It looks like a geek vs. geek battle is shaping up. You’ve probably seen the stories about worldwide cyber attacks and denial of service campaigns. As I recall, there was a cyber intrusion even into the office of the secretary of defense in the Pentagon and into the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The news stories in the West say the attacks generally come from within China.

The Chinese don’t divulge when they come under attack but you can bet this is a two-way street.

Now comes this story that acknowledges the U.S. military is looking at offensive cyber capabilities as well as defensive ones. The U.S. Air Force is setting up a formal Cyber Command, and it apparently will exist only virtually. On paper it will temporarily operate out of Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, but there will be no there there.

From the article: "We haven't done a good job in the cyber-domain just yet. …We have to demonstrate the capability to do [rapid forensics] then message that to our adversaries. For deterrence we have to clearly identify the attacker. We're working on rapid forensics to determine who the adversary is," said Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr., commander of the Eighth Air Force.

There's more here and here.