Slashdot Log In
Cyberwarfare in International Law
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jan 24, 2008 05:19 PM
from the thorny-issue dept.
from the thorny-issue dept.
belmolis writes "If the CIA is right to attribute recent blackouts to cyberwarfare,
cyberwarfare is no longer science fiction but reality. In a recent op-ed piece and a detailed scholarly paper, legal scholar Duncan Hollis raises the question of whether existing international law is adequate for regulating cyberwarfare. He concludes that it is not: 'Translating existing rules into the IO context produces extensive uncertainty, risking unintentional escalations of conflict where forces have differing interpretations of what is permissible. Alternatively, such uncertainty may discourage the use of IO even if it might produce less harm than traditional means of warfare. Beyond uncertainty, the existing legal framework is insufficient and overly complex. Existing rules have little to say about the non-state actors that will be at the center of future conflicts. And where the laws of war do not apply, even by analogy, an overwhelmingly complex set of other international and foreign law rules purport to govern IO.'"
Related Stories
[+]
IT: CIA Claims Cyber Attackers Blacked Out Cities 280 comments
Dotnaught writes to tell us InformationWeek is reporting that the CIA admitted today that recent power outages in multiple cities outside the United States are the result of cyberattacks. "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
What is IO? (Score:2)
Re:What is IO? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What is IO, CoOp, and WTFC? (Score:2)
CIA guessed that cyberwar caused city blackouts. I gues
Any Babelfish in the house? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Fixed (Score:2, Insightful)
The world is growing into the tech age at different rates. The issue is that international laws differ greatly on what constitutes a cyber-crime (see: China) -- what one country considers harmless in another country may result in a lifetime sentence in prison. This discourages not only crime, but international espionage, because the consequences could be disastrous. Laws also diff
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally think that the understanding is more important than the tech level insert series of tubes comment here.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
If the CIA is right to the recent blackouts cyberwarfare attributes of the computer war However, the reality is no longer science fiction. Op-ed piece in a recent scholarly papers and detailed, legal scholars DANKANHORISU raise the question of whether the existing international law to the appropriate regulatory cyberwarfare. His conclusion is not: 'translating the existing rules IO generated widespread uncertainty in the context of the conflict is a dangerous military escalations where interpretation is not intended to be the difference between what is permissible. Also, this kind of uncertainty might be deterred from the use of low-IO, even if you might have a harmful effect on productivity than traditional means of warfare. Uncertainties beyond the existing legal framework is inadequate and overly complex. Existing rules, which have little to say, especially non-state actors in future conflicts. And the laws of war do not apply where the analogy with the overwhelmingly complex configuration and other foreigners to the rules of international law governing the purpose IO.
Hope this helps!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I had a small house of brokerage on Wall Street... many days no business come to my hut... my hut... but Jimmy has fear? A thousand times no. I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey strong bowels were girded with strength like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo... dung. ...Glorious sunset of my heart was fading. Soon the super karate monkey death car would park in my space. But Jimmy has fancy plans... and pants to match. The monkey clown horrible karate round and yummy like cute small baby chick would beat the donkey.
Re: (Score:2)
What will be interesting to watch (for those keen on subtle, baseball-like action that is exciting as watching paint dry for the casual viewer) is the interplay between the need for legal recourse, which implies some international body having jurisdiction, and the serious US allergy to anything that sets precedent to diminish national sovereignty.
That issue is among the major reasons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_ [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Our window of privacy is closing rather rapidly. Today, the US Eavesdropping Regime made a huge step forward, using complicit and spineless democrats like Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller as their point men. The telecommunications industry's bribes were just to much for them to resist, apparently.
The lesson I've learned in the past 7 years is this: when you start to hear trial balloons floated a
Re: (Score:2)
I guess I'd echo that sentiment by saying that the amount and flavors of fear used by both conferences of the American Political Football League is quite staggering.
You've got fear of: o
Re: (Score:2)
I think that they just want to blather on as if they understand what is going on here. Trying to ascribe other motives assumes too much of them.
Cyberwarfare has been going on for almost ten years. It does not amount to very much because we are not as dependent on technology as folk imagine. Case in point we lost all power on the North East coast of the US a few years back, civilization did not collapse. Even if the
Enemy combatants? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Enemy combatants? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the inevitable and ingenious evolution of war, IMO. Not, as ST:TOS "A Taste of Armageddon" would have it, but without any bloodshed or casualties in the physical sense. By hitting people in their infrastructure, their way of life, and their economy. (Sortof what the 9-11 guys thought they were doing...and heck, what all us 'rich' countries do all the time through sanctions, trade agreements, 'wars' on drugs, and such...)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The real sticky part though is how the law will cross borders. Cyber warfare knows no borders, so what would our government do if someone from Iran came calling to arrest one of our own on such charges?
It wouldn't be pretty, that's for sure--probably some sort of extradition amongst allied countries, o'course, but with hostile countries, it could lead to a meatspace conflict of some kind should it escalate far enough.
But what exactly would be considered an 'act of war' in such a situation, anyway? Would it have to cause some form of physical or financial damage to a person or institution in the country being attacked? Or would merely an "illegal border crossing" (e.g. gaining access to a server)
no evidence (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
cluelessness (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if you'd said that someone would have to be clueless to imagine that combatants always *abide* by the laws regarding war, that's a whole different issue.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They aren't always followed, and they certainly aren't being followed by some countries I could mention, but war is supposed to have rules.
