France Will Hack Its Enemies Back, Its Defense Secretary Says (theregister.co.uk)

France's defence secretary Florence Parly had a declaration to make this week: "Cyber war has begun." And she said the Euro nation's military will use its "cyber arms as all other traditional weapons... to respond and attack," as well as setting up a military bug bounty program. From a report: Parly made her pledges during a speech to the Forum International de Cybersecurite (FIC) in the northern French town of Lille. Her speech was on a topic that most Western countries shy away from addressing directly in public. "The cyber weapon is not only for our enemies," said France's defence secretary this afternoon, speaking through a translator. "No. It's also, in France, a tool to defend ourselves. To respond and attack." Her remarks will be seen as moving the debate about offensive cyber capabilities -- not just so-called "active defence" but using infosec techniques as another weapon in the arsenal of state-on-state warfare -- to a new level.

Comments

Re:Please dont declare war

[bobbied]

You know Hitler did just this, he'd just go on and invade, forget the formality of declaring war. It just wastes time.

In fact, some argue that it was his departure from this principle, declaring war on the USA, that eventually got his head handed to him. Had he not formally got the USA into a war with Germany, it's possible that with the provocation of Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor the USA would have been content with "Lend Lease" a lot longer, perhaps long enough for Germany to lock up Europe and get Russia to surrender before having to fight the USA on a second front.

But, it doesn't matter. In my estimation, you will have wars where you have them and declaring them isn't but a formality anyway.