Journalism Directory
This directory is for journalists interested in learning more about cyberwar, and want to use the sources provided as quotes or background research. Rather than pointing to specific items, this directory mainly highlights different collections. Seymour Hersh’s article about cyberwar can be used for background information while the Industry Reports, Cyberwar Gaming and Laws collections may be used for article content. Each collection describes how a journalist might find its contents useful.
Using the glossary on this website will provide definitions to ambiguous and unfamiliar terms. It is not a comprehensive list, but a good foundation for common terms used when referring to cyberwar. Also, searching for "definitions" in the search-box will pull up more documents that define cyber terms.
The Online Threat: Should we be worried about a cyberwar?:
Seymour Hersh (world renown journalist) writes a comprehensive article and quotes many many different officials and experts. He includes people who believe the United States is fighting a cyberwar today as well as voices of skepticism. This article provides a great deal of of information and opinions about cyberwar. Since many documents and media articles do not criticize or question how cyberwar is being conceptualized or handled, Hersch's article does a nice job remaining objective in his assessment of how cyberwar is being conceptualized and addressed. Hersh provides a solid background about cyberwar issues and uses credible sources.
The entire speech collection may be useful in gathering quotes from various leaders (like Hillary Clinton, General Keith Alexander, etc.). Some of the speeches have embedded videos, but most of them are transcripts of speeches. For two opposite opinions, William Lynn III is a leading voice emphasizing that cyberwar is a threat and that cyber attacks will cause physical damage in the future. Bruce Schneier is a security expert more skeptical of what damage could really be caused by cyber attacks.
Though the Policy Collection is not comprehensive, it does provide an overview of current cybersecurity policies. These policy documents are active, so one can see what a variety of organizations prioritize for the protection of the United States'. They are helpful in gaining an understanding of how the government and groups/organizations understand or define cyberwar.
Journalists writing about the role of security companies in this new age of "cyberwar" will find the Industry Reports section useful. These reports may be biased because security companies may have a special interest in enhancing cybersecurity for individual citizens, businesses and the government since they would provide the software. However, examining their reports are useful for the future if/when policy and laws are changed with the goal of increasing cybersecurity.
The government and military conduct cyberwar games, which consist of role playing various leadership positions while simulating a a massive cyber attack on the United States. Cyber Shockwave, a fictional scenario, was publicized on CNN several years ago. But, most of the cyber games are classified and unavailable for viewing. There have not been many articles written about using fictional games to prepare for future, unknown attacks or how fictional games are used as empirical evidence that cyberwar will happen. This collection provides links to facts about Cyber Storm (a DHS classified series of cyberwar games) and a link to the video of Cyber Shockwave.
Pending Law and Current Law and Treaties:
Reading through the pending and current law collections will provide an overview of laws that exist and how they may change. While they are not comprehensive lists, they focus on cyber issues like privacy, freedoms, education and various cyber crimes.