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Cyberspace becoming a war zone on many fronts?The world of cyberspace is not only increasingly starting to become a zone of escalating security concerns for governments and business, but of late so many battle fronts have come to the fore that it is starting to resemble a war zone. The war may also not stay restricted to the realm of the world-wide net, but there is a real danger that it could spill over into more conventi-nal acts of war.
Last week we reported how a eG8-meeting preceding the annual summit in France of the so-called G8-countries (comprising the largest industrialised economies in the world) at best succeeded in underling how difficult it would be to regulate the world of the internet.
Last year a cyber attack on an Iranian nuclear power station was big news and speculation on the involvement of foreign governments was rife.
Last week it was reported that Lockheed Martin, probably the biggest defence contractor in the United States suffered a significant and tenacious hacking attack on 21 May. Within days it became known that the US is about to publish plans that will categorise cyber-attacks as acts of war.
It was reported that the US president in future could consider economic sanctions, cyber-retaliation or even a military strike if key American IT-systems were attacked. “A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the US would not necessarily be a cyber-response. All appropriate options would be on the table,” Pentagon spokesman Dave Lapan said.
He also confirmed that the Pentagon is in the process of drawing up a cyber strategy, which would be ready within weeks.
How sensitive this area of potential conflict has become is illustrated by a recent report by World Press that “Chinese officials confirmed the existence of the Blue Army, a group of around 30 computer specialists whose job is to keep China ahead of other nations in the race to develop cyber-security systems. Some analysts believe that Blue Army is merely a cover for a much larger group that is regularly ordered to conduct attacks against international targets.
“There is also concern that the Iranian government is investing heavily in a similar organisation, while private groups are also engaged in cyber-warfare.”
From London it is reported that the chairman of one of the world’s leading telecommunications companies, Michael Rake of BT Group , has said that cyber attacks are being developed so rapidly that a new non-proliferation treaty is needed to control their use.
On Thursday last week Google revealed that hackers attempted to break into hundreds of Google mail accounts, including those of senior US government officials.
With a history of hacking into the Gmail accounts of human rights activists in their country, suspicion immediately fell on the Chinese government. But, with 450 million users China is the world’s largest internet market and commercial considerations might also have been at play in this instance. As it is Google is said to have been losing market share in that market to its rival in that country, Baidu Inc.
Social front
On the social networking front, which has already been credited as having played a key role in the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, starting in Tunisia, an extremely complicated legal battlefield is presently unfolding.
The week before last the American social network Twitter for the first time bowed before court action to hand over the confidential details of British users.
Councillors and officials of a local authority in England took legal action for the information in the Californian jurisdiction where Twitter is domiciled and won their case. They claimed that they were libelled in messages posted on the network.
The action, which is said to have been brought at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the taxpayers of the local council, is seen as precedent-setting.
Another action, brought to the English courts by Manchester United soccer star, Ryan Giggs, to try and find redress for Twitter users spreading information about an extramarital affair despite a High Court injunction, seems unlikely to succeed.
Under the terms of the injunction order the media were banned from revealing any details that could identify him, although they could identify his mistress and details of the affair. But the fact that he was the man involved soon leaked on the internet. On social networks like Twitter and Facebook, which fall outside the jurisdiction of British courts the news went viral.
Giggs, however went ahead with action against Twitter and “persons unknown” for revealing his identity. Within 24 hours after he filed the new action some 12 000 new tweets about him and the affair were posted on Twitter. It seems unlikely that in this instance Twitter will oblige with the details of their British account-holders since the network does not come under the jurisdiction of the British courts.
Even when court action does succeed and aggrieved parties do have the massive money needed, there are plenty of ways for those who make use of the network to hide their identities by means like false email addresses and more.
The Giggs-affair has again stimulated a lively debate around subjects such as the right to privacy of high-profile individuals and freedom of speech. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has chipped in and said he has sympathy for public figures who take out super-injunctions to try and defend their right to privacy, saying very few people lead blameless lives and celebrities were not alone in wishing to hide from “ceaseless scrutiny” by the media.
The most pressing danger
The most pressing danger lurking while the world battles to come to terms with some of the realities of the global village created by the cyber-age, lies in the security challenges it poses.
There is a chilling message in a statement by the American White House on 16 May this year when, in an international strategy statement on cyber-security, it said the US would “respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country. We reserve the right to use all necessary means – diplomatic, informational, military, and economic – as appropriate and consistent with applicable international law, in order to defend our nation, our allies, our partners and our interests.”
The Wall Street Journal quoted a military official as saying that “if you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks.”
