InfowarCon/Offensive Cyber Weapons & Technology Training Congress “To Defend You Have To Know How

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Sept. 20, 2013 - PRLog -- Nashville, TN – “We’re defending our country and its critical infrastructures against the past, not the future,” Winn Schwartau says with his normal passion.

Schwartau, who founded InfowarCon in 1994, recently re-acquired the esteemed conference after being encouraged to ‘Notch It Up’ by academic, military, government and security experts. His colleagues agree that over the last twenty years, we as a country have barely inched forward in national security-related cyber security issues. “We’re losing in intellectual property theft, cybercrime, perception management and overall cyber defense.”

InfowarCon successfully mixed military, government, private sector, academia and the hacker community for all of the previous 19 conferences. But the content got watered down after Schwartau sold it.

“I want to put on the kind of conference InfowarCon was when I started it. I want to re- make InfowarCon into a truly immersive experience; a compelling interactive “Show Me, Don’t Tell Me” discussion. I want to build a congress that makes a difference in today’s world.”

Dan Kuehl, InfowarCon Conference Chair, (National Defense University, retired) sits on InfowarCon’s stellar Board of Advisors. “For the better part of two decades, starting in the early 90s, Infowarcon has simply been THE conference for Info Warriors. Attendees didn't have to worry about being buried in technobabble, nor having to sit through a pile of slides being presented by some senior officer who has just learned how to spell IW.

InfowarCon had something for everyone, advancing our understanding of and skill in conducting information operations.”

InfowarCon is designed to ask uncomfortable questions and engage in often unpopular discussions. Does corporate America really understand professional nation-state espionage? Do they understand what their low-budget adversaries can come up with for only $500? And what about global adversaries with unlimited budgets? What can they do to harm your company, infrastructure or national security? And what about emerging

technologies? What are the threats for the next 3-20 years and are we preparing at all for when they get weaponized?

Dr. Richard Forno, Director of the Graduate Cybersecurity Program at UMBC, an early researcher on information warfare and an influential commentator said, “InfowarCon was around long before the Dot Com Explosion which revolutionized the world. For almost 20 years we brought together visionaries, practitioners, bleeding-edge thinking and technologies in a collegial setting to explore the many social, legal, security, privacy, resiliency and geopolitical concerns of the networked world. In the 1990s, those of us involved with InfowarCon were optimistic visionaries yet cautiously worried about the future -- in 2013, while we remain optimistic we can also look back with confidence and say "we told you so.”

Jason Healy, Director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative of the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC., served at the Whitehouse from 2003-2005 advising the President on securing cyberspace and critical infrastructure protection. “So many of the same problems we discussed at the first InfoWarCons are with us still today; sure the technology is cooler and the hackers seem younger, but otherwise there’s been little progress. Yet we continue to plug away at the internet of things and ever more connected lives, so a new, refreshed InfoWarCon couldn’t be more timely”.

InforwarCon has always attracted top military leaders because of innovating thought processes and concepts that are discussed “off the record.”

COL Brent W. Guglielmino, TNANG, Commander, 218th ISRG" stated, “We are on the cusp of a sea-change in the way wars are fought, the way national security calculus occurs, and the way global security policy is developed. The 218th ISR Group recognizes these challenges and has been tasked to support the larger Department of Defense effort to help identify and mitigate threats to our nation. We are attending INFOWARCON because we see it as an operational imperative”.

InfowarCon has always been an international event with more than 35 countries represented.

InfowarCon is honored to have Lars Nicander, Director for The Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at Swedish National Defence College and Eneken Tikk-Ringas, Senior Fellow for Cyber Security at International Institute for Strategic Studies, Bahrain and advisor the NATO Cooperative Defence Centre of Excellence in Estonia, both sit on the Board.

The Call for Papers for InfowarCon can be found at: http://infowarcon.com/call-for- papers.

For interviews and additional details: 520-INFOWAR or 727-393-6600