Net Neutrality in the Context of Cyber Warfare

It is now well-established that the rapid evolution of cyberspace has impacted upon almost every aspect of our lives. The dramatic increase in the speed, volumes and range of communications that it offers has undoubtedly changed the ways that individuals interact with each other, how companies deliver services and, crucially, how we are governed. But there is also a darker side to cyberspace which poses a growing number of challenges to individual and collective security.

The traditional law of neutrality emerged to address the conflicting interests of belligerent and neutral states, particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when maritime transport gained significance to the world’s economies as the means of international commerce. The fundamental principles of impartiality and abstention from assisting belligerents in the prosecution of warfare were developed to balance the right of neutral states to freedom of trade against the right of belligerents to defend themselves against the damage that might arise from such trade. While, since then, the law of neutrality has remained stagnant, the growth in dual-use technologies and various means of transmitting knowledge, goods and services has created the environment where military operations rely heavily on interconnected infrastructure such as cyber and space assets. Further technological advances in different areas such as 3D printing and nanotechnology are expected to reduce the need...

Cyberspace is erroneously characterized as a domain that transcends physical space and thereby is immune to state sovereignty and resistant to international regulation. The purpose of this paper is to signify that cyberspace, in common with the other four domains (land, sea, air and outer space) and despite its unique characteristics, is just a reflection of the current international system, and thereby is largely affected by the rules that characterize it. The issue of state sovereignty in cyberspace is critical to any discussion about future regulation of cyberspace. Although cyberspace is borderless and is characterized by anonymity and ubiquity, recent state practices provide sufficient evidence that cyberspace, or at least some components of it, are not immune from sovereignty. The increasing use of Internet filtering techniques by both authoritarian regimes and democracies is just the latest example of attempting to control information flows. Cyberspace is non‐territorial, but in sharp contrast to the land, sea, air and outer space, cyberspace is not a part of nature, it is human‐made and therefore can be unmade and regulated. States have continuously emphasized their right to exercise control over the cyber‐infrastructure located in their respective territory, to exercise their jurisdiction over cyberactivities on their territory, and to protect their cyber‐infrastructure against any trans‐border interference by other states or by individuals. As a result, states are filtering and monitoring cyber‐bytes. Over the past years, there is a growing number of states that is publishing national cyber‐policies and establishing cyber‐centers that aim to protect the national cyber‐infrastructure and control their citizens’ access to information. The issue of state sovereignty in cyberspace raises critical questions about the need to regulate the cyber domain and gradually reach an international cyber‐order.

Cyber is the fifth domain of warfare. It is an anonymous, global, instantaneous, virtual world not physically inhabited by persons. In cyberspace, machines are autonomous proxies for people. Humanity is removed from cyberspace by one or more orders of magnitude. It is a frontier of pure pragmatism – if it can be done, do it with a machine. Therefore the natural tendency is to view actions occurring within cyberspace as virtual and without moral content or responsibility. However, the entire field of cyberspace is a place of human endeavor that also brings with it individual and corporate human responsibility to conduct all activities ethically. All cyber actions, even second/third/fourth/etc. order effects must be evaluated for morality. Cyber War must be waged justly. Just War categories have not been rendered obsolete because the Cyber War domain is new, exponentially expanding and little understood. Rather, Just War categories are supple and comprehensive for all human undertakings in the conduct of warfare. It is not possible to write law that anticipates every instance of human action. Enforcement of law goes a long way toward curbing the darker urges of humanity, requires highly disciplined militaries, and a national will to be virtuous. To wage a Just War requires leaders and warriors of virtue, principle and integrity law will never become integral to a human being's soul, but virtue may. NEW IS OLD AND OLD IS NEW New is old and old is new. Information has always been at the heart of warfare. What is now novel is that information is collected, transmitted and communicated at the speed of light along digital networks. The emerging field of Cyber War (CW) is rapidly developing in a largely

2012

The views expressed in this report are the personal opinions of individuals and do not necessarily represent the views of the Security & Defence Agenda, its members or partners. Reproduction of this report, in whole or in part, is permitted providing that full attribution is made to the author, the Security & Defence Agenda and to the source(s) in question, and provided that any such reproduction, whether in full or in part, is not sold unless incorporated in other works. (SDA) cyber-security initiative. It is intended as a snapshot of current thinking around the world on the policy issues still to be resolved, and will form the basis of SDA debates and future research during 2012. The SDA is Brussels' only specialist security and defence think-tank. It is wholly independent and this year celebrates its 10 th anniversary. Brigid Grauman is an independent Brussels-based journalist whose work appears widely in international media like the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journa...

Philosophy & Technology, 2017

States’ capacity for using modern information and communication technology to inflict grave harm on enemies has been amply demonstrated in recent years, with many countries reporting large-scale cyberattacks against their military defense systems, water supply, and other critical infrastructure. Currently, no agreed-upon international rules or norms exist to govern international conflict in cyberspace. Many governments prefer to keep it that way. They argue that difficulties of verifiability and challenges posed by rapid technological change rule out agreement on an international cyber convention. Instead, they prefer to rely on informal cooperation and strategic deterrence to limit direct conflict. In this article, I seek to rebut some of themain objections to seeking an international convention on the use of cyber weapons. While there are significant obstacles to achieving effective arms control in the cyber domain, historical experience from other areas of international arms control suggests that none of these obstacles are insurmountable. Furthermore, while most critics of cyberarms control assume that cyberspace favors offensive strategies, closer inspection reveals the dominance of cyber-defensive strategies. This in turn improves prospects for striking an effective international agreement on cyberarms control.

Philosophy & Technology, 2015

This special issue gathers together a selection of papers presented by international experts during a workshop entitled 'Ethics of Cyber-Conflicts', which was devoted to fostering interdisciplinary debate on the ethical and legal problems and the regulatory gap concerning cyber conflicts. The workshop was held in 2013 at the Centro Alti Studi Difesa in Rome under the auspices of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (NATO CCD COE). This NATO-accredited international military organisation that has always placed a high value on an interdisciplinary approach to cyber defence, uniting as it does perspectives from technical, policy, legal, and strategic domains. The Centre's mission is to enhance capability, cooperation, and information-sharing between NATO, its member states, and partner countries in the area of cyber defence by virtue of research, education, and consultation. The workshop was one of the projects supported by the Centre to achieve this mission. Readers may already be familiar with the term 'cyber conflict', which is understood as any use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that may have disruptive or destructive consequences. Cyber conflicts are an umbrella phenomenon encompassing several instances ranging from cyber warfare and hacktivism to cyber crime and cyber terrorism. As contemporary societies grow dependent from ICTs, any form of conflict that uses these technologies, both as a means and as a target, poses serious threats to their stability, security, and welfare. As recently reported by the Financial Times, Bthe ultimate impact [of cyber-conflicts] could be as much as $3 trillion in lost productivity and growth^. 1 Furthermore, should cyber conflicts propagate without an adequate response then contemporary societies may risk a cyber backlash in the shape of a deceleration to the digitization process imposed by governments and international institutions in order to prevent this

An original approach to Network Neutrality is presented. Violations to Network Neutrality are considered as risk and a risk management framework to deal with such violations is presented. This framework can be used by different parties in varied environments for dealing with preventive as well as reactive action in the face of violations by Internet Service Providers and other infringing parties. The framework includes an identification of the forms of Network Neutrality violations, their weighting by likelihood and impact, and actions for risk avoidance, detection, mitigation, business continuity, contingency planning, and prevention. The actions are shown in a graduated-response order so that scaling up towards the resolution of conflict or controversy around Network Neutrality violations can be properly planned and executed.

2017