Cyberwarfare in International Law

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.'"

Comments

Re:Enemy combatants?

[The Queen]

You are correct in having "screaming blue creevles" as you put it since yes, cyber-warriors are likely to be a mix of military and civilians, and what with all the lawsuits and spying already going on it wouldn't be much of a leap for some hax0r to be tagged by the feds and shipped off for questioning. 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?

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...)

CIA: not exactly a trustworthy source

[foqn1bo]

Given their track record, and given who they work for, why on earth should any American in their right mind believe anything the CIA has to say? 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?

no evidence

[Presto Vivace]

Neither the Information Week article I saw, nor any other story has provided any details. It is alleged that blackouts occurred due to cyber attacks, but no specific locations are provided. What black outs? When and where? No details are given. And what is the evidence that cyber attacks were involved? We should with hold judgment until we are provided with the specifics.

Re:cluelessness

[Quadraginta]

I think you are confusing "has been regulated" with "has been imagined to be regulated by lawyers and naive fools." To be "regulated" requires a bit more than the mere existence of regulations on paper. It requires that these things have actual force, that they actually do something, they restrain people in some way.

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.

Re:cluelessness

[rtechie]

All of these quaint efforts overlook the fact that war is, by definition, the breakdown of any shred of mutual trust and willingness to compromise. War is about killing people, and when you get to that stage of mutual rage and madness, no piece of paper full of high-minded sentiment is going to stop you from doing what you think you must to win (or not lose). I can't think of any historical exceptions. Can you? The short answer is: yes. There have been rules of war that have been closely followed, for centuries, by various groups. There were strict laws of war governed by the Church in the Middle Ages. Imperial Japan followed rules of war, right into WWII (you might not agree with those rules, but they existed). The Roman Army followed strict rules. The idea of soldiers acting in a discipled and humane fashion is nothing new. The big problem is that these rules only tend to be followed in cultural sandboxes: European vs. European, Japanese vs Japanese, etc. When conflicts are cross-cultural the tendency to dehumanize opponents increases and you get much bloodier conflicts: Crusades, Native American wars, Vietnam, etc.

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).