U.S. Military Grapples With Cyber Warfare Rules

A number of readers have written to us with a report from Reuters regarding the US Military and cyber-warfare. The context is that the reason the US military did not crack into any of the Serbian boxes because the rules of war are still so murky in that area. What do you folks think? Anything goes? Or should we have a special section added to the Geneva Conventions?Update: 11/08 09:33 by H :Thanks to spartan for a better story on the subject.

Comments

Rules of war?

[BradyB]

War is war isn't it. It is the killing of people or industries to make the other side bend under the pressure of your forces. Cyber-warefare should be no different. Cyber-warefare in my opinion wouldn't be nearly as costly in human lives and wasted dollars. Hacking is a lot cheaper than sending boat loads of Marines to another country.

Let's bomb the hospitals

[Jon Peterson]

Is it wrong to bomb hospitals? Is it better to hack the hospital records so that all blood-type and allergy information is corrupt?

Is it better to bomb sewage treatment plants so that the people die of disease, or is it better to hack the computers so that sewers are allowed to overflow into the streets?

Cyber-warfare is just another step in the attempted sanitisation of war. We already know that if you maim someone with a cruise missile it's OK, but if you maim them with a machete then you're war criminal. Good to know that morality is linked to military technology.

Presumably in 20 years while our brave lads kill the enemy with computers from underground, we'll be condeming the atrocity of indiscrimate killing by out-dated Serbian smart bombs.

So let's hear it for war-by-wire. Why travel to far away places, meet interesting people and kill them when you can just kill them, eh?

P.S. I use Serbia only as a recent example of 'hi-tech good low tech bad' reporting in the news. I have no particular view on who was/is right or wrong in that war.