SlideShare a Scribd company logo

Cyber Security in the Age of Globalization

B
Benjamin Morley

Cyber security threats have empowered individuals and challenged nation states' traditional power. Information technology allows individuals to wage conflicts from anywhere in the world, rendering conventional security measures ineffective. Both individuals and nation states have used cyber attacks and information technology to target others for a variety of reasons, from bullying and revenge to political protests. Even powerful public figures and large corporations are vulnerable to these new threats in the age of globalization and advanced communications technology.

1 of 17
Downloaded 26 times
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
1 Benjamin A. Morley GLOA 600 Research Paper May 9, 2012 Cyber Security and the State in the Age of Globalization In the age of Globalization, advances in communications and information technology have created a new field of conflict that threatens the traditional power of the Nation State and empowers the individual. Information technology is a new tool for waging conflicts, whether between individual, Nation States, or even between individuals and the Nation State. The use of cyber weapons like hacking gives the aggressor global strike capacity in real time, while rendering conventional security measures ineffective. The best missile defense shield is less effective at deterring a faceless cyber enemy that can strike from anywhere in the globe and damage infrastructure without resorting to conventional warfare. Corrupt regimes can crumble from the forces of Twitter and the Iphone even after enduring for decades with armed force. Individuals can now bring down the powerful in a society, attack nations, or even wield political power that was impossible before the introduction of advanced information technologies. Despite being a new threat to the balance of power, the very system of Globalization, the interconnections that connect the globe, makes conventional controls over power less useful and potentially obsolete. Cyber space is an artificial scape created by and maintained over the workings of computer systems and their exchange of data. It’s artificial but it also has the unique characteristic of allowing travel to anywhere in the scape free of physical borders and open
2 access normally to anyone who can connect to it. By its nature cyber space is borderless and relatively lawless in the regard that no one nation state has full control or jurisdiction over the scape and even when laws are put on the books in a given nation state, they are hard to enforce in the whole of cyber space. Powerful nation states like the United States and China have some influence, but even this influence can be checked as the blatant disregard for intellectual property rights is rampant on the Internet in sites like Pirates’ Bay and torrentz.eu (Houghton, 2011). In this paper, cyber crime and cyber conflict will be analyzed on several levels starting from individuals targeting each other and will progress to nation states targeting each other. One new use for information technology, cell phones, the Internet, social media, etc., is to bully others. Cyber bullying is the use of social media and other forms of media based technology to torment a victim in a manner identical to conventional forms of bullying. This might manifest in posting rumors about the victim on chat forums, emailing or texting threatening messages, and otherwise abusing the victim by the use of media. The case of the suicide of Phoebe Prince, a freshman in South Headley high school in Massachusetts in 2010, was an example of bullies coordinating efforts on social websites and targeting Ms. Prince on a daily basis. While the physical abuse was prominent, the bullies were using media to attack Ms. Prince. The resulting bullying was such that Ms. Prince committed suicide rather than face anymore of the torments (Eckholm & Zezima, 2010). This is just one example of information technology being used to attack others, but when individuals conglomerate into bands or organizations, their ability to attack other people grows. Besides using social websites to terrorize individuals, information technology can make the humiliation and pain of bullying and abuse a truly global experience. When some relationships turn sour, previously secret intimate information can become public by one of the
3 ex-lovers in a bid to humiliate the other. With the Internet, cell phones, and general ease of uploading personal information anonymously, this takes on a new level of abuse. There are countless websites catering to revenge on the Internet, the following is one example of such a website that combined pornography, invasion of privacy, and public exposure to help angry ex- lovers take revenge. People used the site, IsAnyoneUp.com to get revenge on their ex lovers by posting pornographic photos for public viewing. Along with photos, personal information, links to social websites, and the victim’s locations were posted on the site. Effectively the victim would have not just their picture on-line, but their full name, home address, age, and their social and Internet life exposed for anyone visiting the site. The site also catered to