Origins of Cyberwarfare: How the Internet got Weaponized
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Cyberspace was until last decade and half a perfect additional intelligence gathering tool. Within a phase of t ime
during the spread of the world wide web, the cyberspace expanded outside the boundaries of intelligence gathering to a
perfect weapon in the hands of both state and non-state actors for destabilizing or devastating the state of critical
infrastructures of perceived enemy or competitors. In the heart of the storm, Social Scientists have either focused on
extensive definitions and clarifications of cyberwar, others are fixated on explaining the various emerging dangers of cyber
weapons on society, like the consequences of weaponizing the cyberspace against a nation's power grid, nuclear command,
and control systems, neutralizing a petrochemical plant, paralyzing a government's health care or governance structure and
possibilities of manipulating elections. But few, if any have considered the question which is central to this paper: How did
the cyberspace evolve f rom an intelligence tool to a cyberweapon against critical infrastructures? The obvious answer is that
the magnified global access and use of networked systems provided the perfect battle space for deploying cyberweapons.
The preceding explanation is essentially correct, but it is entirely lacking In detail explaining how cyberspace became
weaponized? Under what conditions was cyberspace purely an intelligence tool. Under what conditions is cyberspace
weaponized? This research incorporates these and other questions into a framework through the means of a model designed
to aid understanding of how the cyberspace evolve from an intelligence tool to a destructive weapon targeted at critical
infrastructures. Primary sources include relatively untapped 107 Congress Laws on Cyber related legislations. From the 1051h
congress to t he current 1161h congress, 1, 177 legislations have been introduced on cyber or cyber related issues. Other
primary sources include White House fact sheets, statements, press releases, President Trump's 2018 National Cyber Security
Strategies, President Obama's 2016 Cyber Security National Action Plan, and cyber related executive orders, statements, and
press releases from President Johnson of the last 5 US administrations.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General), QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science