Information Technology for Peace and Security – Introduction and Overview

Purpose This paper aims to address the challenges of agile information technology (IT) development in the public procurement environment, highlight the need for alignment between the procurement process and agile IT development approach, and generate an agile procurement model for highly complex IT projects. Design/methodology/approach Literature review on public procurement and agile IT methods provided a theoretical background for the development of the model. The discussion is based on four agile IT public procurement projects. Findings This study identifies the extent of misalignment between public procurement and agile IT development by distinguishing different agile stages for agencies pursuing agile IT success. The findings extend existing procurement models and provide insights for procurement agencies struggling with IT projects. Research limitations/implications The multi-case method facilitates a close look into each of the agile IT projects and a cross-case analysis for theoretical and practical insights. Investigation on a larger scale is necessary for further validation and generalization. Practical implications The proposed framework helps public procurement identify where they are in their agile procurement journey and offers practical suggestions for them in achieving IT procurement success. Social implications The proposed model helps public agencies to achieve IT success that can lead to huge federal budget savings, better use of taxpayer money, timely public policy implementation, and restored public confidence in the government. Originality/value This paper expands procurement maturity models by emphasizing dimensions of agile procurement in handling IT complexity. It draws public agencies’ attention to their own procurement processes and highlights the necessary alignment between the procurement process and IT development approach.

This special issue gathers together a selection of papers presented by international experts during a workshop entitled ‘Ethics of Cyber-Conflicts’, which was devoted to fostering interdisciplinary debate on the ethical and legal problems and the regulatory gap concerning cyber conflicts. The workshop was held in 2013 at the Centro Alti Studi Difesa in Rome under the auspices of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (NATO CCD COE). This NATO-accredited international military organisation that has always placed a high value on an interdisciplinary approach to cyber defence, uniting as it does perspectives from technical, policy, legal, and strategic domains. The Centre’s mission is to enhance capability, cooperation, and information-sharing between NATO, its member states, and partner countries in the area of cyber defence by virtue of research, education, and consultation. The workshop was one of the projects supported by the Centre to achieve this mission. Readers may already be familiar with the term ‘cyber conflict’, which is understood as any use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that may have disruptive or destructive consequences. Cyber conflicts are an umbrella phenomenon encompassing several instances ranging from cyber warfare and hacktivism to cyber crime and cyber terrorism. As contemporary societies grow dependent from ICTs, any form of conflict that uses these technologies, both as a means and as a target, poses serious threats to their stability, security, and welfare. As recently reported by the Financial Times, Bthe ultimate impact [of cyber-conflicts] could be as much as $3 trillion in lost productivity and growth^. Furthermore, should cyber conflicts propagate without an adequate response then contemporary societies may risk a cyber backlash in the shape of a deceleration to the digitization process imposed by governments and international institutions in order to prevent this Philos. Technol. (2015) 28:333–338 DOI 10.1007/s13347-015-0197-8

Information technology (IT) has been greatly developed over the past decades. The developed IT becomes an important component in our life, which will affect the teaching and learning process. There are both big challenges and huge potential in the use of IT in education. With some unique characteristics in medical education, using IT as a tool can affect the medical curriculum and profession. This article presents the status and challenge of IT in medical education. First, the rapid development of IT used in general education is described, which is compared with the status of IT in medical education. Then, the challenge of IT facing teachers and students is discussed. Lastly, the promise of IT in medical education is provided. Both China and other countries need to develop new IT in medical education.KeywordsStatusChallengeInformation technologyMedical education

The rapid development of information and communication technologies, especially the invention of digital computers and the Internet, pushed almost a whole world into information age, where information became so powerful that it can be directly used as a weapon of destruction. We can expect that beside conventional warfare, information warfare and cyber warfare are becoming more and more a possible option in future conflicts. Few cyber conflicts have shown that digital weapons can be successfully used to achieve attacker goals. Specially, the Stuxnet worm has proven, that digital weapons can also have kinetic effects and that the wars in the future will not be held only in a cyberspace, but rather the cyberspace will be exploited to achieve some advantages over the enemy. This paper contains a short analysis of the possible applications of modern information and communication technologies in the future conflicts.

