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Putin Claims Russia Proposed a Cyber War Treaty In 2015 But the Obama Admin Ignored Them (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Russian president Vladimir Putin (who denies any Russian part in the hacking) claims the Obama administration ignored a proposal in 2015 that might have avoided all of this. His administration suggested working out a cyber treaty with the US but was ignored by Obama officials, Putin told film director Oliver Stone in Showtime's four-part series broadcast this week. "A year and a half ago, in fall 2015, we made proposal to our American partners that we work through these issues and conclude a treaty on the rules of behavior in this sphere," he said in Stone's documentary The Putin Interviews. "The American side was silent, they didn't reply to us."
Putin denies any involvement in hacking (which the FBI says is nonsense) while publicly declaring he proposed in essence, a cyberwar treaty that "might have avoided all this". How could what is going with the question of Russian interference with our voting system be avoided if there wasn't any in the first place. This suggests what we all suspect: that we have actions (call it retaliation if you like) on both side. Who started it, well, that question probably goes back to the cold war.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
I think the more realistic explanation is that it was ignored because it means the U.S. would have to knock-off (or obfuscate behind a third party for purposes of deniability, because lets face it we're not going to stop doing it) a lot of the stuff it's doing.
Exactly. Russia doesn't have the NSA, it doesn't have a direct point of access to the world's biggest Internet companies...Russia can't do 10% of what the US does in the "cyber sphere". The biggest cyber warfare nation on the Earth is the USA. They are ahead of everyone else combined by light years.
So of course Obama ignored it, Obama was a big fan of the NSA. As is the entire federal government. Any cyber treaty would severely limit what the US can do NOW, while only theoretically limiting what other countries MIGHT do.