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Do Nations Have the Right To Kill Enemy Hackers?
Nerval's Lobster writes "Cyber-attacks are much in the news lately, thanks to some well-publicized hacks and rising concerns over malware. Many of these attacks are likely backed in some way by governments anxious to seize intellectual property, or simply probe other nations' IT infrastructure. But do nations actually have a right to fire off a bomb or a clip of ammunition at cyber-attackers, especially if a rival government is backing the latter as part of a larger hostile action? Should a military hacker, bored and exhausted from twelve-hour days of building malware, be regarded in the same way as a soldier with a rifle? Back in 2009, the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (which also exists under the lengthy acronym NATO CCD COE) commissioned a panel of experts to produce a report on the legal underpinnings of cyber-warfare. NATO CCD COE isn't funded by NATO, and nor is it a part of that organization's command-and-control structure—but those experts did issue a nonbinding report (known as "The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare") exploring the ramifications of cyber-attacks, and what targeted nations can do in response. It's an interesting read, and the experts do suggest that, under circumstances, a nation under cyber-attack can respond to the cyber-attackers with "kinetic force," so long as that force is proportional. Do you agree?"
A nation should be able to retaliate against attack.
It would be morally wrong to not try a hacking counterattack first, however.
If said hacker is messing with infrastructure, yes. That sort of thing can put lives at risk.
There are enough fatal errors made when soldiers and armed police kill innocent people carrying brooms, and the like, that are mistaken for firearms. With all the spoofing techniques available, how certain could they be that a strike was based on stringent enough intelligence?
Now, to hack into RIAA headquarters and launch an attack from there in the name of Al Quaeda! Take off every drone!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The biggest threats to our freedom, safety, and economic well being come from our own governments, not foreign ones. When we start using proportional force against internal threats, we can start talking about what proportional force against external threats is.
IOW, I'm a lot more scared of Goldman Sachs than I am scared of China.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I never even considered this possibility until right now. I mean killing someone for hacking? I would generally say no, but what if its an infrastructure sort of thing. Like they hacked into a hospital and fiddles with patient records and people died, or they hacked into ATC and caused plane crashes? Should they be tried for murder? If we are at war with that country should they just be attacked by drones and killed off like an enemy combatant? I don't really like where this train of thought is heading, it's like the futuristic dystopia is almost here!
sig?
If memory serves, the US government doesn't consider firing missiles into a foreign country an act of war (used as justification for the missile attacks into Syria).
If firing missiles into a country isn't an act of war, which surely killed foreign citizens at the time, then by that logic it is OK for a country to kill foreign hackers.
Just get the geo-location of their IP address and fire off a couple of missiles. Or (as described here) have agents drive a jeep into the cul-de-sac of the house in question, fire off a bazooka or M47 or other portable "instrument of justice" into the house, and drive off.
Really, it's a no-brainer.
Should a factory worker manufacturing weapons and munitions be targeted? In war historically they have been. I think the main problem now is that we don't have distinct times of war and peace, we have a messy in-between all the time.
We don't use bombs. But we do use code designed to disable equipment used to make nuclear weapons.
Much more fruitful, these cyber-attacks. Surgical targeting of those waging war is better than the insanity of drones and bad intelligence.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
"We are certain there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Thousands of deaths later... evidence emerges this was a complete fabrication.
"A broader definition of imminent","No specific threat","Without trial or due process."
Quoting recent media regarding the Obama Administration's use of drones against Americans domestically.
Now, these are just the military examples. How many people have been given the death penalty after exhausting all of their appeals, due process, etc., only to later have it emerge that authorities lied, omitted key evidence, or coerced confessions? More than you're probably comfortable admitting.
And now, we're going to entrust the government with making the correct and accurate assessment of who the hacker is, and then use lethal force on them? We can't even properly trace a 911 call before sending the SWAT team to a guy's house in an attempt to get him killed even after the guy warned them this would happen ahead of time! What the sam hell makes any of you think they're going to do better on a network with far less security and safeguards than our public telecommunications network?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Whups - we launched missiles into Libya, not Syria. Hard to keep these issues straight.
I don't believe we launched missiles into Syria yet - have we?
... a REAL use for Power Over Ethernet!
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
I fail to see where someone on a computer is any less valid a target than roads, railroads, ships, ports, & factories have been in past wars. All may contain civilians, but all are contributing to the war effort.
BTW - "proportional"? What does that have to do with the situation?