As Critical National Infrastructures are becoming more vulnerable to cyber attacks, their protection becomes a significant issue for any organization as well as a nation. Moreover, the ability to attribute is a vital element of avoiding impunity in cyberspace. In this article, we present main threats to critical infrastructures along with protective measures that one nation can take, and which are classified according to legal, technical, organizational, capacity building, and cooperation aspects. Finally we provide an overview of current methods and practices regarding cyber attribution and cyber peace keeping.

This article explores the historical development of information technology (IT) in the context of possible negative consequences. It highlights the positive impact of IT on societal development, but at the same time, it underscores the problems associated with the emergence of negative influences, such as information warfare, hybrid warfare, and cyber threats. Emphasis is placed on the idea that operational readiness in countering these challenges can only be achieved through an understanding of the era's development driven by IT technologies, the nature of their dissemination, and the specifics of their application. The necessity of forming an understanding of the comprehensive impact of IT development on public safety is justified. The article acknowledges the early scholars who attempted to analyze the genesis of IT development and its historical and social implications, including E. Toffler, B. Castells, and D. Bell. It focuses on the thoughts of E. Messner regarding the possibilities of conducting information warfare through various information-psychological techniques and means, emphasizing the importance of understanding the development of the era. The research delves into the phenomenon of information warfare, which encompasses various forms of information warfare within the realm of the Internet. The threats posed by information wars are identified. The article describes the genesis of the concept of "information warfare" and establishes the dominant role of the information component, which influences worldviews, values, and societal consciousness through various information-psychological techniques and means, posing a real threat to nations, individuals, and humanity. The main elements of information warfare are delineated, including control over the global information space, influence on public opinion, shaping of the societal worldview, disinformation, manipulation, propaganda, and cyberattacks aimed at exposing confidential information and destabilizing critical infrastructures. The article also examines the danger of "hybrid wars," characterized by unconventional methods of warfare (such as terrorist acts, hacker attacks, and manipulation of public opinion) and a powerful information and propaganda component. It is established that research within the context of the defined problem, concentrating on understanding the historical and philosophical understanding of the issue and its consequences, enables predictions of future events with a high degree of probability, effective response to negative influences, and professional management of the process. The article identifies prospective research directions, including the analysis of psychological, social, and pedagogical aspects of IT development for the establishment of a secure existence in the information space for both states and individuals.

PurposeMany organizations are outsourcing their information technology (IT) related services to a third party vendor for quite some time. However, the IT services industry including outsourcing is going through rapid changes with the increasing adoption of Cloud computing. The purpose of this paper is to compare global IT outsourcing with Cloud computing along with the evolution of traditional IT services.Design/methodology/approachCloud computing is a model for provisioning and consuming IT capabilities on a need and pay by use basis. This helps in shifting the cost structure from capital expenditure to operating expenditure and also helps the IT systems to be more agile. This innovative model of acquiring IT related services has made organizations revisit their infrastructure and platform services strategy and optimize their IT spending while improving overall agility. This paper compares global IT outsourcing with Cloud computing along with the evolution of traditional IT services.FindingsThe impact of Cloud computing on IT outsourcing is no doubt significant. Cloud computing represents a fundamental shift in how organizations pay for and access IT services. It has created new opportunities for IT services providers and the outsourcing vendors will have to modify their strategy to take advantage of this new computing paradigm.Practical implicationsThis research is relevant for practitioners as well as researchers in the field of IT outsourcing and Cloud computing.Originality/valueThis research compares global outsourcing with Cloud computing along with the evolution of IT services. Very little research has been done in this nascent and important area.

