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  • Home
  • About RSIS
      • Introduction
      • Building the Foundations
      • Welcome Message
      • Board of Governors
      • Staff Profiles
        • Executive Deputy Chairman’s Office
        • Dean’s Office
        • Management
        • Distinguished Fellows
        • Faculty and Research
        • Associate Research Fellows, Senior Analysts and Research Analysts
        • Visiting Fellows
        • Adjunct Fellows
        • Administrative Staff
      • Honours and Awards for RSIS Staff and Students
      • RSIS Endowment Fund
      • Endowed Professorships
      • Career Opportunities
      • Getting to RSIS
  • Research
      • Research Centres
        • Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS)
        • Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre)
        • Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS)
        • Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS)
        • International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR)
      • Research Programmes
        • National Security Studies Programme (NSSP)
        • Studies in Inter-Religious Relations in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme
      • [email protected] Newsletter
      • Other Research
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        • Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) (2017-2020)
  • Graduate Education
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      • MSc (Asian Studies)
      • MSc (International Political Economy)
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    • RSIS
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    • A Non-Militarised Approach to Cyber-Security
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    A Non-Militarised Approach to Cyber-Security
    by Pauline C. Reich, Andrew Adams and Stuart Weinstein

    01 July 2012

    In 2011 cyberspace came under highly visible military threat. This threat was not cyber-attack by
    governments or terrorists, but the threat of a militaristic approach to cyber-security. The US and UK military
    establishments (among others) made strong arguments about the need to expand their online presence from use
    of the Internet for their own information transmission and into cyber-attack capabilities. Responding to claims of
    the Russian and Chinese governments sponsoring cracking attacks against Estonia, Georgia and Google,
    cyberspace in 2011 became the fifth arena of warfare (land, (under)sea, air, space and now cyberspace).
    Although development of the basic concept and protocols of the Internet was funded by DARPA, a military
    research agency, the military and civilian uses of Internet systems rapidly diverged in the early days. This
    separation allowed the development of a free, generative and borderless Internet whose base flexibility and
    civilian orientation made it one of the core technologies of modern life by 2011. Just as it has become an
    essential platform for legitimate activity, illegitimate activity has also flourished online. The very automation which
    makes computers and the Internet so valuable can also be utilised for negative purposes such as Denial of
    Service Attacks, malware distribution and fraud. There are claims that some governments are sponsoring attacks
    and cyber-espionage against their enemies (other states or large corporations), and claims about the rise and
    dangers of cyber-terrorism. Military forces, faced with a diminishing role in preparations for large scale physical
    conflicts, have begun claiming that civilian cyberspace needs to be (re-)militarised and that the armed forces
    should be given both the technical tools and the legal rights to conduct not just cyber-defence activities, but
    offensive cyber-attacks. In this paper we argue from both philosophical and practical standpoints that a pacifist
    approach to cyber-security is more appropriate. Based on the constitutional pacifism of Germany and Japan, we
    argue that investment in cyber-defence would be better targetted at improving the physical and electronic
    infrastructure of the Internet in general (for example, by funding the free distribution of malware signatures to all
    users or research and development of better technological security tools). This would provide better cybersecurity for the citizens of the world than an arms race to develop military cyber-attack capabilities. The
    borderless and non-geographic topology of the Internet provide little capacity for avoiding collateral damage
    which, we argue, is likely to prove more costly than the original dangers identified or forecast. Technological
    measures used within the parameter of laws protecting the privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of citizens and
    utilized for defensive purposes, along with further research on thwarting cyber-attacks on critical information
    infrastructures, would be more beneficial and are evaluated in this pacifist context.

    Categories: Journal Articles
    Source: A Non-Militarised Approach to Cyber-Security
    Citation: Pauline C. Reich, Andrew Adams, and Stuart Weinstein, "A Non-Militarised Approach to Cyber-Security" in European Conference on Information Warfare and Security, 1, 1 - XI, 2012, 1

    Last updated on 16/12/2019

    In 2011 cyberspace came under highly visible military threat. This threat was not cyber-attack by
    governments or terrorists, but the threat of a militaristic approach to cyber-security. The US and UK military
    establishments (among others) made strong arguments about the need to expand their online presence from use
    of the Internet for their own information transmission and into cyber-attack capabilities. Responding to claims of
    the Russian and Chinese governments sponsoring cracking attacks against Estonia, Georgia and Google,
    cyberspace in 2011 became the fifth arena of warfare (land, (under)sea, air, space and now cyberspace).
    Although development of the basic concept and protocols of the Internet was funded by DARPA, a military
    research agency, the military and civilian uses of Internet systems rapidly diverged in the early days. This
    separation allowed the development of a free, generative and borderless Internet whose base flexibility and
    civilian orientation made it one of the core technologies of modern life by 2011. Just as it has become an
    essential platform for legitimate activity, illegitimate activity has also flourished online. The very automation which
    makes computers and the Internet so valuable can also be utilised for negative purposes such as Denial of
    Service Attacks, malware distribution and fraud. There are claims that some governments are sponsoring attacks
    and cyber-espionage against their enemies (other states or large corporations), and claims about the rise and
    dangers of cyber-terrorism. Military forces, faced with a diminishing role in preparations for large scale physical
    conflicts, have begun claiming that civilian cyberspace needs to be (re-)militarised and that the armed forces
    should be given both the technical tools and the legal rights to conduct not just cyber-defence activities, but
    offensive cyber-attacks. In this paper we argue from both philosophical and practical standpoints that a pacifist
    approach to cyber-security is more appropriate. Based on the constitutional pacifism of Germany and Japan, we
    argue that investment in cyber-defence would be better targetted at improving the physical and electronic
    infrastructure of the Internet in general (for example, by funding the free distribution of malware signatures to all
    users or research and development of better technological security tools). This would provide better cybersecurity for the citizens of the world than an arms race to develop military cyber-attack capabilities. The
    borderless and non-geographic topology of the Internet provide little capacity for avoiding collateral damage
    which, we argue, is likely to prove more costly than the original dangers identified or forecast. Technological
    measures used within the parameter of laws protecting the privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of citizens and
    utilized for defensive purposes, along with further research on thwarting cyber-attacks on critical information
    infrastructures, would be more beneficial and are evaluated in this pacifist context.

    Categories: Journal Articles
    Source: A Non-Militarised Approach to Cyber-Security
    Citation: Pauline C. Reich, Andrew Adams, and Stuart Weinstein, "A Non-Militarised Approach to Cyber-Security" in European Conference on Information Warfare and Security, 1, 1 - XI, 2012, 1

    Last updated on 16/12/2019

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    A Non-Militarised Approach to Cyber-Security
    In 2011 cyberspace came under highly visible military threat. This threat was not cyber-attack by governments or terrorists, but the threat of a militaristic approach to ...
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