The world of cyber-warfare, always a murky place, may thus be about to get murkier still.
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Tallinn is the centre of NATO's cyber-warfare research, and Estonians invented another icon of internet cool: Skype.
It is an ironic twist for a country with a reputation as a high-tech and cyber-warfare powerhouse.
Feeling threatened by American naval power, China has been modernising its missiles, submarines, radar, cyber-warfare and anti-satellite weapons.
Cyber-warfare has increasingly been waged against the computers that control the grid and other vital parts of our economy's electronic underbelly.
Mr Gates wants a regular forum at which the two sides discuss issues such as nuclear weapons, missile defence, cyber-warfare and space.
Chinese hacking, either from Beijing's cyber-warfare command or freelance hackers, tends to be aimed at collecting intelligence and intellectual property, not at disrupting commerce.
In May, such grudge-hacking reached a new level: international cyber-warfare.
He also rejects the idea of simply trying to do what Britain does now, but with less money, since that would mean neglecting investment in new fields such as cyber-warfare.
Clapper told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday that it would be difficult to overrate the importance of cyber-warfare, which could devastate the U.S. economy and its infrastructure.
This month's more significant news, he argues, was the announcement that the U.S. military's Cyber Command (founded in 2009) would for the first time develop and field 13 offensive cyber-warfare teams.
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It makes far better sense for the enemy be it a terrorist group, a rogue state, or a combination of both to wage chemical, biological or even cyber-warfare against American society, exploiting its openness.
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It is precisely because of this conventional weakness, they say, that China has decided to leapfrog several generations of military science and invest heavily in missiles, space and new black arts like cyber-warfare.
Still, the shield's effectiveness as a defense in cyber-warfare is far from clear: Bruce Schneier, the founder and chief technology officer of security firm BT Counterpane, argues that no single strategy can stop determined hackers.
Hacking, sabotage, espionage and other forms of cyber-warfare are genuine dangers, and billions of dollars have been spent over the last few decades to secure government and corporate information against bad guys usurping or corrupting it.
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"They (computers) run our electric power grid, out telecommunications network, they run our railroads, our banking system, and all of them are vulnerable, at some level, to some degree to information warfare, or cyber-terrorism, " Clark said.
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The highest level of threat represents the potential for state-sponsored attacks and future "cyber warfare" exposing vulnerabilities of our critical national infrastructure to online attack.
Maybe Modern Warfare 4 can take place entirely in cyber-space.
Doing so in a way that builds in the sort of resiliency to EMP and cyber warfare that we so clearly need is a no-brainer and should be eminently doable, provided appropriate priority is assigned to that use of the already appropriated funds.
In March, Mr. Khamenei issued a decree ordering the creation of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, a committee consisting of high-level military and intelligence officials tasked with supervising cyber activity and warfare.
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