The words deception, disinformation, false information, and planted information were used in the U.S. Air Force, in an formal written context, circa 2001. I don't know how widely they were used outside those contexts.
The paper "Two Taxonomies of Deception for Attacks on Information Systems" (Neil C. Rowe and Hy S. Rothstein, year unclear) gives the following graphic and definition list, citing Dunnigan, J. F., & Nofi, A. A. (2001). Victory and Deceit, 2nd edition: Deception and Trickery in War. San Jose, CA: Writers Press Books.
Given the above principles, let us consider specific kinds of deception for information systems under warfare-like attacks. Several taxonomies of deception in warfare have been proposed, of which that of (Dunnigan and Nofi, 2001) is representative. Figure 1 shows the spectrum of these methods, and Table 1 summarizes our assessment of them (10 = most appropriate, 0 = inappropriate).
- Concealment ('hiding your forces from the enemy')
- Camouflage ('hiding your troops and movements from the enemy by artificial means')
- False and planted information (disinformation, 'letting the enemy get his hands on information that will hurt him and help you')
- Lies ('when communicating with the enemy')
- Displays ('techniques to make the enemy see what isn't there')
- Ruses ('tricks, such as displays that use enemy equipment and procedures')
- Demonstrations ('making a move with your forces that implies imminent action, but is not followed through')
- Feints ('like a demonstration, but you actually make an attack')
- Insight ('deceive the opponent by outthinking him')
We evaluate these in order. Figure 1 presents a way to conceptualize them, and Table 1 summarizes them.
Figure 1
(NB: I found this via the Wikipedia articles on military deception and Operation Bodyguard, which might also interest you.)
