G-I

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Global information environment

All individuals, organizations, or systems, most of which are outside the control of the military or national command authorities, that collect, process, and disseminate information to national and international audiences.

Guestbook

Visitors sign-in to your Web site, leaving a message to let you know what they thought of your site.

Hacker

The label “hacker” has come to connote a person who deliberately accesses and exploits computer and information systems to which he or she has no authorized access. Originally, the term was an accolade for someone highly motivated to explore what computers could do and/or the limits of his or her technical skills (especially in programming). “A great hack” was a common compliment for an especially cunning or innovative piece of software code. The term “cracker” was then reserved for people intruding into computer or information systems for the thrill of it (or worse). Over time, “cracker” faded from usage and “hacker” came to subsume its (unfortunate) connotations.

Head

A small electromagnetic device inside a drive that reads, writes, and erases data on the drive’s media.

Hijacking

A term (typically applied in combination with another) to connote action to usurp activity or interactions in progress. Most commonly used for those tactics that allow an intruder to usurp an authorized user’s session for his or her own ends.

History

(Internet Browser)—Stores the internet addresses (URLs) of the Web sites you have visited.

Heat Sink

A mass of metal attached to a chip carrier or socket for the purpose of dissipating heat.

Hyperwar

A term (attributed to “Air Force planners”) describing the notion that “war is becoming unimaginably and unmanageably fast.

I2WAR

Acronym for infrastructural and information warfare.

I/O Port

I/O stands for input/output. I/O is the communication between a computer and its user, its storage devices, other computers (via a network), or the outside world. The I/O port is the logical channel or channel endpoint in an I/O communication system.

I&W

Acronym for indications and warnings. This is a sort of catch-all label for any and all data signifying an operant or potential threat. Typically, “indications and warnings” connotes a summarization or fusion of raw data into a synopsis of current threat condition(s) (a report from an intel unit).

I&W/TA

Acronym for “indications and warnings or threat assessment.”.This label is occasionally used to connote the summarization of incoming data with respect to threat conditions (extant or predicted).

IBW

Acronym for information-based warfare. Acronym for intelligence-based warfare.

IDE

Stands for integrated drive electronics. Describes a hard disk with the disk controller integrated within it. See also EIDE.

IDS

Acronym for intrusion-detection system.

IDW

Acronym for information-dominance warfare.

IEW

Acronym for intelligence and electronic warfare.

Indications and warning(s) (I&W)

Those intelligence activities intended to detect and report time-sensitive intelligence information on foreign developments that could involve a threat to the United States or allied military, political, or economic interests or to U.S. citizens abroad. It includes forewarning of enemy actions or intentions; the imminence of hostilities; insurgency; nuclear or non-nuclear attack on the United States, its overseas forces, or allied nations; hostile reactions to U.S. reconnaissance activities; terrorists’ attacks; and other similar events.

Indirect information warfare

Changing the adversary’s information by creating phenomena that the adversary must then observe and analyze.

Industrial warfare

The term for the class or character of war or warfare exemplified from the 18^th century through to the present. Synonymous with second-wave war(fare).

Information

Facts, data, or instructions in any medium or form. The meaning that a human assigns to data by means of the known conventions used in their representation. In intelligence usage, unevaluated material of every description that may be used in the production of intelligence.

Information age

A label generally used to connote the present or prospective era in which information technology (IT) is the dominant technical artifacture. The future time period when social, cultural, and economic patterns will reflect the decentralized, nonhierarchical flow of information; contrast this to the more centralized, hierarchical, social, cultural, and economic patterns that reflect the Industrial Age’s mechanization of production systems.

Information age warfare

That subset of war-making that uses information technology as a tool to impart combat operations with unprecedented economies of time and force. This is exemplified by a cruise missile on precision force projection.

Information attack

Directly corrupting information without visibly changing the physical entity within which it resides. In the wake of an information attack, an information function is indistinguishable from its original state except through inspecting its data or instructions.

Information-based warfare (IBW)

Synonym for information warfare. An approach to armed conflict focusing on managing and using information in all its forms and at all levels to achieve a decisive military advantage, especially in the joint and combined environment.

Information collection

That aspect of IW activities concerned with the acquisition of data. An organization needs a variety of information to support its operations. Information collection includes the entry points for information into an organization from both internal and external sources. Issues include quantity (completeness), quality (accuracy), and timelines of this information. Business examples of collection systems include point-of-sale (POS) systems, market surveys, government statistics, and internal management data. Military examples of collection systems include tactical radars and other sensors.

Information compromise

That class or type of IW threat that involves a competitor gaining access to an organization’s proprietary data.