The creation of cyberspace represented a seminal turning point in the sphere of military activities, as well as in the understanding of corporate, national, regional and global security. The new “space” offered numerous possibilities for carrying out special propaganda operations and computer network based attacks on the enemy’s information systems. In English-speaking countries a term “cyber warfare” (kiber ratovanje) has been coined to describe this new form of confrontation in the virtual space. Attacks in a virtual space though they seem to be insignificant, can cause numerous casualties and material devastations in real, physical world. That is why cyber warfare has a central place in the field of interest of military, information, legal and security theorists and experts.\nAt the end of the 21st century, the problem of conflicting in a virtual space has become one of the important topics of discussion in scientific and professional circles in all countries depending on information-communication technologies. Still, previous researches treated that phenomenon fragmentarily, and that resulted in the inability of creating a firm theoretical framework and clearly defined terminology.\nBearing in mind that scientific literature has not sufficiently and coherently explored the phenomenon of cyber warfare, a scientific aim of this research has been a scientific explanation of cyber warfare phenomenon. The research of a phenomenon this complex necessarily imposes a multi-methodical approach and requires a complementary analysis of available and newly acquired data sources. We are talking about dominantly qualitative research approach, and insufficient theoretical basis brought about mostly exploratory nature of established research requirements. A scientific explanation of this current social phenomenon meant, thus, systematization of previous knowledge about cyber warfare, which assumed recognition, description and a thorough classification of different forms of conflicts in cyberspace.\nThe results of the research show that cyber warfare is a comparatively new and unique form of social conflict which takes place in a specific environment, by using specific means, which has specific characteristics and principles. It can be a war without casualties, but it does not have to be like that. This form of conflict can be waged on its own, or can be a support to a conventional, kinetic conflict. The activity of cyber warfare does not have to be limited by a military discourse. Principles of cyber warfare are present\nIV\nin various different contexts, though a range of motivations and practices can vary to a great extent. Protagonists of cyber warfare use very well thought-out tactics and strategies in order to precisely determine targets of the attack and achieve their aims in a way that is similar to military methods. Destructive actions of various individuals and groups in cyberspace can have similar impulses, show similar understanding of strategic advantages which enable attack methods based on information technologies, and be revenge to those whose lives depend to a great extent on the use of complex information and communication systems.\nCyber warfare not only questions certain conventional assumptions about the nature of social conflicts, but at the same time illustrates some of hidden possibilities and paradoxical potentials (social fusion and fission) of globally connected technologies. It, also, raises numerous questions related to the morality of offensive cyber warfare and adequacy of the existing multilateral regulations and conventions into which these new modalities should be adjusted.\nWe believe that this, holistically based, analysis helps clarifying conceptual and terminological corpus of this specific field. Devoid of its military roots, the vocabulary and principles of cyber warfare can have a great analytic applicability. Different aspects of cyber conflicts, which have been analyzed in this paper, can be assigned to general theoretical principles and established characteristics of the phenomenon we have defined by the concept “cyber warfare.”\nOn the practical level, the results of this research can contribute to a better understanding of this subject, which is of a great significance to developing strategies of prevention, suppression and controlling security risks in cyberspace, both on a corporate and national level. A fast entering of “information conflicts” into civil and corporate frameworks presents a serious problem to managers responsible for protection and security of information infrastructure. Managerial structures on a corporate-economy level have to be aware of how wide a spectrum of potential attacks is, including modern espionage, organized crime, perceptive battles, as well as hacker attacks, and attacks sponsored by states or business rivals. The concept of managing security risks in cyberspace from the aspect of national security, though, requires coordination of national legislation with the existing international standards. From the point of view of regional and global security, a particularly important problem is the lack of general accord on international agreements which would clarify a legal status of states and non-state actors in cyber conflicts. From the\nV\nsaid reasons, this paper has called attention to the need of equalization normative approaches with the aim of adopting acceptable legal definitions of basic concepts in the field of cyber warfare. Apart from that, propositions of possible directions of the development of international law of war have been proposed in order to develop more adequate mechanism of confronting and protection against cyber conflicts.

