The art of (cyber) war, NATO style

For a room capable of jumping to action stations at the touch of a button, NATO`s top cyber-defence centre has remarkably comfortable seats.

In a windowless room behind heavy steel doors, Star Trek-style swivel chairs face batteries of computers. Behind them, a wall-to-wall array of flat screens shows complex technical charts and an enormous world map studded with flashing icons. Next to it, a screen shows the time in locations around the world.But rather than covering superpower cities such as Tokyo and New York, it tells the time in places like Baghdad, Kabul and Kosovo - the current location of over 60,000 NATO front-line troops.

The room lies in the heart of SHAPE, NATO`s Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe, and its job is, quite simply, to make sure that NATO`s computers and communications systems keep working no matter what hackers, geeks and hostile governments throw at it. We are the technical and operational lead for cyber-defence in NATO. Our job is to provide 24/7 information assurance, says Major Eulys Shell of the US Army, the officer commanding NATO`s Computer Incident Response Capability`s Technical Centre, or NITC.

Image: General view of the NATO Military Committee at Chiefs of Staff level, held at NATO headquarter in Brussels, Wednesday May 14, 2008.

Text: IANS
Images: AP