Summary of David E. Sanger's The Perfect Weapon

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 In 2012, I met with Michael Morell, the deputy director of the CIA, to discuss a sensitive story the Times was preparing to publish. I knew that the meeting would be difficult, as the US government was not yet ready to discuss the consequences of its decision to use cyberweapons against another state in peacetime.

#2 I had come to hear about which details of the Olympic Games story concerned Morell and his colleagues, and they were preparing to ask the Times to withhold them, lest we tip off other targets of ongoing operations.

#3 The Obama administration was extremely secretive about its use of cyberweapons, and it was unclear how the public should feel about them. But there was no backtracking. When Michael Hayden, who had been central to the early days of America’s experimentation with cyberweapons, said that the Stuxnet code had the whiff of August 1945 about it, he was making clear that a new era had dawned.

#4 Hayden’s insight into the game-changing nature of cyber conflict began in 1998, when he was assigned to San Antonio, Texas, as the commander of the Air Intelligence Agency. He remembered watching in wonder as members of the staff disabled remote workstations and used electronic-warfare techniques to fool a radarscope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822546448

IRB Media

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Insights on David E. Sanger's The Perfect Weapon

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In 2012, I met with Michael Morell, the deputy director of the CIA, to discuss a sensitive story the Times was preparing to publish. I knew that the meeting would be difficult, as the US government was not yet ready to discuss the consequences of its decision to use cyberweapons against another state in peacetime.

#2

I had come to hear about which details of the Olympic Games story concerned Morell and his colleagues, and they were preparing to ask the Times to withhold them, lest we tip off other targets of ongoing operations.

#3

The Obama administration was extremely secretive about its use of cyberweapons, and it was unclear how the public should feel about them. But there was no backtracking. When Michael Hayden, who had been central to the early days of America’s experimentation with cyberweapons, said that the Stuxnet code had the whiff of August 1945 about it, he was making clear that a new era had dawned.

#4

Hayden’s insight into the game-changing nature of cyber conflict began in 1998, when he was assigned to San Antonio, Texas, as the commander of the Air Intelligence Agency. He remembered watching in wonder as members of the staff disabled remote workstations and used electronic-warfare techniques to fool a radarscope.

#5

The attack forced the United States to confront the implications of the digital age. The NSA, responsible for encrypting and protecting sensitive information, shifted its focus to computer data stored around the world that was vulnerable to the agency’s fast-growing cadres of hackers.

#6

Strategic Command is in charge of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. It was the first line of defense against a nuclear conflict with the Soviets, and it was responsible for maintaining and moving nuclear weapons.

#7

Cartwright was concerned about the strategic vacuum. America’s reliance on nuclear deterrence was actually restricting a president’s ability to deal with the kind of adversaries the United States was facing every day. He began thinking about how cyberweapons could expand a president’s choices.