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There has been a report of the Chinese made motherboards of certain servers have an implanted surveillance microchip implanted in them. Being that there is a trade war going on between the United States and china, what better way to infiltrate the United States information infrastructure that to implant surveillance chips into Chinese made motherboards. Supposedly, these chips were implanted in servers used by numerous companies in the United States including Apple, Amazon, and even the Department of Defense. The Chinese military could surely have pulled this off even though some companies deny that they have surveillance chips inside their servers. A company called Supermicro reportedly created the microchip but they deny that they have made any kind of chips for the use of surveillance.

Would China do something so deceptive? I would say that they would. Just because it is merely just a trade war going on with china it is still a war. China has manpower by the billions and their military is as powerful these days as they ever were. Penetrating the information infrastructure of the United States is probably one of the highest priorities of the Chinese military these days especially with the trade war going on. Apple and Amazon discovered the surveillance chips back in 2015 and worked to eliminate the chips since then, even though they both deny having ever had been exposed to the chips. The discreteness of the microchips raises a concern because those chips could have been there for years. No one knows the extent of what kind of information can be obtained from these microchips. I am sure since they found the chips that the United States government has probably dissected the chips and did a full investigation.

Supposedly, there has been a top-secret FBI investigation going on since 2015 about the microchips from china. There is billions of dollars on the line with the trade war between china and the United States which means that information warfare could be one of the top lines of offence and defense in this trade war. Even though the companies deny that their systems were affected by the microchips, I would not doubt that they actually were affected. I think that it is very devious of the Chinese to use their manufacturing of motherboard as a stepping-stone to the deployment of an information warfare tactic. Even though there is an FBI investigation going on about these microchips I am sure that there will not be any more talk about it for a long time. The FBI and the United States government usually keep secrets for a long while.

source : https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/04/china-inserted-surveillance-microchip-servers-used-by-amazon-apple-according-report/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.cc90f68104b5

Using social media is a great way to pass time. However, what you see on social media is not always, what it seems. There was a report that Russia expertly tailored messages to target about ten thousand twitter users in the defense department. Once the users clicked on the messages, they were brought to a Russian web site where malware was downloaded to their computers possibly compromising the defense department. The Russians have been spreading propaganda for years on social media. They see it as a platform for disabling the worldwide spread of democracy. The United States does not really try to spread propaganda on social media and because of that, the Russians have about ten years more advanced sophistication of spreading propaganda on social media.

Back in the 2016 election when you heard of the stories about Hillary Clinton deleting confidential emails, there might have been the possibility of Russia spreading this information around the United States. Supposedly, Putin of Russia had it out for Clinton saying that she tried to start a revolution in Russia sending signals for people to stand out and protest. Now I do not know if that was really the case and it sounds plausible, but that is a good enough reason to start a cyber war against the Hillary Clinton political party. There have also been accusations against the trump political party for colluding with Russia to leverage the vote in his favor. Personally, I like the Russians and do not see anything wrong with collaborating with Russia in any sort of endeavor. Maybe some of these accusations are more inflated with personal views than we would like to think.

Spreading propaganda through social media is a big strategy for countries that like to push their political views on other countries. Gaining the approval of the public is a big part of what makes a government sustainable in the world today. The use of bot-nets is a big strategy for governments that use information warfare because they can be relatively cheap and apply spam at an alarming rate. There are also bots on social media networks that can be used to argue with activists and collect opinionated data. In addition, these social media bots can help collect information on which people are easily persuaded to agree with the bots view agenda. When you see and ad on facebook that says, “Sponsored by”, the Russians buy those ads all the time. Information warfare is a constant turning machine affecting every aspect of our lives. You have to have a solid head on your shoulders to not become a tool in the dissemination of messages from an adversary.

source : http://time.com/4783932/inside-russia-social-media-war-america/

China is one of the biggest powerhouses in the world. If any other country went to war with china, they would be devastated by the shear manpower of the communist party of china. China has the highest population in the world. Other than shear man power china could be known to conduct information warfare in order to benefit the communist party. In politics, it is all about persuasion and china has a big hand in the use of persuasion, not only in china but in the United States as well. I learned that china has used the media in order to push their agenda and they have used their Chinese student and scholars association as well.

There is a trade war going on between china and the United States and what a better way to gain the public’s acceptance than information warfare. The Chinese spread their message through social media and the newspaper outlets that they have through business contacts in the United States. If china can buy a politician than they can convey their agenda on anyone in that politicians corner. China is known for disseminating messages through a Chinese newspaper Qiao Bios and they even take out ads in the Washington Post. This is not a new technology but it is a never-ending quest from the Communist Party of China to influence organizations in the United States. I think that the main agenda is for them to push communism to the United States as you can already tell with many liberals pushing a socialist agenda these days.

