2012-08-08T17:34:29Z

Nick:

{{Header_Message}}

==Case Summary==

==Recommended Literature==
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora Wikipedia entry]
* Michael Joseph Gross, [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/09/chinese-hacking-201109 Enter the Cyber-dragon], Vanity Fair, September 2011
* Kim Zetter, [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/, Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show], Wired: Threat Level, Jan 14, 2010
[[Category:Case Studies]]

2012-07-25T19:05:55Z

Nick:

==Full Title of Reference==
Information Warfare Arms Control: Risks and Costs

==Full Citation==
Maxie Thom, Information Warfare Arms Control: Risks and Costs, USAF Institute for National Security Studies (2006). [http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA460393 ''Web'']

==Categorization==
* Resource by Type: [[Journal Article]]
* Threats and Actors: [[States]]
* Issues: [[Cyberwar]]
* Approaches: [[Government Organizations]], [[International Cooperation]], [[International Law (including Laws of War)]], [[Deterrence]]

==Key Words==

==Synopsis==
In this document, Thom considers historic arms control treaties and enforcement efforts to analyze issues related to the development of arms control regarding Information Warfare (IW) activities. In this article, he limits the definition of IW to actions executed by state actors during interstate conflict and warfare.

The discussion begins with the different levels of credibility that various groups assign to the IW threat, and proceeds to explain how IW is securitized across the military, economic, and political domains. The author defines arms control for use in his context as the “agreement among states to regulate some aspect of their military capability or potential,” and discusses if IW arms control is a likely prospect considering the decline in the US commitment to and reliance on arms control as a mechanism to maintain national security following the end of the Cold War.

IW is substantially different from articles previously handled by arms control treaties, and Thom illustrates these differences by describing the intangible nature of IW’s effects, the lack of clear sovereignty in the cyber domain, and the ambiguous definitions found in international law. The budgetary considerations of IW arms control are also discussed, with an emphasis on how the decreasing arms control budget demands that arms control treaties must be cost effective to be implemented successfully. The 1993 Chemical Warfare Conventions is used to initially model the costs of the various phases of an arms control treaty, and the author breaks the costs into six distinct phases, the Pre-Signature costs, the Ramification Costs, Post Entry into Force (EIF) Costs, Administrative Costs, Industry Costs, and Overhead Costs, all of which are analyzed individually.

Thom finishes by discussing the risks associated with entering into an arms control treaty, which he classifies into seven categories: International Law, Sovereignty in the Information Realm, Verification and Compliance, Defensive, Increased Kinetic Targeting, and Political.
The risk from international law is said to arise from the increased complexity in responding to IW events when they are tied into international treaties. The risk to sovereignty stems from the possibly reclassification of some U.S. diplomatic information campaigns as IW (making them illegal). By providing countries sovereignty over the IW realm, it may also aid certain regimes in further limiting the type of information allowed to reach their citizens. The risk from verification and compliance includes a false sense of security, the leakage of information regarding our intelligence capabilities, and increased chances of IW weapons proliferation. The defensive risk comes from not having the ability to research defensive IW limited due to the dual-use nature of IW technology. The increased risk of kinetic targeting results from aggressors resorting to kinetically striking targets that could have otherwise been handled through IW. This may result in greater civilian casualties and longer-term losses of infrastructure following conflicts. The political risk stems from not signing such a treaty (such as with the Ottawa Landmine Treaty) and then having greater difficulties in building coalitions with our allies.

==Additional Notes and Highlights==
*The mission of the USAF Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) is to promote national security policy research for the Department of Defense within the military academic community, to foster the development of strategic perspective within the United States armed forces, and to support national security discourse through education and outreach. INSS is located at the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado and was created by the Air Staff in 1992. INSS’ primary sponsor is the Strategic Security Directorate on the Air Staff (HQ USAF/A5X). Each year, several of the research products from each year are published as INSS Occasional Papers and as articles in journals.