a global audience, making the exposure global. The founder of the site, Hunter Moore, gave control to the site to Bullyville.com, an anti-bullying website, after trouble with under aged victims winding up on the site. Bullyville later took down the site to stop more posts on it, claiming the site itself was part of on-line abuse (Lee 2012). Individuals in a society can have varying degrees of prestige, power, and wealth, but with new information technologies and cyber space, every individual has the power to target, damage, or destroy strangers and people in positions of power that would have otherwise been unassailable by normal means, legal or otherwise. Rupert Murdoch was the owner of The Sun website, is number twenty four on Forbes’ list of the most powerful people in the world, and runs a media empire (“Rupert murdoch,” 2012). Yet LulzSec, a hacker group that splintered from Anonymous, hacked Murdoch’s the Sun website and vandalized it with reports of his death and claims of having sensitive emails and information. News International, a media organization owned by Murdoch, was also hacked and several sites from the organization were taken down (Arthur, Quinn & Godfrey, 2011). This attack was an example of how even the powerful in
4 society are at risk of attack with the advances in information technology. Not all attacks by individuals are aimed at powerful members of society. The group Anonymous proved that security was at risk by rising information technology in 2008 when members hacked and released several emails from the email account of then governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. The hackings occurred during allegations of Mrs. Palin using her personal email to conduct governmental business and in a scandal involving her brother-in- law and the public safety inspector. The hacker group gave the stolen emails to Wiki Leaks for publishing. The resulting uproar cased more attention to be focused on Mrs. Palin during the 2008 race for the Presidency when she ran with John McCain. The hackers are believed to have used either widely available information to guess Palin’s password or a Trojan, a program that captured Palin’s keystrokes and allowed them to type her password (Shear & Vick, 2008). Even multinational corporations are possible targets despite their ability to move from one country to another. Sony was hacked by several anonymous hackers April 19, 2011, and the Play Station Network was down for several days as Sony was repairing the network. One of the given reasons by the hackers for attacking the network was the new firmware called a Root kit, which Sony had installed which allowed for remote updates whenever the system without the user’s knowledge. It was viewed as an invasion of privacy and possible motive for the attacks. The corporation was quick to blame the group Anonymous for the attack, but Anonymous has denied involvement. What made this attack so damaging was the response Sony took after the attacks, in which users had their credit cards, passwords, accounts, and other personal data. It took Sony a week to inform users of the attacks and had actually kept the system off line to rebuild the security system (Sangani 2011: 76-7). While they were rebuilding, the personal data could have been sold to private individuals or used by the hackers.
5 The individual alone is normally not thought of as a threat to a nation state, but improved information technology has given individuals the ability to gather, coordinate, and to launch both violent and non violent attacks against oppressive governments. The group Anonymous is one example of an organization putting a regime on the defensive by cyber attack. In a cyber attack by Anonymous, the Zimbabwean government and finance ministry websites were both attacked with a distributed denial of service attack. There were two reasons for the attacks, to protest the Zimbabwean government’s actions, and for the attack was the news of a 15 million dollar lawsuit against a The Standard, a local newspaper. The Standard had published an article exposing Grace Mugabe for her role in the illicit diamonds trade, citing a leaked embassy cable that was published on Wiki Leaks. The newspaper was charged by the government for defaming Grace Mugabe (Ragan 2010). This case was of the government being on the defensive, but not all governments are on the receiving end of cyber attacks, some attack their own people with information technology. During the Tunisian revolution, the Tunisian government had censored the Internet and used targeted phishing to steal passwords and information of Tunisians in order to spy on them and to hack websites that criticized the State. The Tunisian government has hacked en masse web sites before, but what made their phishing attack different was the malware used by the government to intercept information rather than hacking sites like Google or Facebook (Ryan 2011). The use of information technology by the regime was meant to curb dissent and control the population, usually by censorship and hacking accounts and blogs. Nations like China use extensive censoring to curb the freedoms of their people online, but the nature of the Internet and information technology makes such measures at best a temporary fix.
