( WIRED ) -- For one day , at least , you can call off the cyberwar . The Pentagon has revealed an unclassified version of its `` Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace . '' And despite a drumbeat of scare talk and digital sabre-rattling in Washington , the document takes a measured , reasonable approach -- focusing on good network hygiene and data-sharing , rather than bombing hackers into submission . The question is whether this public summary conveys what 's actually in the classified strategy , or reflects the real mood of the Department of Defense . `` DoD would like to be much more aggressive in what it says and how it acts , '' says a source familiar with the development of the strategy . `` But that tendency to be aggressive has been reined in by the State Department , Treasury , and the White House , and not in an unreasonable way . '' Listen to the talk inside the Washington Beltway -- and especially within the Pentagon -- and you 'd think hackers were about to reach their hands through our computers , and strangle us all in our sleep . WIRED : Insiders doubt 2008 Pentagon hack was foreign spy attack . `` The United States is fighting a cyber-war today , and we are losing , '' retired admiral and former National Security Agency chief Mike McConnell wrote in the Washington Post last year . Defense Secretary Leon Panetta claimed cyber attacks could be the `` next Pearl Harbor we confront . '' Or perhaps the next Hiroshima . Senator Carl Levin declared that `` cyberweapons and cyberattacks potentially can be devastating , approaching weapons of mass destruction in their effects '' during an April 2010 ( .pdf ) hearing . According to the Wall Street Journal , the Pentagon has come to the conclusion that `` computer sabotage ... can constitute an act of war . '' As one military official tells the paper : `` If you shut down our power grid , maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks . '' Yet the Pentagon strategy uses tones of cooperation , not confrontation , in the strategy it released today . `` By sharing timely indicators about cyber events , threat signatures of malicious code , and information about emerging actors and threats , allies and international partners can increase collective cyber defense , '' the document notes . `` Cyberspace is a network of networks that includes thousands of ISPs [ Internet Service Providers ] across the globe ; no single state or organization can maintain effective cyber defenses on its own . '' WIRED : Cyber war hype intended to destroy the open Internet . Yes , there are all kinds of bad guys out there on the internet , the strategy adds . But many of them are out for money , not for blood . `` The tools and techniques developed by cyber criminals are increasing in sophistication at an incredible rate , and many of these capabilities can be purchased cheaply on the internet . '' And the best way to stop these crooks is through strong passwords , up-to-date software , and keeping unclassified disks and drives off of secret systems . `` Most vulnerabilities of and malicious acts against DoD systems can be addressed through good cyber hygiene , '' document adds . If there was a nod to the McConnell crowd -- who 'd like to `` reengineer the internet '' to make everyone trackable online -- it was in the declaration that `` DoD will pursue revolutionary technologies that rethink the technological foundations of cyberspace . '' But the nod was a subtle one . Behind closed doors , some Pentagon officials take a much harder line . There have been calls to massively shift Defense Department spending from defensive measures to online offense . Other countries -- especially the Chinese , they believe -- had infiltrated every corner of the military-industrial complex , and need to be shoved back . Every fresh online break-in brings a fevered call to declare the intrusion an `` act of war . '' But that view is not universally shared in Washington . `` There is no cyberwar , '' White House cyber czar Howard Schmidt has repeatedly said . And those more rational voices helped keep the rhetoric in this Pentagon strategy from overheating . As one source who watched the strategy develop , says : `` This the result of a long , political process . '' But this is hardly the final document , Gen. James `` Hoss '' Cartwright tells reporters . `` This strategy talks more about how we are going to defend the networks , '' says Cartwright , the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of the most influential voices on cybersecurity in the Defense Department . `` The next iteration will have to start to talk about here 's a strategy that says to the attacker , 'If you do this , the price to you is going to go up . It 's not just free . ' '' `` Today , we are on a path that is way too predictable . It 's purely defensive . There is no penalty for attacking right now , '' Cartwright adds . `` We 've got to figure out a way to change that . '' Subscribe to WIRED magazine for less than $ 1 an issue and get a FREE GIFT ! Click here ! Copyright 2011 Wired.com .
Pentagon releases unclassified version of ` ` Strategy for Operating in Iraq '' Source : DoD would like to be much more aggressive in what it says and how it acts . Pentagon says ` ` ' sabotage ... would be an act of war ''