2012-07-25T14:12:23Z

Nick:

==Full Title of Reference==
Wired warfare: Computer Network Attack and Jus in Bello

==Full Citation==
Michael N. Schmitt, Wired warfare: Computer Network Attack and Jus in Bello, RICR (2002). [http://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/365_400_schmitt.pdf ''Web'']

==Categorization==
* Resource by Type: [[Journal Article]]
* Threats and Actors: [[States]]
* Issues: [[Cyberwar]], [[Government to Government]]
* Approaches: [[Government Organizations]], [[International Law (including Laws of War)]]

==Key Words==

==Synopsis==
In this piece, Schmitt discusses how computer network attacks (CNA) will challenge existing warfare doctrine, and what impact they will have on the principles of humanitarian law. Humanitarian law principles apply to CNA when they are attributable to a State and the consequences of the CNAs are intended to cause injury, death, damage or destruction.

If a CNA qualifies as an ‘attack’ according to a consequence-based analysis, its targets will be constrained by existing international law. Combatants and military objects are valid targets by their nature, but determining if they cross the threshold of “an effective contribution to military action” can be both subjective and challenging. Various interpretations of this clause will result in varying targeting options. Targeting civilians and civilian objects is restricted; however an assessment must be made to determine if the civilians are taking “direct part in hostilities,” which would cause them to forfeit their protection. In this assessment a narrow application of the “direct part in hostilities” standard would help preserve the overall protection of civilians. If civilians do take part in CNAs, the perpetrators would be illegal combatants. However, if the computer network operations they conduct did not qualify as “attacks” in a consequence-based analysis, they would not be illegal combatants and their civilian protections would stay intact.

Dual-use targets (serving both civilian and military purposes) remain targetable even if their military purposes are secondary to their civilian ones. Article 56 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Convention (opposed by the U.S.) provides for specifically protected targets, those which an attack against might “cause the release of dangerous forces [e.g. water or radioactivity] and consequent severe losses among the civilian population”. This prohibition applies even if they are military objectives. Interestingly, CNA offers a means of neutralizing such facilities without risking the release of dangerous forces, a difficult task when using traditional kinetic weapons.

CNAs face the same limitations on striking legitimate targets as those of traditional kinetic weaponry, the most fundamental of which is discrimination. Specifically, CNAs must be discriminate in their ability to be directed against a specific target, as well as being executed in a manner that controls their effects. CNAs have great potential for use against targets that kinetic targeting would be likely to cause collateral civilian casualties. Regarding proportionality, the follow-on effects of CNAs must be considered, and computer experts will have to be available to assess potential collateral and incidental effects through the mission-planning process. Another consideration will be the use of information warfare (IW) for perfidy and ruses. The information-centric nature of IW makes it an excellent platform for proper military ruses, but there is also a great potential for abuse in the realm of perfidy.

==Additional Notes and Highlights==
Schmitt released a paper on 02 March, 2011 in the Naval War College International Law Studies, 2011 that further discusses key issues on this topic and uses cyber operations during the Georgia-Russia conflict in 2008 to frame aspects of the discussion.
This paper can be found on [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1801176&download=yes SSRN.]

2012-07-25T12:54:03Z

Nick:

{| class="wikitable sortable" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" style="border: 1px solid LightGrey;"
|-
! align="center" style="background-color:#f0f0f0;"|'''Author/Agency'''
! align="center" style="background-color:#f0f0f0;"|'''Date'''
! align="center" style="background-color:#f0f0f0;"|'''Title'''
! align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Type'''
! align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Category'''
! align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Synopsis'''
|-
| Dunlap Charles C ||2011||[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cybersecurity/Perspectives_for_Cyber_Strategists_on_Law_for_Cyberwar Perspectives for Cyber Strategists on Law for Cyberwar]||Journal Article||4.1.2 [[Cyberwar]], 5.3 [[Government Organizations]], 5.5 [[International Law (including Laws of War)]]||Yes
|-
| Graham David E ||2010||[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cybersecurity/Cyber_Threats_and_the_Law_of_War Cyber Threats and the Law of War]||Journal Article||3.2.1 [[States]], 4.12 [[Cyberwar]], 5.5 [[International Law (including Laws of War)]]||Yes
|-
| Schmitt Michael N ||2004||[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cybersecurity/Direct_Participation_in_Hostilities Direct Participation in Hostilities and 21st Century Armed Conflict]||Journal Article||3.2.1 [[States]], 4.12 [[Cyberwar]], 5.5 [[International Law (including Laws of War)]]||Yes
|}