electronic Pearl Harbor (or "EPH"): a bromide popularized
by Alvin Toffler-types, ex-Cold War generals, assorted corporate
windbags and hack journalists, to name a few. EPH is
meant to signify a nebulous electronic doom looming over U.S.
computer networks. In the real world, it's a cue for the phrase
"Watch your wallet!" since those wielding it are usually doing
so in an attempt to convince taxpayers or consumers to fund
ill-defined and/or top secret projects said to be aimed at 
protecting us from it.

                         --from the Crypt Newsletter "Joseph K"
                         Guide to Tech Terminology

"Electronic Pearl Harbor" and variations on it, Crypt Newsletter has noticed, are now some of the most over used buzz-phrases in the topic of computer security and information warfare. Using Internet search engines, it is possible to quickly find over 500 citations for the phrase in on-line news archives, military research papers and press releases.

Paradoxically, overuse of the phrase has had quite the opposite effect desired by those who unwittingly wield it. One can easily imagine p.r. handlers coaching our leaders, generals and corporate salesmen to not forget to say "electronic Pearl Harbor" at least one time just before giving a speech or interview. Since it is a gold-plated cliche, anyone with more sense than it takes to pour piss from a boot can use it as an infallible detector of Chicken Little-like cyber-bull. Paraphrased: Anyone still caught uttering "electronic Pearl Harbor" in 1997 is either completely out of it or a used-car salesman/white-collar crook of some type.

Here then, Crypt News presents for your amusement, a selection of the unclothed emperors speaking of "electronic Pearl Harbor:

Twice in the May issue of WIRED magazine, both in John Carlin's "Farewell to Arms."

1. "We will have a cyber equivalent of Pearl Harbor at some point, and we do not want to wait for that wake-up call," attributed to former U.S. Deputy Atty. General Jamie Gorelick.

2. "I-war can be the kind of neat, conceptually contained electronic Pearl Harbor scenario that Washington scenarists like -- collapsing power grids, a stock market software bomb, an electromagnetic pulse that takes the phone system out."

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Twice in Robert Minehart's tutorial on Information Warfare, a course currently presented by the U.S. Army's training school in Carlisle, PA. Minehart's bio refers to him as an NSA/CIA/DIA employee and Visiting Professor of Information Warfare at Carlisle. Minehart prefers "Information Pearl Harbor" to "electronic Pearl Harbor" but as far as Crypt Newsletter is concerned, they're the same thing.

1. "So what would an effective Information Pearl Harbor look like?"

2. "The U.S. may find it difficult to use military force in response to an Information Pearl Harbor-type attack."

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Once by John Woodward, a mouthpiece for MITRE Corporation in McLean, VA, in a long-winded 1997 company Website sales pitch for hiring MITRE expertise in avoiding "electronic Pearl Harbor":

"It's MITRE's job to keep the information warfare equivalent of [electronic] Pearl Harbor solely and exclusively in the realm of simulation."

Also attributed to Woodward, "MITRE is the best source on information warfare in the world." Of course, how could it be otherwise?

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"Electronic Pearl Harbor" was invoked three times by strategist Martin Libicki, in "Defending Cyberspace and other Metaphors," a paper on info-war published by the Pentagon-administered National Defense University in Washington, D.C. The paper appeared earlier this year and Libicki uses the term "digital" in place of "electronic."

1."A strategic motive for a digital Pearl Harbor could be to dissuade the United States from military operations (perhaps against the attacking country) or to hinder their execution by disrupting mobilization, deployment, or command and control.

2. "How much damage could a digital Pearl Harbor cause?"

3. "A more pertinent question than how much damage a digital Pearl Harbor might cause is how well hackers attacks can delay, deny, destroy, or disrupt military operations."

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In the January 6, 1997 edition of the Wall Street Journal, reporter Tom Ricks attributes Duane Andrews of Science Applications and the Pentagon's Defense Science Board with:

"Warning of a possible 'electronic Pearl Harbor,' the task force appointed by the Defense Science Board also said the Pentagon should seek the legal authority to launch counterattacks against hackers."

Keep in mind Science Applications, like MITRE Corporation, advertises its skills in avoiding problems related to "electronic Pearl Harbor."

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"We could be on the brink of an 'electronic Pearl Harbor' or an 'information Chernobyl' and not even know it."

This one was uttered by Frank Morgan, an Air Force Intelligence Agency officer out of Kelly AFB, Texas, in an article for the September 1996 issue of Airman magazine entitled "Info Warriors!"

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In Cybernautics Digest, Vol. 3, No. 7 (1996), "All's Not Quiet on the Information Front":

"Pentagon officials fear an electronic Pearl Harbor: an attack which could go undetected until it is too late."

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"[John] Deutch favors center to avoid `electronic Pearl Harbor' and [it] would not require hiring new personnel," showed up in a July 1, 1996 story on Congressional testimony on the subject of hackers and info-war. It appeared in Federal Computer Week.

If you've been following newspapers, sometimes it seemed as if CIA-director Deutch spent most of 1996 talking about "electronic Pearl Harbor," a remarkable feat from someone who could not distinguish the PenPal Greetings Net virus hoax from reality.

And in the same story, a couple paragraphs on:

"I don't know whether we will face an electronic Pearl Harbor, but we will have, I'm sure, some very unpleasant circumstances in this area," said John Deutch.

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"Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), who chaired the hearing, raised the issue of 'an electronic Pearl Harbor' against the 'national information infrastructure,' and asked 'are we fully alerted to this danger now?"

The above quote came from an article written by John Elliston for something called "Dossier." It, of course, also repeats the Deutch "electronic Pearl Harbor" quote -- published by hundreds around the country -- taken from the same July 1996 Congressional hearings.

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"We're facing an electronic Pearl Harbor," said Ronald Gove, a vice president of Science Applications, at a 1995 National Computer Security Association Info-war conference, as reported by a September '95 issue of the Arizona Star.

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"The Pentagon's New Nightmare: An Electronic Pearl Harbor" was the title of a Neil Munro-penned editorial in the July 16, 1995 edition of The Washington Post.

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And in Alvin and Heidi Toffler's 1993 book entitled "War and Anti-War," "electronic Pearl Harbor" is said to be just waiting to happen. (Page 149 in a section entitled "Info-terror.")

Duane Andrews of Science Applications also makes an appearance in the Toffler book, and similar to what he said in 1997, he says in "War and Anti-War:" "Our information security is atrocious, our operation [secrecy] is atrocious, our communications secrecy is atrocious."

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