I’ve slapped the U.S. Air Force around over the years for their obsessive-compulsive behavior to attack their own computing capability “as a precaution” whenever they fear a virus might attack their computing capability.

Well, now it appears France’s navy has joined the OCD club. A headline in Britain’s Daily Telegraph proclaims “French fighter planes grounded by computer virus.” A subheading notes the fabulous French flying machines “were unable to take off after military computers were infected by a computer virus, an intelligence magazine claims.”

French navy spokesman Jérome Erulin said “it was a security problem we had already simulated.” It pleases me to know the French military keeps up with their surrender skills…

Unable to take off? Thank goodness. I’d hate to hear about hundreds of Frenchmen bobbing in the ocean after bailing out to protect themselves from the Downadup worm. “Mayday! Mayday! Frenchy-Paris-Two-Five-Niner, I’ve got a Krusty the Clown screen icon on my heads-up display! Ejecting immediately! Frenchy-Paris-Two-Five-Niner eject eject eject!”

Reading the first paragraph of the story, we begin to realize the navy’s flight tasking “databases were infected by a Microsoft virus they had already been warned about several months beforehand.” In other words, we can assume the aircraft themselves remained worm-free — only the flight planners’ servers & desktops got whacked.

I spent 26 years in an Air Force uniform and I can assure you of two things. First: all militaries give high priority to bombing an enemy’s flight planning headquarters. Second: all militaries train their airmen to operate after the flight planning headquarters gets attacked. Military training usually goes like this:

“Pilots, our exercise scenario today begins with the enemy taking out our flight planners. {Pilots applaud & give high-fives.} Okay, that’s enough. They’re a critical part of our team, you know. {Pilots cough in a mocking fashion.} The wing commander will need to act decisively to maintain air superiority during the exercise…”

The news story mentions the French navy’s OCD in its second paragraph. “At one point French naval staff were also instructed not to even open their computers.” Can you imagine the email they must have received?

Fm: French High Military Command
To: All naval personnel
Subj: Turn off all computers
Charge d’Affairs orders all personnel to immediately shut off all naval computers. We will send an email telling you when you may turn your computers back on…

Later in the story, “Jérome Erulin, [a] French navy spokesman, [said] ‘It was a security problem we had already simulated.’ ” Aha, great news. It pleases me to know the French military keeps up with their surrender skills.

Anyway, it’s a cute story except for the fact that France lost all of its naval aviation. So, uh … who were the French locked in mortal combat with?

I’ve got my prejudices and I admit it. Take Marcus Sachs for example: I openly disliked the man when he started working for White House cyberspace flunky Richard Clarke during the “taint era” from 1998 until Clarke’s unceremonious departure.

But the director of the SANS Internet Storm Center has finally won me over with a “very cynical” (his words) opinion on the supposed Russian-Georgian cyber-war. Good for him. I scratched Sachs off my prejudice list.

And speaking of the supposed Russian-Georgian cyber-war…

As Sachs noted, the computer press seems infatuated with a war that includes script kiddies and (ironically) the many “cyber tourists” who visited Georgian websites out of curiosity. Come, now — how can you call it a “war” when media coverage drives tourism through the roof?

This might lead you to wonder “what’s the difference between a physical war and a cyber war?” The answer is simple. In a physical war, a politician will shout “Christiane Amanpour’s plane landed at the airport, everyone flee for your lives!” But in a cyber war, a coworker will shout “John Markoff’s story just went online, everyone click on the links!”

Oddly: the computer pundits tell us only about Russia’s cyber-attacks on Georgia. To quote the legendary Bill Hicks: “a war is when two armies are fighting.” Why don’t we hear incredulousible stories about, who knows, maybe Georgia’s victorious counter-thrust into Russian IP space where they Google-bombed the .ru TLD, or something like that?

The non-computer press, on the other hand, seems far more interested in Russian bomber aircraft over the skies of Georgia. Those bombers recently made a “show of force” along two critical fuel pipelines:

The 45 craters — each some 60 feet across — scar the hillside like footprints left by a giant. Close by lies the BTC pipeline, operated by British oil company BP PLC and buried at a depth of nearly six feet… Another raid Tuesday appeared to have been aimed at a second pipeline, known as Baku-Supsa, which brings Azerbaijan oil from the Caspian Sea.

To hear the cyber-war experts say it, a logic bomb is equivalent to an aerial bomb. So, if Russia did launch a devastating cyber-war with Georgia, then why do they need bombers to demonstrate a show of force near Georgia’s fuel pipelines? To hear the cyber-war experts say it, Russia’s elite military hackers could log into the “SCADA” equipment that controls the pipelines and make it do whatever the Kremlin wants.