The article examines the field of information technology as a modern industry of the world economy. Information technology is an integral part of modern society and is especially relevant in the activities of everyone. Modern researches of theoretical and practical problems of development of the information technology industry are studied and analyzed. There is an interest of researchers in studying this issue. The place and role of the information technology industry in the world economy are determined. The peculiarities of the development of the IT industry in the modern economy of Ukraine are studied, the prospects of the industry are analyzed, the main problems are pointed out, possible ways out of the situation are suggested. The segmentation of the modern global market of information technologies with the detailed analysis of development of separate segments is resulted. The success of the whole sphere depends on the correct market segmentation. The article studies and presents the index of development of information and communication technologies as an indicator of the achievements of countries in this field. The methodology for calculating the index includes such parameters as the use of information and communication technologies, access to them, the practical application of technologies by the population of countries and so on. The index of development of information and communication technologies is defined as an important indicator of economic and social development of the state. The index is published regularly to track changes in dynamics. The study makes it possible to state that the development of information technology in the international market is in a state of dynamic evolution, and therefore requires further study.

The question of how to enable disabled and disadvantaged people via information technology (IT) represents one of the challenges facing most developing countries in the coming decade. Examines the feasibility of, and argues for, an approach to health and welfare promotion centred on the enabling potential of IT. Describes the contextual specificity of the Asian (which is a highly differentiated) experience in state welfare and health provision. Based on some comparative findings and projected scenarios in East Asian countries, explores the challenge and opportunity for IT in this enabling process. The IT‐based promotional strategies are outlined and discussed; it is argued that the effectiveness of IT applications in this process is contingent on the variables embedded in the technology‐‐the risks associated with technological development as well as the underlying socio‐political structure. Ends with remarks on the role of IT in global welfare and health promotion in the 1990s.

This study examines how the budget office of a large county government designed and implemented end user information technology (IT) from personal computers (PCs) and local area networks (LANs) to an intranet and Web pages over a 15-year period. The initial issue was internal to the organizationmoving a time-consuming budget preparation process to a smoother one, where what if analysis could be completed. However, more recent end user IT challenges are less internal and shaped more by the demands and expectations of parties outside of the budget office. While the evolution of IT in this budget office was distinctive, we utilize a framework to flesh out both the unique and generalizable lessons of such IT development. A stages model from the IT literature holds promise for explaining the internal successes as well as problems that arose during implementation and transition. The stages model suggests that the proliferation of IT can be directed toward productive use by recognizing IT crises and adding management control to handle the crises. However, the stages model does not readily account for significant changes in external social facets of the techno-social environment. These changing external social facets include global competition and reinventing government. The study suggests that the stages model would benefit from incorporating social-change shocks to better understand the transitions, the nature of the stages and IT performance within each stage.

Conflict in cyberspace refers to actions taken by parties to a conflict to gain advantage over their adversaries in cyberspace by using various technological tools and people-based techniques. In principle, advantages can be obtained by damaging, destroying, disabling, or usurping an adversary's computer systems (‘cyber attack’) or by obtaining information that the adversary would prefer to keep secret (‘cyber espionage’ or ‘cyber exploitation’). A variety of actors have access to these tools and techniques, including nation-states, individuals, organized crime groups, and terrorist groups, and there is a wide variety of motivations for conducting cyber attacks and/or cyber espionage, including financial, military, political, and personal. Conflict in cyberspace is different from conflict in physical space in many dimensions, and attributing hostile cyber operations to a responsible party can be difficult. The problems of defending against and deterring hostile cyber operations remain intellectually unresolved. The UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions are relevant to cyber operations, but the specifics of such relevance are today unclear because cyberspace is new compared to these instruments.