6 Not all attacks on a nation state are clearly from hacker organizations or from nation states. In the case of Estonia, the culprits could be from both groups, such as State sponsored hackers or hackers operating inside a nation state but otherwise not sanctioned and funded by the government. In the week before the attack, the Estonian government was removing a statue dedicated to the war dead of the Soviets in World War Two, a move that enraged many Russians both in Estonia and in Russia. The local Estonians called for the removal of the statue believing it was a reminder of Soviet dominance in the country and wanted it removed for decades but didn’t because of threats from Russia. When the Estonian government removed the statue, Russian chat forums and social sites were alit with anger and talk of changing Estonian policy. The next few days saw an attack on Estonia’s cyber infrastructure with multiple sites down, banks and news organizations and government sites were all targeted and disabled or taken down. The damage was extensive; the country was effectively cut off from the rest of the cyber world despite having been labeled the “most wired country in Europe” and the hackers were able to use servers from all over the world to attack the government of Estonia. The attacks highlighted a major weakness in Estonia’s security apparatus because of the potential for the long term damage of the attacks and the fact it was unexpected by the government (Davis 2007: 1-9). The most dangerous form of information based conflicts is Information Warfare, the use of information technologies as a tool to wage war similar to any other tool in a warfare setting such as bombs or WMDs. Unlike conventional wars, resulting in massive destruction of infrastructure, loss of lives, and other traits of war, information warfare is more precise and harder for governments to defend against than conventional weapons. Nations such as Russia,
7 the United States, and China have devoted time and resources to cultivating effective cyber based and information based weapons and defenses. The Chinese government is currently pursuing cyber warfare options in their military to make up for a less advanced mechanized military compared to the United States, a nation they view as a rival. Information warfare is considered “bloodless” and less likely to cause massive collateral damage by the People’s Liberation Army and more likely a first strike tool. As part of this new form of warfare, the Chinese military is training militias in information warfare tactics and psychological warfare as part of their capacity to attack decision making and perception (Krekel 2009: 19-20). The Chinese government is aware of the potentially dangerous diplomatic fallout of having cyber warfare militias and weapons and has taken steps to keep the units from leaking information about new weapons (Krekel 2009: 36). The Chinese government also engages in cyber espionage to gain unclassified but sensitive information from nations like the United States to gain advances technologically and militarily (Krekel 2009: 50-3). These new developments have not gone unnoticed by the United States and other nations. The United States and China are currently engaged in cyber war games to help ease tensions and to promote better cooperation and understanding. This is part of a new effort by the United States to engage in diplomacy and to avoid cyber war with China while having a better understanding of how these new weapons could work. For the Chinese government the accusations of being involved in cyber attacks and espionage are damaging to their government, which claims to have been subject to many such attacks. They also dismiss the claims they were responsible for the attacks on the United States and private firms. The Pentagon and the FBI have not released the names of the military officials engaged in these games and have raised alarms about the growing strength and scale of these attacks (Hopkins 2012).
