The "Self-Fulfilling" Promise of a Cyber War

The idea of writing this post came to me as I was reading a post by Heather Roff on the excellent Blog The Duck of Minerva.

Her post was titled The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of High Tech War.

The post did not end up being what I thought it would be (it wasn't about cyberwar so much as it was about an increase in technological expenses and the US getting ready to invest massively in technology for war purposes), but as I read this I realized the expression "self-fulfilling' best serve my argument about cyber espionage which I am developping in my doctoral work.

But let's not talk about my doctoral work already - let's just focus on one idea. Why is cyberwar self-fulfilling?

The militarisation of cyberspace became a well-known fact since Estonia and Georgia (and even Stuxnet). These events have led some commentators to argue that cyberspace has become the fifth domain of war (air, water, space, earth and now, cyberspace).

But the question to ask is whether we are talking about a war between states or a war of terror between some sort of terrorists of cyberspace (black hats hackers) ?

There are inherent problems of attribution with acts committed in cyberspace. Russia and China have been notorious to deny any involvement (the US too, but they were forced into admission by Snowden) by blaming such acts nationalists.

At this point, it is worth mentionning that attribution, under international law, does not require that the act be performed by the state per see, but without going into details, it requires some sort of control on the part of the State (or a willingness to let such actions go unpunish in some circumstances).

Yet, the anonimity inherent with cyberspace makes it difficult to go any further than affirming that an act was committed within a given territory (with a few exceptions, such as the 2013 Mandiant Report that exposed with precision the building in China where a cyberespionage unit was operating). Given this, it is very unlikely that a country will be able to demonstrate that the cyberattacks or cyberespionage were done under the control or with the approval of a certain government. Such proof would require very effective cyberespionage from the pursuant, at a minimum. And by committing the self-espionage, the pursuant is committing acts which have diplomatic consequences and contribute to make cyberwar self-fulling.

Note there seems to be no legal consequences for cyber-espionage at the moment but that's more related to my doctoral work than the present discussion (and some will argue that it is even legal - but that's another controversy that I don't agree with).

Anyways, my point with this post is the following.

It's not as obvious as it seems that States are actually behind most of the cyberwarfare that's going (until recently at least).

It is often understated that various criminal groups are deeply involved with the development of malware and spyware softwares. Who they were selling it to, and based on what criterias, is probably what eventually triggered the self-fulfilling promise of a cyberwar which makes it legitimate for States to publicly announce plan of investing in cyberwarfare :

Aside from wondering how an “offset strategy,” premised on the notion that one is technologically superior can work with a “balanced” approach, [Bob] Work’s plan to pursue the third offset through autonomous technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics and big data was a bit of a mystery until earlier this month when he gave a speech at the Center for New American Security (where he was briefly CEO). There he stated that the Defense Department is seeking $12 to 15 billion in its 2017 budget to advance these technologies and to “kick the crap out of people who grew up in the iWorld under an authoritarian reign. (Heather Roff, The Duck of Minerva).

* Bob Work was previously Undersecretary of Defense and is a former Colonel in the Marine Corps. He was appointed to develop a :

“New Long-Range Research and Development Planning Program that will help identify, develop, and field breakthroughs in the most cutting-edge technologies and systems – especially from the fields of robotics, autonomous systems, miniaturization, big data, and advanced manufacturing, including 3D printing.” (Heather Roff, The Duck of Minerva).

#cyberwar #cyberespionage