Paul Walker on 1 Feb 2015 06:36:48 -0800


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Re: [PLUG] Article on 'cyberwarfare'


I posted the article to try and prompt a conversation, but the conversation that ensued seems to address a different topic - not so much the idea of war taking place on the internet.  Instead we seem to be discussing the idea of crime on the internet. 

I'm curious about the implications of state and / or other powerful actors using the internet as a staging ground for large scale attacks against other nation states, powerful actors, or large groups of people, as well as the implications of states using the internet against the interest of their own people. An example of the first category being Stuxnet or (perhaps?) the Sony exploits, while the second category is well-exemplified by surveillance practices brought to light by the Snowden leaks.

I suppose that the militarization of the internet is not unlike the militarization of other frontier-spaces. The oceans and the sky in their time, earth orbit and beyond today. Clearly the implications are disturbing - the destruction of a satellite by North Korea proved that it's practical to render whole swaths of earth orbit useless. My sense is that the Internet is in the same fragile position.

Depending on your level of cynicism, political solutions could be considered. Something along the lines of the START treaties. Enforceability seems to be a major issue. The level of physical infrastructure required to generate software threats is much smaller than, say, that required to generate nuclear weapons. The deniability factor is also much higher.

Free, open source software could provide reasonable security against state-sponsored malware, but should probably be required at the infrastructure level in order to provide confidence.

Beyond firewalls and the Balkanization of the internet, I'm curious what people see as solutions for, or preventative measures against, the militarization of the internet. I'm also curious how people think that the type of militarization discussed in the article will affect the internet as we know it for everyday users.


On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 10:58 PM, Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 10:31 PM, Joe Rosato <rosatoj@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'll stick by my assessment. ;-)

Out of curiousity, what is your assessment?

--
Rich
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