Check out the following:
NETWAR AND THE SIEGE OF THE PERUVIAN EMBASSY
Here's the opening info from the zapatista netwar page:
INFORMATION WARFARE AND THE ZAPATISTAS "Information warfare is a new concept developed largely by the U.S. Department of Defense in conjunction with a number of Pentagon susupport institutions such as RAND and the National Defense University. Because it is a new term, and because it evolves from an as yet rapidly changing field - information technologies - there are few commonly held definitions among its principal theorists. The concept emerged first in the 1970s to refer primarily to a battle waged in the economic or cultural arenas between information haves and have-nots. It has since been used to describe the application of information technologies, specifically computers and telecommunication systems, to weaponry. And finally, with the advent of the Internet and the creation of cyberspace, information warfare has been a term to describe the propagandistic work of moving information around the net.
Haeni (1995), another researcher working in this area, prefers this definition of IW: "Actions taken to achieve information superiority by affecting adversary information, information based processes, and information systems, while defending ones own information, information based processes and information systems."
Although there is still no central definition for information warfare, most theorists agree with that fundamentally there are offensive and defensive aspects. RAND researchers describe two major types of information warfare: netwar and cyberwar.
Most of the information warfare literature is written from a pro-U.S. and pro-military perspective. These hegemonic and dominant forces often ignore or misrepresent the counterhegemonic application of information warfare by resistance groups."
Here are some clips from the condensed original piece "The information revolution is transforming warfare, contend the authors. No longer will massive, dug-in armies fight bloody attritional battles. Instead small, highly mobile forces, armed with real-time information from satellites and battlefield sensors, will strike with lightening speed in unexpected places. The winner: the side that can exploit information to disperse the fog of war yet enshroud an enemy in it..."
"The information revolution sets in motion forces that challenge the design of many institutions. It disrupts and erodes the hierarchies around which institutions are normally designed. It diffuses and redistributes power, often to the benefit of weaker, smaller actors. It crosses borders, redraws the boundaries of offices and responsibilities, and generally compels closed systems to open up..."
[Ed.: funny how this is seen as a bad thing, something to be avoided!!]
"Netwars will take various forms. Some may occur between the governments of rival nation-states. Other kinds of netwar may arise between governments and nonstate actors. For example, netwar may be waged by governments against illicit groups involved in terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or drug smuggling. Or it may be waged against the policies of specific governments by advocacy groups--involving, for example, environmental, human-rights or religious issues. The nonstate actors may or may not be associated with nations, and in some cases they may be organized into vast transnational coalitions..."
and here are the related links:
rand corporation rand research review fall 1995
rand corporation cyberwar and netwar