John Arquilla wrote an interesting article for Foreign Policy on the “cyber pearl harbor” metaphor. In his article, Arquilla takes exception to the metaphor, noting that Pearl Harbor had a Battleship Row allowing for a concentrated blow whereas cyberspace is diffuse, characterized by redundancy and resilience with “workarounds and fallbacks abound.”
Arquilla believes that the better sea-based metaphor is harbor lights. Harbor lights refers to how WW2 German U-boats would use the harbor lights of nearby U.S. coastal cities to aid in the targeting of U.S. merchant vessels. U.S. businessmen were loathe to blackout the harbor lights for fear of economic damage. Arquilla goes on to compare harbor lights to the U.S. response in cyberspace.
Interesting read, check out the rest of the Foreign Policy article here.
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