You’ll find all sorts of security hype about “SCADA,” the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition equipment that now automates every critical infrastructure on the planet — international fuel pipelines, continental electric power grids, federal air traffic control & landing systems, state highway toll booths, regional 911 services, county water treatment plants, city transit systems, and local traffic lights.

To hear the SCADA security experts say it, these devices even operate the dual-zone climate controls in your new car. That’s right: SCADA technology controls everything. Just ask the SCADA security experts.

SCADA technology is so insecure, claim the experts, that any college kid can destroy any power generator anywhere on Earth from the comfort of any dorm room or Starbucks café in less than two minutes.

Oh, and Russia secretly enlists every unethical college kid to serve in the Kremlin’s state-of-the-art military cyber squadron. Oh, and they can bring any country to its knees with their dastardly SCADA weapons. Just ask the cyber-war experts.

Toss in the bankrupt & corrupt history of Russia’s post-USSR military … and toss in the U.S. Air Force’s own belief that a logic bomb equals a Hellfire missile … and it only stands to reason that Russia would much rather launch SCADA attacks over bomber attacks.

Yet we see neither the amazing headline nor the amazing video of a Russian military SCADA attack. Go figure.

Did a story in the Wall Street Journal say “Thousands of Georgians feared dead in Russian military cyber attack”? NO. Did The Register announce “Russian army hackers make Georgian fuel pipelines flow backward”? NO. Did the U.S. Air Force website proclaim “Airmen deploy to Tbilisi to stop Russian military hackers”? NO.

Remember this the next time the computer media gets infatuated with the notion of a cyber-war.

A few months back, Wired magazine published a story about hysterical cyberspace officials across the entire U.S. Air Force who “buddy spiked” a U.S. website run by retired U.S. Marines. Go read the Wired story, then come back here.

You finished reading it? Good. Let’s continue.

If you love poetic irony, then you’ll love the Wired story. Right there at the top of the page … is a classified photo that Air Force Cyberspace Command published last year. Readers will recall it’s the same photo I lambasted in a previous column.

Archived chat in commercial forums suggest nearly everyone with an af.mil email account received the “buddy spike” alert. Yet no one seems to have the original documents behind this snafu. Thanks to a very carefully worded Freedom of Information Act request, I obtained those original documents:

• An official detailed biography of Major Mark D. Hedden, Director of Information Operations, 1st Special Operations Wing, Hurlburt Field, Florida — the man who started it all.
• Major Hedden’s original email that caused this whole mess.
• Major Hedden’s original PowerPoint slide show that other gullible cyberspace officials forwarded to nearly every Air Force member worldwide.
• Major Hedden’s “clarification” email sent out five days after the original email. He doesn’t retract the “buddy spike” alert in this email.
• Major Hedden’s “additional response” email sent out a few hours after the “clarification” email. He doesn’t retract the “buddy spike” alert in this email, either.

Need more irony? The official bio for the director of information operations reveals a total lack of information operations experience when he gave his “buddy spike” lecture.

[Memo to Major Hedden: click here. Memo to everyone who officially forwarded Major Hedden's PowerPoint slides to others: click here. Memo to everyone who received Major Hedden's PowerPoint slides: click here.]

Let’s take the archived forum discussions at face value for just a moment. Let’s suppose two things: (1) nearly everyone in the U.S. Air Force received a copy of Major Hedden’s “buddy spike” PowerPoint slides, and (2) no one who forwarded it bothered to retract it.

Do you realize the incredible gullibility exploit here? A hostile military could develop a PowerPoint slideshow, mail it to hysterical USAF personnel, and say “please give this widest possible dissemination.” The attachment itself would pass all antivirus checks — but the information in the slides would be bad.

Even if a gullible flyboy finds out he got duped by an enemy military, history predicts he won’t send out an email to retract the slideshow … because it would embarrass him too much to admit “the enemy exploited my hysteria in an official capacity.” Egotistic shallow thinkers will rationalize it’s better to continue aiding the enemy’s efforts to defeat the U.S. Air Force.

USAF insists their new cyberspace mission will give combatant commanders “confidentiality, integrity, and availability” of information. But how can we rely on information operations if the people in charge of it lack even the most basic experience? How can we trust our digital paladins if they choose shallow hysteria over thoughtful logic? How can we believe all the hype if the Keystone Cops run Air Force Cyberspace Command?

Remember this: I’ve predicted since 2002 that USAF’s gullibility & incompetence in cyberspace will end up costing lives in the first two genuine cyber-wars.

“Buddy spike.” Hmph. That’s what you get when you put gullible bureaucrats in charge of a devastating weapon system.

FYI: the official Air Force website still offers that classified photo for download. Someone should notify USAF’s gullible cyberspace officials to “buddy spike” their own website for a change…