Communications over Public Networks for Network-Assisted Defense

Several countries have recently adopted network-centric ideas into their military doctrines. Network-Centric Warfare originally is designed for a military force that is superior in many respects. When network-centric ideas are modified to cases where superiority cannot be assumed, usefulness of network-assisted operations must be investigated in all possible situations, including network-assisted resistance. Network-assisted resistance is not only interesting to the defender. both sides of the war can gain by investigating the possibilities and limitations for network-assisted operations in guerilla warfare type resistance. The article describes three network services for the defensive side by looking at the goals of the defender. These network services must be provisioned over public networks that are being monitored by the attacker. Therefore cryptographic mechanisms are not the best solution. The article defines two new security dimensions. un-discoverability and evidence-freeness, and proposes a way of hiding information over public networks filling these dimensions, providing sufficient bandwidth and conveying the essential information for command and control in the given applications.