Mott the Hoople
Primary Debate: Round #2. Jarod vs. Pisskop.
Should the USA be a party to an International Cyber Warfare Treaty? Yes, the US should. - Pisskop
Should the USA be a party to an International Cyber Warfare Treaty? No, the US should not. - Jarod
09-05-2013, 02:33 PM
pisskop
If one were to graph the rate of humanity's technological advancement over time one would find the line not linear but rather exponential in nature. The more technology it has, the faster it creates new technology. The rate is in fact increasing so fast that 'computer network warfare was evolving so rapidly that "there was a mismatch between our technical capabilities to conduct operations and the governing laws and policies". It becomes increasingly clear that not only does humanity need specialists who have experience in this emerging field but also needs increased collaboration between technologically sufficient country to ensure that privacy, security, and trust is maintained with our governing bodies.
An international treaty can provide a stable and concise code of conduct from which we can all operate; a social contract that is capable of being monitored by both civilian (British Government Communications Headquarters) and military (US USCYBERCOM) professionals from each individual country. A treaty that can cover both civilian and military vulnerabilities would protect against computer virii such as the infamous Stuxnet, NeTraveler, and Flame virus, electrical grid attacks, hacks into information databases, and any increasingly automated defense systems.
Electronic attacks range in nature peevish attacks on personal computers to organized attempts to disrupt government facilities. Cyber-attacks are taken seriously by the government, which has been recorded performing war-games involving them. Protecting against them and regulating conduct involves regulating both government and civilian conduct and providing standards which all may expect to follow.
Cyber threats such as electrical grid assaults, malicious programs and virii, and cybercrime can pose a threat to both the government and the civilians living within them. Electrical utility system and transport wires in the US are currently not under direct state control and there is some concern that they may be easier to target than military operated systems. Programs such as ophcrack can not only spy upon targeted systems but can locally modify files. Information databases maintained by corporations have been hacked on several notable occasions, such as the yahoo email leak and google's security problems in China. The Stuxnet virus was developed by military personnel and targeted key government facilities as well as civilian structures. Cybercrime represents this myriad of threats ranging from peevish amateur attacks on personal computers to organized attempts to electronically pilfer funds from banks.
A major step towards reducing crime in this most modern era of human existence is to regulate the actions of those with access to the newest technologies with a treaty. With standards set and pooled resources granted to authorized organizations, electronic monitoring and prevention can help ensure a world that is increasingly virtual is also protected from unlawful assaults upon our precious liberty and the fundamental rights of individual people, prospering corporations, and lawful governments.
Sources
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/wo...pdateema1&_r=0http://www.arcyber.army.mil/http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/sh...n-cyberwarfarehttp://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...hered-stuxnet/http://www.google.com/transparencyre...=1352481600000http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/http://www.gchq.gov.uk/Pages/homepage.aspx09-05-2013, 03:56 PM
Jarod
There are quite a few reasons the United States should not be a party to an international cyber warfare treaty, the most of which are our advanced ability compared to other parties, our use of cyber warfare in the prevention of nuclear proliferation, and the inability for such a treaty to be enforceable against those that pose threats against us.
Before delving into the most significant reasons against entering an international cyber warfare treaty it is important to establish that the significant reason for entering such a treaty would be practical advantage and not the moral significance of a standard warfare treaty. The moral implications of refusing to join a warfare treaty are simply de minimis in any discussion regarding a cyber warfare treaty especially when we consider most warfare treaties, such as nuclear arms treaties, have the goal of preventing the death of untold numbers of lives. The Journal of Military Ethics, Vol. 9, No.4 384-410, 2010, pages 392 -397. See also, Nuclear Weapons, Ethics, Morals and Law
by Jonathan Granoff, May 1999,
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/...off_ethics.htm Because a cyber warfare treaty would not directly affect human life the moral standard that would push governments to enter such a treaty is significantly lower and therefore we should consider this question from a particle rather than moral perspective.
The United States has some of the most advanced ability to wage Cyber Warfare in the world. In fact the Center for Strategic and International Studies has ranked the United States the Country of greatest concern from a cyber attack. U.S. Cyberwar Strategy: The Pentagon Plans to Attack, by Mark Thompson, Time Magazine, February 2, 2010,
http://content.time.com/time/nation/...957679,00.html We are currently able to create a great deterrent to incoming cyber attack with the threat of an assured and more damaging response, this assurance is more powerful than the deterrent of Mutual Assured Destruction which enabled us to survive the Cold War.
The nature of cyber warfare employed by the advanced technology of the United States is most dramatically used to save human life by preventing nations such as Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. Silent War, By, Michael Gross, Vanity Fair, July 2013.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/20...rican-business Were we to enter a treaty limiting our use of cyber warfare technology we would give up one of our most powerful techniques for preventing nuclear proliferation thus risking untold human life by allowing rogue nations to more easily attain nuclear power. Id.
Finally the enemy we face in potential cyber warfare is not necessarily controlled by or sponsored by any particular government. Cyber Mlitias, Political Hackers and Cyber Warfair, Academia.edu,
http://www.academia.edu/1706788/Cybe..._Cyber_Warfare Because of this fact, enforcement of any cyber warfare treaty would be so difficult we would face the choice of unilaterally giving up our abilities while small loosely organized terrorist groups would continue to develop and use cyber warfare techniques against us.
