Terra Americana in cyberspace

On May 16^th, 2011, Washington unveiled its new International Strategy for Cyberspace…The U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn, the author of “The Pentagon’s Cyber Strategy”, was among those who presented the new policy. (1)

Speaking during the presentation the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed the role of her country in promoting democracy worldwide and said: “…While the internet offers new ways for people to exercise their political rights, it also, as we have seen very clearly in the last months, gives governments new tools for clamping down on dissent. And while the internet creates new economic opportunities for people at every point on the development spectrum, it also gives criminals new openings to steal personal data and intellectual property. And while the internet makes it possible for governments and people to collaborate more closely across borders, it presents new terrain for conflict, when states or other actors deliberately disrupt networks or when terrorists use the internet to organize attacks.”(2)

            The strategy identifies key policy priorities as follows:

• to combine methods of diplomacy, defense and development so that cyberspace was open to joint projects worldwide and as safe and reliable
• to allow as more countries as possible to experience all economic, social and political benefits of using cyberspace
• to support the rise of new partners by helping countries develop their digital infrastructure and build their capacity to withstand cyber threats
• to help alliances do more together to confront cyber threats while ensuring that  military’s networks of the U.S. remain protected

The United States reserves the right, the report adds, to use all necessary means - diplomatic, informational, military and economic - to defend the nation and its allies, partners and interests, seeking broad international support whenever possible. William Lynn added that the military’s role in keeping its networks secure will be further detailed in the Defense Department’s forthcoming Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace.(3)

            There is a higher aim behind the new strategy – to impose their rules of using cyberspace on other countries. The U.S. rely mainly on creating favorable conditions for staging so-called ‘twitter revolutions’ and toppling  political regimes that  do not fall into the U.S. scheme of  promoting democratic values…

            Two problems arise here, the first one related to the International Code of Conduct in Cyberspace.

            Diplomats, businessmen and experts from Russia, the U.S., Germany, India, China and Japan attended the International Information Security Forum in Germany last month to discuss key approaches to cooperating in cyberspace. Russia suggested developing a universal code of conduct in cyberspace. “Apart from the Internet itself, cyberspace includes web serves, software and many other things. Conduct in cyberspace should be regulated like it is already being done in the field of space exploration (where UN resolutions also play their role).” (4)

However, delegates at the forum agreed that the U.S. will unlikely approve an agreement based on equality as they represent a state with the most advanced cyber technology and will criticize other countries` attempts to protect themselves from cyber threats as “violation of rights and freedoms”. We can already see it happening in China.

            Chinaeffectively bans all sources of information in the web it finds inappropriate: from pornography to anti-government propaganda. China defends its right to impose any restrictions on its websites. Washington reacts by accusing Beijing of cyber spying and hacking. When both candidates for US presidency - Obama and McCain - had their computers hacked in 2008, China was a key suspect for the attack.

            The second problem here is the way the U.S. government deliberately distorts information about potential threats. U.S government and army officials keep on talking about the need to boost protection of the U.S. infrastructure from cyber attacks. On the one hand, this is how the Pentagon is trying to justify the use of force against mythical terrorists allegedly plotting their attacks inside the country. On the other hand, this is the way for some industrial organizations to get a bite out of the federal budget.  

            In November, 2010, Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer-prize winning columnist for The New Yorker, released the article headlined “The Online Threat” in which he dispersed myths about cyber threats. “American intelligence and security officials for the most part agree that the Chinese military, or, for that matter, an independent hacker, is theoretically capable of creating a degree of chaos inside America. But I was told by military, technical, and intelligence experts that these fears have been exaggerated, and are based on a fundamental confusion between cyber espionage and cyber war. Cyber espionage is the science of covertly capturing e-mail traffic, text messages, other electronic communications, and corporate data for the purpose of gathering national-security or commercial intelligence. Cyber war involves the penetration of foreign networks for the purpose of disrupting or dismantling those networks, and making them inoperable”.

Mr. Hersh writes further on: “…there is no documented case of an electrical shutdown forced by a cyber attack. And the cartoonish view that a hacker pressing a button could cause the lights to go out across the country is simply wrong. There is no national power grid in the United States. There are more than a hundred publicly and privately owned power companies that operate their own lines, with separate computer systems and separate security arrangements. The companies have formed many regional grids, which means that an electrical supplier that found itself under cyber attack would be able to avail itself of power from nearby systems”.

He also quotes Bruce Schneier, a computer scientist who told him that he didn’t know whether Stuxnet posed a new threat. “There’s certainly no actual evidence that the worm is targeted against Iran or anybody,” he said in an e-mail. “On the other hand, it’s very well designed and well written.” The real hazard of Stuxnet, he added, might be that it was “great for those who want to believe cyber war is here”, Schneier said. (5)

The article also says that the former N.S.A. operative, who served as a senior watch officer at a major covert installation, told me that the N.S.A. obtained invaluable on-the-job training in cyber espionage during the attack on Iraq in 1991. Its techniques were perfected during the struggle in Kosovo in 1999 and, later, against Al Qaeda in Iraq. “Whatever the Chinese can do to us, we can do better,” the technician said. “Our offensive cyber capabilities are far more advanced.”

            Martin Libicki, a senior management scientist at the RAND Corporation, whose research focuses on the impacts of information technology on domestic and national security, offers a balanced approach to such issues. “Information about a conducted cyber attack may be false. And the following questions arise: can retaliation be inadequate? Is it possible to avoid escalation of tensions? Even if retaliatory measures are welcomed, counterattacks are not compulsory: a war started in cyberspace may move into the real world and the consequences may be very sad…”. (6) However, Washington seems to be quite persuasive in interpreting cyber attacks in its own manner and making unilateral decisions as if the Internet has until recently remained  terra incognita  where  the U.S. became  the first  to place  its national flag…

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