Fierce Cyberwar Predicted; Post-9/11 Training Sped Rescue at Station Fire; Your Home Is Your Fortress; Cricket Clashes Spark Clampdown

Fierce Cyberwar Predicted

Although information operations have been a part of warfare for centuries, the Internet and other technologies are boosting capabilities—and the stakes. According to a CNN News.com story on the topic today, the Pentagon has not divulged much about its capabilities or and plans. Military analysts wouldn’t reveal specifics, fearful the Iraqis could develop countermeasures. But one security researcher told CNN that the U.S. military has the same tools available to computer hackers. Perhaps theyd send misleading messages to Iraqi commanders cell phones or confusing radar systems to show planes where there werent planes, or they might disable electronics with electromagnetic pulse weapons. Of course, these things go both ways, so defense has to be part of the strategy as well. “Warfare is less and less about pushing men and machines around the battlefield and more and more about pushing electrons and photons,” Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, told CNN. The story also quotes intelligence expert and author James Bamford: “They’ll use this whole thing as a big training ground,” he said. “They’ll experiment with everything they’ve been thinking about for a long time.” Post-9/11 Training Sped Rescue at Station FireThe New York Times today, burn experts say the toll could have been much worse if emergency workers had not been trained to deal with mass casualties under a statewide disaster response plan adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Before that, Rhode Island’s disaster plans emphasized more routine events, like hurricanes and bus crashes. State officials used a Justice Department grant for drills at the state airport, employing hundreds of actors to play maimed and burned victims, hysterical bystanders and fleeing terrorists. They also borrowed the war games theater at the Naval War College in Newport to practice with computer simulated disasters, Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty, chairman of the state’s Emergency Management Advisory Council, told the Times. The article says burn experts credit the speed and precision with which rescue workers got the injured to appropriate hospitals with saving many lives, especially those of the more than 50 people with inhalation burns.

The latest victim of the Feb. 20 nightclub fire in West Warwick, R.I., died on Saturday, bringing the death toll to 98. Sixty people remain hospitalized, with 29 in critical condition. But, according to a story in

Your Home Is Your Fortress?Washington Post one Maryland manufacturing company, Zytech Engineering LLC, hopes that very soon, everyone in America will be wanting one. As the frequency of terror warnings increases, more companies will undoubtedly spring up offering products to protect the frightened masses, the Post says, and Zytech’s founders are trying to beat the rush. Many middle-class Americans may need some persuading before they are ready to cough up the money for units that start at about $17,000. Larger rooms with more amenities can pass the $50,000 mark.

No numbers are available to show how many safe rooms are sold in the United States each year, but it is probably a relatively small market served by custom construction companies. The products, designed to guard inhabitants from hazards ranging from bullets to mustard gas, have mostly been sold to high-ranking government officials and especially fearful and rich private citizens. Still, according to todays

Cricket Clashes Spark ClampdownBBC News today. India won the match. Security was also stepped up in the southern Indian city of Bangalore after 100 people were arrested following similar exchanges between Hindus and Muslims.

Security has been tightened at a key border post after Indian and Pakistani funs hurled abuse and stones at each other following the two nations’ World Cup cricket match, according to the