09-05-2013, 05:14 PM
Jarod
The position that the United States should be a party to an international cyber warfare treaty has been promoted with the argument that such a treaty would provide our nation needed governmental regulation and enforcement for the rapidly advancing technology of cyber warfare. Human technology is indeed advancing at a dizzying rate, in fact cyber war technology is advancing at such a rate that in the time it would take to create a treaty and get it passed by key players in cyber warfare, the advancement would render any resulting regulations moot and quite possibly harmful. Take for example Stuxnet, a state of the art virus experts believe was created by the United States and released into the computer components of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in 2011, the technology is now in 2013 so available and out of date it can be download in kits from the Internet for third rate hackers. Cyber Wars, By: Doug Horning, Caseyresearch.com,
http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/cyber-warfare-advances Consider that the original impetus for the North American Free Trade Agreement began in 1984 yet the treaty that is now known as NAFTA began to be enforce January 1, 1994. History of NAFTA, by: Kimberly Amadeo
http://useconomy.about.com/od/tradep...TA_History.htm While not all treaties take as long as NAFTA it is clear that any treaty multiple governments would be able to enact and enforce would take significantly longer than the shelf-life of the technology it would be attempting to regulate.
09-05-2013, 05:21 PM
Jarod
Wouldn't an international cyber warfare treaty that would clearly limit Americas ability to wage cyber warfare weaken our defenses against rag tag and independent terrorist groups seeking to cripple America's technological infrastructure?
09-05-2013, 07:31 PM
pisskop
Rebuttal
It has been claimed that as an advanced nation its obligations to protect itself extend past any deontological considerations and scrupulous activates are justified in achieving this goal. However, such flagrant disregard for moral fiber is directly contradicted by the source of this information, which repeats several times the need for a golden rule, namely 'do unto others' (
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/...off_ethics.htm).
The idea that the threat of nuclear warfare is more dangerous than cyber warfare is a highly debated topic, one which may not be receiving enough attention (
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=120178). The United Kingdom House Affairs Committee has recently declared that they felt Cyber Crime was more dangerous than nuclear warfare (
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...vernment-warns). Nato has created a handbook to apply to nations, which lists guidelines and rules of conduct (
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...re-nato-manual) for cyber-attacks; one can't help but wonder how a treaty would do anything but improve this handbook.
Finally, a treaty would not have to necessarily limit the effectiveness of America's defense against rouge cyber-criminals or small terrorist groups. A treaty could certainly address the possibility of rouge elements and a myriad of situations the world might encounter involving such groups. A treaty would be designed to ensure civil convention and the continued progress of humanity defining the relationships of those involved. Cyber warfare is defined by the FBI as a part of Information Warfare (
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/pu...1/cyber-terror) and is thus developing a working protocol for cyber warfare now would be instrumental for enacting unified, international defense against cybercrime (
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/cyber) and cyber terror.
09-05-2013, 07:38 PM
pisskop
Response to Question
Article 8 of the Convention to Prevent and Punish the acts of Terrorism Taking the Form of Crimes Against Persons and Related Extortion that are of International Significance (
http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/Treaties/a-49.html) states that " the contracting states accept the following obligations:
a. To take all measures within their power, and in conformity with their own laws, to prevent and impede the preparation in their respective territories of the crimes mentioned in Article 2 that are to be carried out in the territory of another contracting state."
This can be taken to mean that any action with is not already illegal within any state is expected to be taken to aid in the capture of individual suspected of terrorism. Any country enjoying the benefit of this treaty also enjoys the co-operation of every other country in the treaty, as well as the obligatory duty of every other nation to act in accordance to their own laws in pursuit of said internationally significant criminals. International convention also extends any nonparty state limited benefit in regaurds to party states and vice-versa.
In addition, there are already international tension regarding war crimes and international criminals. An example is the US' opt out of the ICC Rome Statute (
http://2001-2009.state.gov/t/pm/rls/fs/23426.htm). A treaty regarding cyber-warfare and its conduct would possibly preclude further confusion and tension by clarifying the rights and responsibilities of the criminals, the states involved, and any third-party entities pertinent to the situation.
As a final point, cyber warfare can be defined as Internet-based conflict involving politically motivated attacks on information and information systems . . . any country can wage cyberwar on any other country, irrespective of resources, because most military forces are network-centric and connected to the Internet, which is not secure (
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com...n/cyberwarfare). This definition implies that a sovereign state or conspicuous controlling party is conducting warfare. Smaller, rag-tag groups are best described as cyber-terrorists or cyber-criminals, and should be regarded as a separate category of entities than sovereign states or conspicuous controlling parties.
09-05-2013, 08:21 PM
pisskop
Question
As the industrialized world moves further into the information era, why should the United States forego a chance to create a lasting treaty with terms influenced by its own interest?
09-05-2013, 10:40 PM
Jarod
Answer
The premise of your question requires that one assume negotiating and entering into a treaty would enable the United States a chance to promote its own interest. This is not a possibility because by agreeing to any limitations upon the use and advancement of cyber warfare technology as the leader in the field the United States would be putting limits on an ability to achieve its own interests. U.S. Cyberwar Strategy: The Pentagon Plans to Attack, by Mark Thompson, Time Magazine, February 2, 2010,
http://content.time.com/time/nation/...957679,00.html Additionally a treaty that would have terms favorable to the United States interests cannot be developed due to the fact that the technology is still in its infancy, a treaty cannot predict or steer the direction that technological advances will take. …“new capabilities and Tactics Techniques and Procedures are developed on a daily basis.” Why Your Intuition About Cyber Warfare is Probably Wrong , by Matthew Miller, Jon Brickey and Gregory Conti, Small Wars Journal, November 29, 2012.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...probably-wrong As long as we cannot predict what the technology will be tomorrow, we cannot determine what the interests of the United States will be.
So the question becomes, why should the United States agree to any limits on cyber warfare technology when it is clearly invested great resources in and achieved battlefield superiority and an ability to own the future of cyber warfare.
Author
Topic: Online Debate about Cybercrime Treaty (Read 1311 times)