In the summer of 1997 a top secret exercise, code-named Eligible Receiver, took place in Washington DC. The Department of Defence purchased around 30 computers and secretly installed them out of the reach of neighbouring government systems, connecting them to the outside world only through an internet service provider. Analysts were brought in from the NSA and given an assignment to “take down” the US. The results of this exercise-still classified-remain a source of dispute to this day.
There are two schools of thought as to what happened during the three months in which the US attacked its own electronic infrastructure. According to former Deputy Secretary of Defence John J Hamre, “a small handful of computer specialists can now wage war against the largest country in the world,” and, in the words of Richard Clarke, the president’s special adviser for cyberspace security, the analysts “had control of numerous significant computer systems.” The media reported that the hackers had compromised the power grids of Washington, New York and Los Angeles, disrupted 911 service and shut down communications between the defence department and various Navy vessels.
The more sceptical view was summed up in the Los Angeles Times: “hype and hysteria have overshadowed… reality.” The compromised power grids, according to New Scientist, were “virtual” ones. Former NSA cyberterror specialist Ellie Padgett disclosed that the disruption of 911 service consisted of the “scripting” of an “internet message” (translation: writing an e-mail) which “would be sent out to everybody saying there was a problem with the 911 system,” in the hope of jamming telephone lines.
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