Behind the Government's Rules of Cyber War 117
wiredmikey writes "Deciding when malware becomes a weapon of war that warrants a response in the physical world – for example, a missile – has become a necessary part of the discussion of military doctrine. The Pentagon recently outlined (PDF) its working definition of what constitutes cyber-war and when subsequent military strikes against physical targets may be justified as result. The main issue is attribution of cyber attacks. The Department of Defense is working to develop new ways to trace the physical source of an attack and the capability to identify an attacker using behavior-based algorithms. 'If a country is going to fire a missile at someone, it better be sure it has the right target,' said one expert. A widely held misconception in the U.S. government is our offensive capabilities provide defensive advantage by identifying attacker toolkits and methods in foreign networks prior to them hitting our networks. So when do malware and cyber attacks become a weapon or act of war that warrant a real-world military response?"
Causus Belli (Score:5, Insightful)
Constitutionally, an "act of war" is whatever Congress agrees it to be.
Such decisions are not the Executive's to make.
The "right target" is a misconception (Score:5, Insightful)
'If a country is going to fire a missile at someone, it better be sure it has the right target,' said one expert.
Not true, unfortunately. How many wars have started based on false information? Off the top of my head:
* The Spanish-American War: Remember that the Maine sunk by accident
* The Vietnam War: The Gulf of Tonkin
* The Iraq War: No WMDs and no connection to Al Queda.
Action is allowed to proceed the paperwork (Score:5, Insightful)
Constitutionally, an "act of war" is whatever Congress agrees it to be. Such decisions are not the Executive's to make.
Actually they are. An "act of war" is something different from a "declaration of war". Congress has the ability to control declaring a war and the spending on a war, however the president commands the military. In response to an act of war the president may order the US military to attack the perpetrators, this would be a lawful order. For example as soon as the president learned of pearl harbor he could immediately order US forces to attack enemy forces, he did not have to wait for the following day when congress got the paperwork in order and formally declared war.
So we are a Christian Nation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to be clear here, many "hawks" claim to follow "Christian Values".
Let's consider the Old Testament values:
leviticus 24:19-24:21
19 Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return:
20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered.
21 One who kills an animal shall make restitution for it; but one who kills a human being shall be put to death.
Now the idea here is when you are wronged, you *can't* inflect more suffering than you suffered. There is a limit.
Then Jesus came along, and said this was an *upper limit* not a lower limit. You should instead return good for evil. In other words, these Christian Hawks should consider the fact that their ideas of bombing someone because of malware doesn't even past Old Testament standards, much less those of Christianity. How does a crashed computer equate to blowing up a house or office and killing who knows how many innocents in the process?
I am getting very tired of wars and conflicts to line the pockets of various corporate interests. How about we start demanding ethical principles of our leaders rather than buying into their excuses to abuse people abroad, and increasingly, Citizens at home. What is it going to take for people to realize that our government is getting out of hand, and is not behaving in line with our moral and ethical traditions? Seriously, we hear more concern out of our Religious leaders about allowing same sex marriage than we do the killing of 10's and sometimes 100's of women and children!
There *is* something seriously wrong with the morals of this country. When are we going to realize that we are supposed to come to people's aid when they are in need, to hear them when they cry out for relief? That we are not supposed to react by blowing them up?
Re:So we are a Christian Nation? (Score:4, Insightful)
One of my favorite verses is "Don't try to do good through evil; overcome evil with good." (Somewhere in Romans, I don't memorize the numbers.) The Republicans respond to this by torturing people without so much as a trial, assuring us all that it's for the best. And this is the party that likes to present itself as defenders of the faith. And even worse, it seems like most self-proclaimed Christians supported the torture.
I wish they'd just drop the act and admit that they aren't religious, they just hate gays and sexually active women.