Cranmer 13
Cyber Space- The new frontier of International Law
The rise and global expansion of the Internet has become a powerful technological advancement. The number of individuals around the world using the Internet has skyrocketed since its inception. The world has become more interconnected and mutually dependent than ever. This new interconnected cyber world has also created a new frontier for States to blaze and occupy. Specifically, State militaries have come to rely on new technologies, computer systems and networks that occupy cyberspace, thus opening a new battlefield to wage war and conduct military operations. However, this new frontier raises questions as to what extent do existing international laws can be applied to the
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If there is no definition of cyberspace, then there can be no such thing as cybercrimes or cyber warfare.[endnoteRef:1] [1: Todd, Graham H. "Cyber-law Edition: Armed Attack in Cyberspace: Deterring Asymmetric Warfare with an Asymmetric Definition." Air Force Law Review 64 (2009): 67. ]
What is Cyberspace?
Both the U.S. military and scientists played a significant role in the early development of cyberspace. Both groups brought their own ideas on it how it should be developed. The U.S. military wanted the domain to be survivable, flexible, with high performance and importance over commercial and consumer appeal. Conversely, U.S. scientists wanted to simply create an open exchange of information with consumer and commercial appeal. The U.S. defined their newly created cyberspace as ?a global domain within the information environment consisting of interdependent networks of information technology infrastructures and resident data, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers.?[endnoteRef:2] [2: Preston, 995. ]
Computers today control much of the military and the civilian cyber infrastructure. The U.S. alone uses over two million computers and has over ten thousand cyber networks. According to some reports, over 95% of all the Military?s telecommunications travel through public networks and a significant amount
The book “Conquest in Cyberspace” went in depth on the United States’, Russia’s, and China’s views on information warfare and cyber warfare. It also discussed the areas where their policies, guidance, and operations differ and are the same. One of the most interesting things which I noticed in the completion of this assignment is how the United States has the most well defined and in depth policies and governances regulating their information warfare and cyber warfare operations and how both China and Russia has taking the policies and governances created by the United States and mimicked them in the creation of their own policies and governances for information
The United States government’s primary priority is to protect its citizens, assets and resources from any form of external or internal terror threats and criminal acts. The 21st century’s most exciting innovation, the Internet and its one of mankind’s greatest technological achievements of all time. The Internet, unified international borders and connected the earth like never before from one corner to the other with just a click of a button. Cyberspace is the term that is used in the computer industry for “the notional environment in which communication over computer networks occurs”. The internet and information networks have changed the very fabric of our fundamental neural network processes in our brain, and which without it the modern
As a nation, today’s society must invest in cyber security to execute military power, protect citizens information, and safeguard businesses.
Cyberspace is both a military domain and a part of the global commons, that is uncontrolled by any state or entity. (Carrington post, citing Denmark, 11). As technology increases, the world shifts from an industrial society to an information economy. (Whitescarver July 28, 2016 post, citing Allen and Pollack, video). Cyber threats impede the Joint Force’s capabilities to defend the United States with technology and with systems that utilize, transmit and store
On October 31, 2010, The United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) achieved Full Operational Capability becoming a sub-unified command under the United States Strategic Command. As a newly formed armed forces command, USCYBERCOM was given the mission for centralizing cyberspace operations, organizing existing cyber resources and synchronizing the defense of military networks. In order to achieve this mission, prior Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates, directed the USCYBERCOM to focus on developing cyber capability and capacity via the DoD’s Cyber Strategy. The purpose of this strategy is to guide the development of DoD's cyber forces and strengthen the United States cyber defense and cyber deterrence posture while building cyber capabilities
Cyber threats and attacks are becoming more common, sophisticated and damaging. NATO and its Allies rely on strong and resilient cyber defenses to fulfil the Alliance’s core tasks of collective defense, crisis management and cooperative security. NATO affirms international law applies in cyberspace
Cyberspace – Joint Forces will secure the ‘.mil’ domain, requiring a resilient (DoD) cyberspace architecture that employs a combination of detection, deterrence, denial, and multi-layered defense. We will improve our cyberspace capabilities so they can often achieve significant and proportionate effects with less cost and lower collateral impact (p. 19).
David Johnson and David Post argue that “Cyberspace requires a system of rules quite distinct from the laws that regulate physical, geographically-defined territories” (David Johnson, 1996) Cyberspace has no defined boundaries and due to the rapid speed of data transportation over the internet, there are no physical boundaries at
The United States houses more than 15 critical infrastructures, all of which implement information and communication technologies (ICT) systems, making the risk of a cyberwar a constant possibility. In order to
For years, it was widely believed that the next World War would be centered on the use of nuclear weaponry. However, the development of viruses has furthered cyberwarfare, and in recent years the attention has shifted from a nuclear threat to a cyber one. Having the ability to completely, dismantle another country’s entire infrastructure without leaving your desk is clearly much simpler than using nuclear weapons. “The treat of a cyberattack is a clear and present danger to America and is more likely than a nuclear attack.” (The Hill) Even higher ranking defense officials are realizing that the focus must shift to cyberwar, instead of the traditional nuclear missiles. Additionally, the cost for cyberwarfare is significantly less than the cost of nuclear
While actively engaged in conflict, we are members of a very complex, unstable, and ever-changing environment. Scholars like Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz have both studied warfare extensively, and approach it from two very different angles. These approaches provide two main schools of thought when considering warfare and should be understood so that a place may be found for cyber-warfare. Sun Tzu’s (2013) main theme contends that weapons
Cyber-space and cyber-warfare are two terms that have varied definitions from between agencies and institutions. Since there are varying definitions of cyber-space it is important to accurately define the new digital domain where cyber-warfare will take place. A comprehensive definition of cyberspace explicated by Thomas Wingfield states,
The branches of the military, for a couple generations, have always been the Army, Navy, Air force, Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard; however, in an ever evolving digital world, the notion that outer space would be the next military front is being rapidly replaced by the idea that cyber space will be the next arms race. The United States has been defending attacks on their infrastructure day after day, night after night, when one hacker on one side of the world sleeps, another takes their place to attempt to compromise the US government. The motives may range from a political ‘hacktivist’ trying to prove a point, to an economic spy, trying to gain a competitive edge on its more upstart rivals, to an attempt to control the United States
The damage of a full-fledged cyber attack would be devastating, the destruction would be unparalleled to any other tragedy that has occurred America. Since technology is responsible for providing America with vital entities and resources, an unadulterated cyber attack would nearly fail the American economy; this is what is known as critical systems failure. Weapons of mass destruction and cyber attacks present imminent threats of critical systems failure. Although currently Americas’ critical infrastructures are coordinated by controlled systems, majority of these systems are indeed connected to the American cyberspace. This exposes one of America’s most vulnerable spot amidst cyber security. Another major vulnerable spot within the nations IT security would be the geographical physical location for each of Americas primary infrastructures, as well as their productivity. Due to the proximal locations, the major infrastructures could very well be infiltrated by one efficient CNA.
Most nations don’t have a national policy exclusively focused on opposing cyber-crime. Somewhat, there are other, wide-ranging strategies that have the cyber-crime components. Policymakers may question whether there should be a distinctive strategy for contesting cyber-crime or whether struggles to control these criminalities are best addressed through further wide-ranging policies, such as that directing cyber