Over the last decade, health information technology (IT) has dramatically transformed medical practice in the United States. On May 11-12, 2017, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, in partnership with the National Science Foundation and the National Health IT Collaborative for the Underserved, convened a scientific workshop, "Addressing Health Disparities with Health Information Technology," with the goal of ensuring that future research guides potential health IT initiatives to address the needs of health disparities populations. The workshop examined patient, clinician, and system perspectives on the potential role of health IT in addressing health disparities. Attendees were asked to identify and discuss various health IT challenges that confront underserved communities and propose innovative strategies to address them, and to involve these communities in this process. Community engagement, cultural competency, and patient-centered care were highlighted as key to improving health equity, as well as to promoting scalable, sustainable, and effective health IT interventions. Participants noted the need for more research on how health IT can be used to evaluate and address the social determinants of health. Expanding public-private partnerships was emphasized, as was the importance of clinicians and IT developers partnering and using novel methods to learn how to improve health care decision-making. Finally, to advance health IT and promote health equity, it will be necessary to record and capture health disparity data using standardized terminology, and to continuously identify system-level deficiencies and biases.

The article examines the main cyber threats in the conditions of conducting information warfare, as existing and potentially possible phenomena and factors that pose a danger to important national interests of the state. The main types of cyber threats are cyber crime, cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, and cyber war. Information warfare has three main goals: control of the information space and protection of one’s own information from the actions of the enemy, use of control over the information space to carry out information attacks on the enemy, and increase the overall efficiency of information functions. The main problems in the information space that need to be solved in modern conditions are presented. Information war has become one of the most dangerous types of weapons, there are such types of information war as command, intelligence, psychological, economic, electronic, document destruction, cyber war. Psychological influence, disinformation, PR companies and special information operations are the most important for information warfare. The author’s understanding of cyberespionage is proposed: it is a criminal activity carried out by covertly identifying, searching, collecting, stealing and transmitting information that constitutes a state secret to a foreign state, organization or their representatives, if so, committed by a foreigner or a stateless person in cyberspace. It has been established that the subject of cyberespionage is the external security of Ukraine, its sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability, defense capability, state, economic or informational security and cyberspace as a whole. On the objective side, espionage is expressed in the transfer or collection of information constituting a state secret, with the aim of transferring it to a foreign state, a foreign organization or their representatives. The subject of this crime is information containing state secrets. Subjectively, cyberespionage is characterized by direct intent. Cyberwar is a computer confrontation in the space of the Internet. The Internet has long been transformed into a battlefield of cyberwars. The article examines modern features of the concept of “cyberwar”.

The development of information technologies in the modern world affects all spheres of human activity, including the sphere of military activities of states. The current level of development of military information technologies allows us to talk about a new fifth possible theatre of military operations, namely, cyberspace. The Tallinn Manual on International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations, developed in 2013 and updated in 2017 by experts from the NATO States, also confirms the likelihood of armed conflict in cyberspace. It is indisputable fact that cyber operations committed in the context of an armed conflict will be subject to the same rules of International Humanitarian Law that apply to such armed conflict. However, many cyber operations that can be classified as military operations may be committed in peacetime and are common cybercrimes. In such circumstances, it is imperative to distinguish between such cybercrimes and situations of armed conflict in cyberspace. Due to the fact, that there are only two types of armed conflict — international and non-international, this problem of differentiation raises the question of the typology of armed conflicts in relation to cyberspace. The main questions within the typology of cyber armed conflicts are: whether an international armed conflict can start solely as a result of a cyber-attack in the absence of the use of traditional armed force; and how to distinguish between ordinary criminal behaviour of individuals in cyberspace and non-international armed conflict in cyberspace? The purpose of this article is to provide answers to these urgent questions. The author analyses the following criteria that play a role in solving the above problems: criteria for assigning a cyber attack to a state and equating such a cyber-attack with an act of using armed force in a cyber armed conflict of an international character; and criteria for the organization of parties and the intensity of military actions in a non-international cyber armed conflict. Based on the results of this analysis, the author gives relevant suggestions for solving the above issues.