The New York Times published a fascinating and frightening in-depth report today, April 28, on the dawn of cyber-warfare. The far-reaching implications of these techno-wars are staggering.

Reports about China and Russia poking around sensitive U.S. cyber-networks have become increasingly common. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently told 60 Minutes that the United States is "under cyber-attack virtually all the time, every day." And earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported Russian and Chinese "cyberspies" were found trawling the networks of things like U.S. electrical grids in an effort to map critical U.S. infrastructures. Intelligence officials noted the cyber-penetration of these networks seemed to serve reconnaissance purposes. But the WSJ adds:

Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, the senior intelligence official said. He added, "If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on."

The NYT article published today leaves little doubt the U.S. is preparing its own arsenal:

Mr. Obama is expected to say little or nothing about the nation’s offensive capabilities, on which the military and the nation’s intelligence agencies have been spending billions. In interviews over the past several months, a range of military and intelligence officials, as well as outside experts, have described a huge increase in the sophistication of American cyberwarfare capabilities.

Because so many aspects of the American effort to develop cyberweapons and define their proper use remain classified, many of those officials declined to speak on the record. The White House declined several requests for interviews or to say whether Mr. Obama as a matter of policy supports or opposes the use of American cyberweapons.

The cyber-scape of warfare painted by this and other reports could be described as the Cold War meets Al Qaeda meets Silicon Valley. For instance, the Pentagon could encrypt U.S.-made computer chips it exports to China or Russia with code that could be activated at a moments notice to disrupt their computer networks. The NYT notes this is precisely the worry that some U.S. security officials have about ubiquitous Chinese-made computer hardware.

A corporate-intelligence nexus would be nothing new: During the Cold War, tech companies such as Xerox collaborated closely with U.S. intelligence agencies by installing cameras in their copiers, which fed KGB and Kremlin secrets back to Langley and Washington.

Alarm bells are often sounded about the vulnerability of cyber-dependent industries such as the financial sector. Intelligence officials have noted that it is not in the interests of countries like Russia and China – which seem to be the main U.S. opponents in this growing conflict – to attack the U.S. financial system. First, because any financial meltdown would affect their own economies and, secondly, because China holds an estimated $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds, meaning it would be shooting itself in the foot.

But here's where the Qaeda-like factor comes in: Not all cyber-warriors act on behalf of states. So unlike the deterrence of "mutually assured destruction" of the Cold War, governments do not have a monopoly on the use of cyber-violence. The NYT cites an unnamed U.S. security official who says, "Russia and China have lots of nationalistic hackers. They seem very, very willing to take action on their own."

Paul Kurtz, a former senior director for critical infrastructure protection on the White House's Homeland Security Council, describes the Qaeda-like quality of today's cyber-warriors: "One of the things that's very tricky about cyberspace is you can have criminal organizations easily morph with hacker organizations, and you may have a cell within that that may have a different purpose or objective than the criminal organization," Kurtz explains. "This comes down to the essence of what makes the cybertradecraft so complex. It's only a keystroke difference between getting inside someone's system and shutting it down."

U.S laws and security doctrines are ill-equipped to deal with the onset of rapidly evolving cyber-warfare. The Pentagon and the Obama administrations are self-consciously trying to play catch-up. Obama is about to announce an expansion on the $17 billion allocated by the Bush White House for a five-year cyber-warfare program. The NYT says Obama will also appoint a White House official to coordinate the effort.

Nonetheless, several questions remain. Washington is still unclear over how to respond to cyber-attacks. Should the Pentagon respond to these attacks with equal retaliation, despite the collateral damage this could cause? Will the Obama and future administrations redeploy the Bush Doctrine of preemption into cyberspace? Will U.S. intelligence agencies even know the geographic location or individual authors (whether individuals or states) of a cyber-attack?

The answer to that last question is: Probably not, which certainly complicates the answer to the previous two questions. Moreover, many cyber-attacks, whoever is behind them, will be launched (and "defended") U.S. soil. Still, the Pentagon is moving ahead.

"The Pentagon has argued that it should be the locus of American defensive and offensive [cyber] strategy — and it is creating the kind of infrastructure that was built around nuclear weapons in the 1940s and ’50s," says the NYT. This raises at least one sticky Constitutional issue: The role of the U.S. military in domestic afairs. The use of the military for domestic law enforcement is expressly prohibited by the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.

Finally, what does all this cyber-warfare mean for the rest of us, the You Tube-loving netizens?

One potential development could be greater U.S. government control of the Internet, which former Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who used to be the chairman of the congressional committee regulating the Internet, famously described the Net as "not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes." (God help us.) This would probably stymie efforts for Net Neutrality. 

And well, besides feeling the collateral effects of potential cyber-induced economic convulsions and disruptions in things like electricity, water, and telecommunications delivery, or perhaps even more destructive attacks on things like dams or power plants, the most pervasive casualty will be our privacy.