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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.
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!
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.
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.
"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?"
And that, kids, is American foreign policy in a nutshell, right there.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Perhaps you should go reread the Geneva convention. It is actually very explicit about protection of civilians, your country being at war does not in any way open its citizens up to attack under the convention. The Fourth Geneva Convention is all about protection of non combatants in a war zone.
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.