In the wake of cyber attacks on governments all around the world, at the hands of other governments all over the world, the member nations of NATO have just declared cyber space as a new official battleground of warfare. Prior to today, cyber-war was more of a figurative term used metaphorically, however, thanks now to NATO, cyber space is now literally classified a physical object; a jurisdiction of war – joining air, sea, land and space.
Any attack on the cyber space of a country will now be treated as a military attack on that country – same as shooting down a plane, or sinking a ship or moving troops. The terms of agreement belonging to NATO indicate that an attack on one country is an attack on all the countries. Though some countries, such as the USA, have already adopted cyber space as a battle ground of war dating back to 2011, make no doubt, this news marks a global landmark event.
Indubitably, these measures are in response to the building tensions in the Baltic with NATO, as well as the fact that Russia and China – both whom are not member nations of NATO -have been very active in several prominent hacking campaigns around the world over recent years.
Most recently, Russia placed a worm inside the Democratic National Committee’s data-bases for well over a years time in order to steal information about political candidates and political strategy before the upcoming national elections. China on the other hand is infamous for hacking business sectors, stealing information, technologies, innovations and opportunities away from the people who actually invented them.
As NATO has just formed this new policy, the ramifications of declaring the Internet a war-zone have yet to play themselves out. Will nations move troops against one another for the actions of a hacker sitting back in their recliner? Will the actions of an independent (Anonymous) hacker un-affiliated with any countries government accidentally incite a War between nations? How will all of this be regulated or differentiated? We could be setting a dangerous precedent that may have more implications then many people in power care to realize.
It might not be at the forefront of media coverage right now, but internet rights are slowly eroding. The other week, US courts just allowed the FCC to sensor the internet same as like they do television. Leading Republican candidate Donald Trump has also proposed placing “restrictions” on the internet in America and in other countries such as China and Turkey, the internet and social media is already censored.
With the internet now officially classified as a jurisdiction of the military worldwide, it may be a justifiable fear that the internet itself may come under attack in the from of governments or nations all in the name of “national security.” The two magic words that allows government around the world to act with complete immunity to laws, constitutions, treaties and regulations.
Meanwhile, the Global Commission on Internet Governance published a new report 6/22/2016 – essentially decrying that governments must come to a consensus governing internet behavior. The group fears with recent attempts to undermine encryption rights to mandate back door’s media systems, censorship of the internet and unregulated spying programs on behalf of national government under the guise of ‘national security’ have violated peoples civil rights on a global level.
“Governments should not compromise or require third parties to weaken or compromise encryption standards, for example, through hidden ‘backdoors’ into the technology as such efforts would weaken the overall security of digital data flows and transactions…
…Legal thresholds for lawfully authorized access to communications data must be redefined to ensure that the aggregated collection of metadata—such as an individual’s full browsing history—are treated with the same respect for privacy as access to the actual content of a communication, and should only be made under judicial authority.“
The report calls for a “greater respect for the privacy of foreign citizens’ data.” You can read more here: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/one-internet-global-internet-governance-report-analysis/
Sources: Softpedia, Reuters, The New York Times
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