening techniques, hacking groups
(such as master of destruction and legion of doom), and bits of interesting history, such
as the inside story behind the distribution of PGP and the Gulf War "printer virus hoax". The book
is a bit dated, and reads like a tired conspiracy theory manual. A much better read on the same types of subjects can be found in "Security Engineering"
(also reviewed here).
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A best of its class book. The book covers nearly everything concerning security design in such diverse domains as the cable industry, friend or foe systems, banking, and healthcare. Topics include MLS design, nuclear command and control, emission security, directed energy weapons, phreaking, government planted back doors, and much more. Well known attacks (man in the middle, replay, etc.) normally associated merely with networks are explored in other unexpected contexts. This work is chock full of fascinating DMCA violations, including extensive information on defeating hardware crypto systems and smart cards, with many of the methods being developed by the author himself. The book demands a careful reading because over and over again, gems are hidden in seemingly innocuous sections.
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