8 Cyber warfare also incorporates the private individual and group with the nation state. The case of Estonia is probably one example of private individuals working for State interests in attacking a rival, as a matter of both power projection and to strike Estonia for an insult to the national pride of Russians. China also has a similar relationship, albeit a tenuous one, with their community of hackers. Known for supporting illegal hacking activities, the “Black Hat” community in China supply hacking software to the State to exploit weaknesses in new software before the weaknesses are known to developers, though the hackers sometimes cause more damage to Chinese interests than foreign interests (Krekel 2009: 7-8). The Black hat community engaged in politically motivated attacks and the “hacker wars” from 1999-2002, initially with the support of the Chinese government. After the Chinese government began cracking down, the hackers changed their roles and many started working with companies and the government on research (Krekel 2009: 37-8). In each case, information technology has been used to re-evaluate the power of individuals, whether they’re nation states, private firms, or individuals. In the case of the bullies and the Internet, the power to terrorize others now extends beyond the physical world and people need not be in the same country anymore to help humiliate of hurt someone. Words become typed responses, insults become more personal while the perpetrators become more obscure. New forms of bullying are possible; the victims of these attacks can live in different countries and never have met but suffer the same abuse from one or more bullies, who are similarly separated by thousands of miles and language and culture barriers. More awareness is being raised about the dangers of cyber bullying; legal questions are being raised about bullying. In Georgia, a teen had sued her cyber bullies for libel due to the fake Facebook profile her bullies made about her. In Canada and parts of the United States,
9 cyber bullies can be sued for their activities or censored if the actions are by students (Bielski 2012). New programs are being created to help people track the IP addresses of spam and other forms of marketing as well as potential scammers. One response to on-line scamming is a practice called “scam baiting” in which a scammer is tricked by the potential victim into various time wasting activities and ends up losing the chance to scam others as scam baiters have set up warning sites detailing their scam baiting schemes and the tactics such scammers use. For private firms, their power is greater with their ability to collect private data using various programs and software allows them more marketing tools to specialize their ads to individuals while tracking their spending habits and visits online via “cookies”. Yet hacking attacks and cyber espionage are more damaging to firms than they usually are to nation states because of the costs firms take in just for cyber security. Cyber attacks are particularly devastating to the private sector, with more than 85-90% of the Internet in private sector control rather than government control. Unlike nation states, private firms have no real recourse to stop hacking from nation states such as China due to the fact they’re not governments and lack militaries of their own. The only real recourse a firm has is to pressure governments to try and deal with states that hack the firm for business secrets. Nation states have the power to oppress their own people, or another population if they wished, because of their greater access to state resources for developing cyber tools. Cyber war is both a real and very dangerous development of information technology, as nation states can be crippled without using conventional weapons such as bombs. While not directly as environmentally damaging and immediately intimidating, cyber weapons can trump nuclear weapons by simply disabling the nation’s energy infrastructure and information hubs, as part of the current strategy of the Chinese. The potential damage from cyber war is as devastating as
10 conventional warfare, as the case of Estonia has shown. In just a few days, many major systems were shut down through distributed denial of service attacks and hacking, including critical infrastructures such as bank and media. The government of the U.K. and private firms are now trying to work together to improve cyber security for both private firms and the government. This step towards government and private sector cooperation is hampered by the economic crisis has created budget shortfalls for the government. Yet for private firms, some of their security technologies have practical applications and could be sold commercially, allowing for some funding to be channeled to the efforts of the government to provide extra security and assistance for the firms. The government is working with the private sector because of the stakes; about 6% of GDP for the U.K. comes from Internet related businesses, more than utilities or agriculture and will be a source of jobs in the future ("Gchq to help," 2011). The partnership with private firms also allows the government to create new incentives for business to research security technology that might cost the government more to research on its own, whether it’s new cyber security technology or possible cyber weapons. Non state actors can effectively launch their own war against a nation, making retaliatory attacks dangerous if the aggressor cannot be readily identified. In the case of Estonia, some of the Internet activity was traced to Russia, other traces shown that the attackers were in the United States. Similar, but less intensive, attacks in the United States were traced to China, Israel, and other nations. The technology to hide or change an IP address location is readily available and easily used, meaning an attacker can come from any location in the world that is wired. Attackers can be anywhere and nowhere at once, attacking from one nation while throwing the trail to many other nations. Russia reserves the right to retaliate against a cyber attack with
