International Law

Neues Internetrecht ?in the making?

By Handakte

The Obama administration is planning to rewrite the rulebook for warfare establishing new laws for war in cyberspace including a series of international agreements that will spell out just what actions are permissible and what will be considered an act of war. For the first time, countries like China, which launch millions of attacks every day will face the prospect of retaliatory action, including the use of a new arsenal of cyber weapons.

As this blog predicted, President Obama announced last week a series of major new initiatives designed to secure cyberspace from attack. Much of the reporting has focused on the creation of a new office in the White House to coordinate cyber activity and the creation of a new Cyber Command in the Pentagon to manage offense and defense.

While such bureaucratic window dressing is perhaps necessary, the facts are that the US already has extensive offensive capabilities. If the Pentagon wished, it could turn off the lights in Beijing or raise the sluice gates of the dam on Three Gorges Dam and kill millions of people. So the weapons are already developed and ready for use. What is lacking is any kind of developed military doctrine that would allow these weapons to be used in a context that military and political leaderships around the world could understand. (…)

Quelle: Spectator vom 31.05.2009

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Neues Internetrecht “in the making”

Full post as published by Handakte WebLAWg on May 31, 2009 (boomark / email).