Since the Communist Party of China controls the Chinese Student and Scholars association, they can also push their agenda there. A student of a university during a graduation speech praised the United States for being “fresh air” democracy and the university rebuked the student. A Chinese embassy official praised the University for rebuking the student and urged the association to do the same. I like the Chinese and I like Russians, I pretty much like everyone but terrorists, but information warfare has no face. Information warfare is a platform for anyone to utilize whether it be politicians or the homeless disseminating messages is a never-ending process.

source : https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/articles_papers_reports/information-warfare-communist-party-of-china-influence-operations-in-us-and-japan

Information warfare is a big concern these days with the fast evolution of technology. Using information warfare offensively can provide an effective means of advancing foreign policy or persuade political agendas. Using information warfare in a defensive way can allow for protection of sensitive information that could potentially fall into the hands of a malicious person or government. They are just a few of the many ways that information can be used offensively or defensively in today’s world. Today we will cover some offensive uses of information warfare and some defensive uses of information warfare and why it is so important to stay ahead of your adversaries in the technological advances of information warfare.

When thinking about information warfare from an offensive standpoint, the United States has the most developed information infrastructure in the world. Using information warfare offensively in the United States could possibly be able to prevent actual physical weapons from being used in war preventing civilian deaths. On the other hand, if we used information warfare offensively we could potentially damage systems that control planes or nuclear power plants, which could potentially harm civilians. Another thing to consider while using information warfare offensively would be the case that offensively using information warfare is considered an act of war. If bombing a building or shooting down a plane is considered an act of war from one country to another, I think that shutting down a nuclear power plant and putting it in a state of meltdown could be considered an act of war. Therefore, the offensive end of information warfare can be a very complicated issue ethically and morally and as other countries information infrastructure becomes more advanced the department of defense will have to be very prepared and careful in the decision process.

From the defensive view of information warfare, of course, we have to be prepared. The United States is fully aware of the vulnerabilities of our information infrastructure and some say they fear the digital “Pearl Harbor”. Hopefully nothing extreme in the form of exploits of these vulnerabilities ever takes place. President Bush issued a national security directive 42 in 1990 recognizing the vulnerabilities and presidents thereafter have added to the directive. So the United States is prepared defensively for information warfare, as other countries become more information infrastructural sound. Being defensively prepared is the biggest concern because technology advances so quickly. Anyone can get his or her hands on malicious software, but the sensitive information is protected. Disabling access to malicious software for devious persons should be an action that the government should take.

source : https://fas.org/irp/eprint/snyder/infowarfare.htm

Information warfare has become the latest strategy in the never-ending war machine. It is using non-lethal attacks with information to disrupt their enemies’ information systems. The anatomy of information warfare is quite interesting as its main attacks are on electronic transmission, cyber attacks, and psychological operations. The Russians are notorious for the use of information warfare to cripple their neighboring countries. One way that information warfare is used to cripple electronic transmission systems is by jamming military communications or weapon guidance systems. This can have a very disastrous effect and the military should spare no expense in preventing such attacks. It can also target civilian uses like air traffic control, which prevents two planes from crashing into each other. Another example is to attack the Rail Traffic Management system which trains are fully controlled by.

Cyber attacks are a common place for information warfare also as disrupting computers for business can have a disastrous effect on a country. Say that the stock market was victim to a cyber attack rendering the stock market useless, which would put a big dent in the financial market. A socialist country could use that kind of an attack to try to cripple capitalism to push an agenda of some sort. I am sure that the government has many teams in place to work at preventing these types of cyber attacks. In the future maybe a mind reading apparatus that flies around in the sky marking areas where deception is taking place while alerting authorities who will sweep in and subdue the criminals could prevent a cyber attack. Another thing of great concern that a cyber attack could potentially target is a nuclear power plant. That could be catastrophic if the attack could trigger some sort of melt down and render a whole area of a country useless.

Lastly, there are the psychological operations that could degrade a nation’s morale by flooding social media with fake news. I read a substantial amount of fake news on social media and the President of the United States is always warning us about fake news. Psychological operations in information warfare are a big concern in today’s world. Being that the information on the internet is available to anyone in the world these days, I am sure that people would like to assure the validity of that information. Otherwise, the world will have misinformed people with malicious views due to misinformation, which could cripple a society.

source : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/what-is-information-warfare