Remember the great, wide open, unregulated digital utopia that was the Internet ten years ago? The last vestige is now gone:

President Bush has signed a secret directive ordering the government to develop, for the first time, national-level guidance for determining when and how the United States would launch cyber-attacks against enemy computer networks, according to administration officials.

Similar to strategic doctrine that has guided the use of nuclear weapons since World War II, the cyber-warfare guidance would establish the rules under which the United States would penetrate and disrupt foreign computer systems.

The United States has never conducted a large-scale, strategic cyber-attack, according to several senior officials. But the Pentagon has stepped up development of cyber-weapons, envisioning a day when electrons might substitute for bombs and allow for more rapid and less bloody attacks on enemy targets. Instead of risking planes or troops, military planners imagine soldiers at computer terminals silently invading foreign networks to shut down radars, disable electrical facilities and disrupt phone services.

Bush's action highlights the administration's keen interest in pursuing a new form of weaponry that many specialists say has great potential for altering the means of waging war, but that until now has lacked presidential rules for deciding the circumstances under which such attacks would be launched, who should authorize and conduct them and what targets would be considered legitimate.

....The full extent of the U.S. cyber-arsenal is among the most tightly held national security secrets, even more guarded than nuclear capabilities. Because of secrecy concerns, many of the programs remain known only to strictly compartmented groups, a situation that in the past has inhibited the drafting of general policy and specific rules of engagement.

In a first move last month to consult with experts from outside government, White House officials helped arrange a meeting at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that attracted about 50 participants from academia and industry as well as government. But a number of participants expressed reservations about the United States engaging in cyber-attacks, arguing that the United States' own enormous dependence on computer networks makes it highly vulnerable to counterattack.

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