Governments spend billions to protect against terrorism. Might it help to understand what al Qaeda would achieve with each specific attack? This book examines various hypotheses of terrorist targeting: is it (1) to coerce, (2) to damage economies, (3) to rally the faithful, or (4) a decision left to affiliates? This book analyzes past attacks, post hoc justifications, and expert opinion to weigh each hypothesis.

Information warfare, as any casual observer of the Pentagon can attest, remains a hot-button topic in the military community. Thus does war follow commerce into cyberspace, pitting foes against one another for control of this clearly critical high ground. But does this facile comparison have a basis in reality? In this iconoclastic spirit, the six essays in this book are characterized by a continuing search for the meaning of information warfare.

Libicki et al. argue that information collection requirements and systems for counterinsurgency are important because the community that conducts counterinsurgency crosses national and institutional boundaries and because the indigenous population plays a large role in determining the outcome of an insurgency. They then demonstrate what this focus implies for counterinsurgency requirements, collection, networking, and systems design.

Cyberwar is nothing so much as the manipulation of ambiguity. This title addresses such issues as the pros and cons of counterattack, the value of deterrence and vigilance, and other actions governments can take to protect themselves in the face of deliberate cyberattack.

Addresses the challenges for defense policy in a world transformed by the end of the Cold War and then the war on terrorism, and sketches analytic techniques for framing particular defense issues.

The Global Force Management Data Initiative was launched to improve aggregation of unclassified force-structure data. Aggregation, though, raised concerns about classification because the system might be attractive to a potential adversary. The authors develop a framework for evaluating classification decisions to determine that, while overall classification is not indicated, the inclusion of some data will require careful consideration.

Passwords are proving less and less capable of protecting computer systems from abuse. Multifactor authentication (MFA) which combines something you know (e.g., a PIN), something you have (e.g., a token), and/or something you are (e.g., a fingerprint) is increasingly being required. This report investigates why organizations choose to adopt or not adopt MFA and where they choose to use it.

As the need to identify known and suspected combatants has elevated the importance of biometrics in the Department of Defense (DoD), RAND researchers assessed how current activities are supporting end users and how DoD is preparing to focus biometrics on different missions. As overseas contingency operations wind down, DoD's biometrics program must move in a new direction, and continued funding must be justified in new ways.