And shouldn't drone pilots from and within the USA be just as much a target for targeted killing by the "other side" even while they are located in the USA geographical boundaries? So if the cyberwarfare hacker is still a legitimate target while not actively engaged in the "war activity", couldn't a USA drone pilot be legitimately targeted while walking into a grocery store to buy groceries for her/his family and herself/himself? There's a lot to think about when we decide to expand the boundaries of what we are allowed to do while still claiming "nya-nya-nya, you can't do that to us while we can do that to you", mostly because of the assymetry of our tactical abilities.
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Overreaching on moral boundaries because of our tactical abilities could be our downfall when we no longer have the tactical advantage. We no longer have the moral advantage (considering the things that have already been done in "our" name, since it is our USA and our armed forces and our "special forces" that have carried out extra-ordinary rendition, torture in Abu Ghraim, extra-judicial kidnappings and extra-judicial extra-warfare executions/assassinations) but it makes to sense to keep digging ourselves deeper when we could actually be a beacon of sensibility to the world. Oh, wait, that's not really our goal, is it, regardless of whether the Republicans or Democrats are leading in the Executive or in the Legislative branches of our government.
A state-sponsored cyber-attack with consequences such as taking out infrastructure inside of another country is an act of war. If someone were to attack the US power grid, damn straight we have a right to kill people in that country. If this is an individual, we have the right to request their arrest and extradition. If that country refuses to intervene and prevent such attacks when they are capable of doing so, that is also an act of war. We cannot allow people to attack infrastructure without real consequences.
I imagine pretty soon China and North Korea will be sending their drones to the U.S. to take out dissident Chinese and North Korean citizens who are trying to crack their infrastructure from afar. Drones on foreign soil to execute dissident expatriots... soon to be a global phenomenon.
the geneva convention is very clear. if a citizen of a country is physically attacked by soldiers from another country, it is AUTOMATICALLY a declaration of war by the attacking country. once that declaration has been made - whether it be implicit or explicit - that declaration AUTOMATICALLY gives ALL citizens of the country that has been attacked the right to retaliate against all and any assets and citizens of the attacking country.
as i have mentioned repeatedly on slashdot for some years now whenever the words "cyber" and "war" are mentioned in the same sentence, it is incredibly stupid and very very dangerous to make this association.
the other issue is very very simple: any country that has critical infrastructure assets connected directly to the internet is ASKING FOR TROUBLE, period. disconnect them from the public internet and set up a separate network, for god's sake! if you don't know how to do that, ask your Dept of Defense for advice. they do it all the time. if you're too lazy to do that, or too cost-careless, then please quit your job: you're too irresponsible to be in charge of your country's critical infrastructure.
It was a BBC documentary series on the three main security services in the UK MI5 MI6 and GCHQ might be on NPR or BBC America some time
That doesn't mean that they have the right to it, morally. Just that they don't get punished for it.
It will not stop, at least it isn't very likely to stop any time soon. But if the wars going on right now should teach us something, then that force will be met with resistance, as long as the majority does not accept that force as legitimate. Just having the bigger gun is no legitimation, if applied incorrectly all it breeds is more resistance.
It is amazing how little we learn from history. The atrocities of Germany during WW2 in the occupied areas, the Vietnam war, and the current disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan. In all these scenarios one side had the bigger guns and the (technological) upper hand and in all these scenarios it failed to work out. Yet we refuse to accept that you cannot browbeat people into cooperation...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
On the other hand, the British redcoats saw the American militias as terrorists,
Banastre Tarleton aside, the British DID see members of the American militia and the Continental Army as legitimate soldiers, because they took them as prisoners of war rather than just bayoneting them. Of course, they stored the PoWs on hulks in conditions that would make Abu Ghraib at its worst look like the Marriott, and a large portion of those prisoners died of various diseases (e.g., typhus) before they could be exchanged, but that is more the fault of the 18th century army and lack of sanitation in the pre-Pasteur, pre-Lister era.
so thanks for informing me. I have to agree with you there. I assume that there was not as much gratuitous torture being performed in the Revolutionary War as there was at Abu Ghraib, but otherwise, yes, the accomodations were probably more sanitary in the Iraq war though much less humane, considering that the levels of humanity possible are much higher in this modern era.
:>) (btw, I have to admit that this is the part of slashdot which I really like: when responses even to small phrases in postings can be very educational and informative, particularly when they are also well-written and composed and presented in a thought-ful and sincere manner. I thank you for your courtesy and for your educational reply. Lister and Pasteur are names which I'd already heard of: one's listed on my fridge milk, and the other's name is on a mouthwash, but I do know a little bit about them!)
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There will always be someone to step in to fill the power vacuum. The point is that after a while self-preservation will ensure that those who do fill it will be extremely averse to initiating violence against another country.
The problem is of course finding and killing these people. Israel has a hard enough time tracking down the Palestinians who make the bombs and order the attacks.