University of
California, Berkeley
Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science Department
Computer Science
Division
Computer
Science 39 K: Information Technology Goes to War
Professor Katz,
Spring 2010
Research Theme, Due 28 April
Your main assignment for this semester is to provide a short research paper assessing
the threat imposed by (alleged) Chinese government-sponsored hackers to disrupt the
cyber infrastructure of the United States.
Your paper should address the following issues:
- What is known about previous incidents of hackers attacking critical computer and communications infrastructures of nation states? For example, a few years
ago, Estonia's cyber infrastructure was taken down, supposed by attacks from the Russian military. The U.S. military is also alleged to have attacked Iraq's
cyber infrastructure before the invasion of 2003 and Russia is similarly alleged to have initiated a cyber attack against Georgia in 2008.
- What are the assessments of China's capabilities to launch cyber attacks against the U.S.? The Department of Defense is required by Congress to periodically
assess the military capabilities of the People's Republic of China, and a declassified version of its report can be found on-line. Find the most current report
you can and summarize what is says about China's cyberwarfare capabilities.
- Earlier this semester, the Chinese government was implicated in sponsoring the theft of intellectual property from Google and in launching computer-based
intrusions into several large U.S.-based Internet companies. Describe what is known about such attacks. Think critically, and try to separate speculation about
what has happened from the actual facts.
- In your opinion, what critical U.S. systems would be the highest priority targets of a nation-state sponsored cyberattack?
Explain what you believe would be the effect such attacks against the U.S. would have on the American way of life.
For example, what would a day in your life be like if the ATM network, the road traffic control network, the Internet, etc. were down?
- Research the technologies that are available to defend computer systems against cyberattacks, and
discuss how they could be used to make safer against cyber attacks the high priority target systems you identified above.
- Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the U.S.'s ability to defend itself against a massive cyberattack? Justify your position!
Your
paper may be as long or as short as you want and need it to be, to make your
point. Your instructor expects approximately five pages to be sufficiently long enough to do a minimum job, but you can make it
longer if you like and find the topic personally interesting to you. Please provide a complete list of the references you used, including books and newspaper articles, as well as the usual on-line resources. While it is ok to make use of wikipedia, do not believe everything you read there. Be critical of such sources.