Information denial

Measures beyond normal protection to specifically target an adversary’s collection systems. There are two types of denial: direct attacks on the adversary’s information systems, and providing misinformation to its systems to deceive and induce the adversary to take actions that are not to its advantage. For the military, direct attacks include electronic warfare (jamming) of sensors and radio links. Besides direct attacks, there are safer ways to corrupt an adversary’s databases. These rely on providing false information to the targeted competitor’s collection systems to induce this organization to make bad decisions based on this faulty information.

Information destruction

That class or type of IW threat to one’s data assets that involves the loss of these data (or loss of access to these data) as the result of a hostile attack by an adversary.

Information dominance

In warfare, an operational advantage obtained through superior effectiveness of informational activity (acquisition and processing of data, information, and/or knowledge), to the extent that this advantage is demonstrated in practice through superior effectiveness of instrumental activity.

Information dominance warfare (IDW)

The subcategory of information warfare (IW) aimed at leveraging data, information, and knowledge to tactical and strategic advantage, as opposed to leveraging the media, channels, and vehicles of information transfer and/or processing. The goal of IDW is to achieve information dominance.

Information function

Any activity involving the acquisition, transmission, storage, or transformation of information.

Information in war (IinW)/information in warfare (IIW)

A term that has come to be used to denote the application of information (and information processing or technology) in the context of military operations (conventionally delineated), as opposed to that connotation accorded IW to the effect that information and information systems are the substance, the tools, and the targets in an emerging warform.

Information operations (also information ops)

The term “information operations” is typically encountered in IW discussions as a label for those concrete tasks and activities by which one pursues one’s own interests in the information realm. As such, information operations (or “info ops”) most commonly denotes specific paths of action, in contrast to IW denoting the broader sphere within which these actions are undertaken.

Information ops (also “info ops”)

Synonym for information operations.

Information protect (IP)

A (seemingly ungrammatical) synonym for information protection, quite frequently used in the U.S. military IW literature.

Information protection (IP)

Information protection addresses two types of threats: information compromise and destruction. Compromise involves a competitor gaining access to an organization’s proprietary data. Destruction involves the loss of these data (or loss of access to these data) as the result of a hostile attack by an adversary

Information realm

A commonly used term to denote the virtual space of data networks, contents, and commerce.

Information security (INFOSEC)

The protection of unauthorized access to or modification of information, whether in storage, processing, or transit, and against the denial of service to authorized users or the provision of service to unauthorized users, including those measures necessary to detect, document, and counter such threats.

Information superiority

That degree of dominance in the information domain, which permits the conduct of operations without effective opposition. Information Superiority combines the capabilities of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) to acquire and assimilate information needed to effectively employ our own forces to dominate and neutralize adversary forces. It includes the capability for near-real-time awareness of the location and activity of friendly, adversary, and neutral forces throughout the battlespace; and a seamless, robust C4I network linking all friendly forces that provides common awareness of the current situation.

Information system(s) (INFOSYS)

The entire infrastructure, organization, personnel, and components that collect, process, store, transmit, display, disseminate, and act on information.

Information systems security

A synonym for INFOSEC. Protection of information systems against unauthorized access to or modification of information, whether in storage, processing, or transit and against the denial of service to authorized users.

Information systems warfare (ISW)

The subcategory of information warfare (IW) aimed at leveraging media, channels, and vehicles of information transfer and/or processing to tactical and strategic advantage.

Information terrorism

An ill-defined term (as yet) invoked to connote cyberspace mischief undertaken with intentions or ramifications analogous to the fear-inducing physical attacks one associates with terrorist activity.

Information transport

That element of IW activities that involves moving data from points of collection to points of storage or use. The speed with which this is done affects the timelines of the data availability and, therefore, the responsiveness of the organization to situations. Transport considerations must be viewed within the overall information warfare perspective, because the same efficiency that facilitates rapid message and data transportation may also be used by a competitor to download proprietary databases in seconds or minutes.

Information war

Activities intertwined with, and superimposed on, other military operations, exploiting data and information in support of traditional military tasks such as command-and-control.

Information warfare (abbreviated IW)

The broad class of activities aimed at leveraging data, information, and knowledge in support of military goals. Subcategories of information warfare can be differentiated into two general classes: (a) those aimed at leveraging the vehicles of information transfer or processing (information systems warfare— ISW); and (b) those aimed at leveraging the informative content or effect of such systems.

IRQ

Stands for interrupt request. IRQ is the name of the hardware interrupt signals that PC peripherals (such as serial or parallel ports) use to get the processor’s attention. Because interrupts usually cannot be shared, devices are assigned unique IRQ addresses that enable them to communicate with the processor. Peripherals that use interrupts include LAN adapters, sound boards, scanner interfaces, and SCSI adapters.

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