The problem with electronic warfare (Cyberwar? e-war? wartronics?) is that you're attacking civilians. There are horrible weaknesses in a great many systems (including the trunked radios used by first responders) that can easily be exploited. Remember, a lot of our coding is done overseas and/or done by exchange students on
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All of these quaint efforts overlook the fact that war is, by definition, the breakdown of a
Re:cluelessness (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's useless to have laws of war. There is no reason to believe they make conflicts worse and every reason to believe that they help reduce civilian casualties, torture, etc. During WW1 gas weapons saw wide deployment, and they were banned not because they were ineffective, but because of the danger they reprsented to all soldiers and civilians. Gas weapons have been used since (notably in the Iran-Iraq war), but widespread use is a thing of the past. Ditto for flamethrowers and flame weapons in general (Phosphor weapons are making a comeback though. Bush apparently thinks burning people alive is fun).
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
War is supposed to target just those in uniform, fighting at the time.
No, war is supposed to achieve a political objective by destroying the opponent's ability to resist your political will. This can be achieved by:
Case 1 is very traditional, but since nations conscript soldier
Re: (Score:2)
Re:cluelessness (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing that has ever restrained the behaviour of nations in combat is plain fear of the direct consequences, e.g. retaliation by the enemy. Can you give me a counter-example? Some case where a nation committed to a war, with substantial interests at stake, eschewed methods of war because some lawyer somewhere said they were "illegal?" If not, then those "regulations" are as insubstantial as moonbeams.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
My biggest concern with the currect US treatment of supposed terrorists, is that we are implicitly agreeing to the same treatment of our GIs in enemy hands. There is no doctrinal difference between the Hanoi Hilton and Guantanamo Bay.
There are dozens of examples
Cyber- (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
A big IF (Score:3, Funny)
Hey, look, "Die Hard 4" is fiction, and not very good fiction at that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The US=The World (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The US=The World (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
(I don't personally care for some of Obama's policies, but fer heaven's sake, there's plenty to criticize without making stuff up...)
Adequate laws? (Score:3, Funny)
Because existing international law has done such a bang up job regulating real warfare.
You don't understand, there is no law against war (Score:2, Insightful)
Clear on that?
The laws are never adequate (Score:2)
Small wonder a legal scholar thinks we all need more laws - his job is to read them.
Lawyers are like other people--fools on the average; but it is easier for an ass to succeed in that trade than any other.
-quoted in Sam Clemens of Hannibal, Dixon Wecter
True stateless war (Score:5, Interesting)
The extreme malleability of data, software, and networks means that anyone can make anyone look like they are a participant in an attack. It won't surprise me if a large percentage of counterattacks, reprisals, or sanctions target the wrong party because they were just the last identifiable node in a long chain of proxies and dark-net hops. If one can make one enemy look like it attacked another enemy, then one can kill two enemy for the price of on DDoSing.
New Product: Firewalls for Home Electrical Grid? (Score:2)
But, it couldn't hurt to have a slew of Honda generators, arm-driven dynamo radio-cell phone charger units on hand.
A new war... (Score:2)
There's only one thing that can be done against any attacks in this vein, (and I don't trust a governmental analysis at all as a rule), and that is to tighten security on the defensive end. Trying to find and prosecute anybody is going to be a complete waste of time.
Oy...gives the politicians something to scare people with though, most of whom still think the word "hacker" means criminal...
CIA: not exactly a trustworthy source (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If this threat were real, they'd just keep it - and the methods used to combat it - a secret for as long as possible, which is what they usually do. What possible reason would they have to reveal it to the press unless the primary objective is propaganda?
Obviously, the need for a secure U.S.A. infrastructure outweighs the CIA's desire for secrecy. If you keep it a secret, you can't really fix it now can you?
Unless you think that somehow the Gov't will be able to get the private sector to fix the problem without any information leaks. That'd be impressive as hell.
rules of engagement mean nothing in cyberspace (Score:2)
Cyber warfare does not exist in places you can get TV cameras. It is the perfect deniable operation. Therefore it is not possible to present "evidence" of transgressions to the court of public opinion, or international outrage
This crap might end... (Score:4, Interesting)
And that's not gonna happen any time soon.
It takes a lot to unravel an attack. More work than tracking down the source of a dirty bomb, or Avian Flu dose, or hallucinogens in the water supply.
More good reasons to not go hell-bent on integrating our utilities over the Internet. It cannot be secured. Only a matter of time before someone breaks into a SCADA access point and causes trouble here.
In the meantime, maybe Estonia's example is what we face. Temporary paralysis, expensive resolutions, and the awareness that this can and will happen again.
And in all this, ICANN wants to be independent of the U.S. Harrr... It would appear that the U.S. is not the source of the real trouble on the Internet. It's all the litle wannabees desperate to hurt someone/something else.
May they get a visit from a B-2 when they get caught.
Re: (Score:2)
Could you imagine if DC's water supply got tainted with lsd?
Hundreds of thousands of people would see pretty patterns, a relatively large percentage of those would have a religious experience, and most of them would come out of it feeling refreshed, seeing the world in a new light with optimism and peace.
Sounds like it might end up being pretty rad, not terrorist at all...... that is, if they released it in such a low concentration that you'd only get 4-50 micro
Heinlein's Razor (Score:2)
>If the CIA is right to attribute recent blackouts to cyberwarfare
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Government and cyberwarfare (Score:2)