11 nuclear weapons according to the Russian government (Shackelford 2008: 215). The response itself could damage a nation that had nothing to do with the actual attacks, creating a war under false pretenses. Other nations, like China, do not have a clear definition of what could lead to physical retaliation for a cyber threat and to what scale. Grounds for war can be anything from disabling the government’s sanitation to stealing secrets to even angering the leadership. Cyber war is difficult to contend with under international law because much of the Internet is not policed by the State and in private hands. State sponsored hackers might attack another country but remain in the sponsor to avoid prosecution or to receive directions. Yet autonomous groups could attack nation states without the sponsorship of a State. For nation states to be “responsible” for a cyber attack, all the attackers need is to have the IP address of the nation state registered for the source of the attacks. This makes accusations of cyber attacks and waging cyber war dangerous because of the difficulty of proving the claim without offending and possibly provoking the supposedly offending nation state. The Chinese government is probably spying and testing cyber weapons, but the problem with claiming a State is responsible for all of the attacks is that hacking attacks are hard to pin down and it could be private actors within the national boundaries of the State that are acting on their own, and the attacks will still look as if they came from China even if the State did not sanction the attacks (Hopkins 2012). While openly criticizing the Chinese government could bring light to potential cyber espionage, such actions are possible sources of provocation and could be used to incite the hacker communities in China and even outside of China to attack an accusing nation state like the U.S.A. even if the government did not authorize the attacks. The actors for cyber war therefore can be driven to attack even if hostilities between governments and nation states remain simply accusations and words. In the case of China, open criticism can
12 lead to cyber attacks, with the case of Estonia it was a perceived insult to Russians. In both cases the nation state doesn’t need to declare a cyber war or list offenses since the actual actors in a cyber war can vary in their motivations and what constitutes an act of war can vary with the actors. Yet the suggested solutions from Russia and China are a form of arms control that would require greater transparency between governments in developing cyber tools and potential weapons. The United States and the United Kingdom have both suggested a form of international cooperation and harmonization of laws dealing with cyberspace, a proposal China and Russia find unsuitable. The infrastructure of the United States is extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks, one example being energy and utilities. New laws are being proposed and passed in many nations to deal with cyber based attacks on a domestic level, such as with cyber bullying and identity theft, but international consensus on how to govern cyberspace is lacking. Besides the problem of the majority of cyberspace being in private hands, nation states still try to influence the Internet for their own benefit, making a universal law governing the Internet an improbable task. This brings up the dangers of proliferation of cyber weapons amongst non state actors such as organized crime and terrorists. Even if nation states were to agree to universal laws governing the Internet, the knowledge of cyber weapons and the rate at which new software and information technologies are developed makes a new set of difficulties for nation states attempting to enforce such laws. As was the proliferation of nuclear weapons and small arms in previous decades, so to have cyber weapons and the knowledge to use software for purposes counter to State interests have spread and are easier to acquire. The very nature of the Internet is probably one of the biggest hurdles to universal governance and security because of the nature of
13 the Internet as a non physical space, an imagined community for which users can interact across barriers such as national boundaries. Information travels quickly and the global economy is built on ease of capital, information, and communication flows. This means the State eases their restrictions and regulations, but with this easing there is no governmental body to rule over a highly privatized Internet and many nation states will not want to sacrifice their sovereignty for some governance over the Internet. The very success of the many forms of globalization, particularly of economic liberalization and the defense of state sovereignty, also helps to maintain the power imbalance that comes from a free and open Internet. The nature of power has changed since the earliest city states of Sumer more than 6,000 years ago to the modern global society, the number of actors have increased along with the interconnections that helped mediate the balance of power in the past several thousand years. Up until the emergence of entities like the private firm, nation states held the monopoly on power. With the emergence of the Internet and the increasing interconnections of State and non State actors for economic, political, and social exchanges, the balance of power shifted from the complete State monopoly to one of ever changing power relations. The individual now can challenge a nation state, a company, or even attack other individuals, all from the safety and anonymity of the Internet. No longer are aggressors so clear and identifiable, nor are the powerful weapons simply the latest nuclear bombs or most powerful rifles. A simple computer virus created by a collective of hackers in multiple countries can pose a military threat to a powerful nation state. Yet the balance of power remains mostly with powerful nation states that have the resources, talent, and time to develop and empower their cyber presence. What has changed from earlier eras is that conventional arsenals are not the only measures of power. The very system of
14 Globalization, the interconnections of economics, politics, and people, has given some of that power to those capable of using information technology, whether they’re individuals, private firms, nation states, or even trans state entities. The modern balance of power is now in the hands of those who are best situated to use the connections of Globalization to their own benefit. In conclusion, the new advances in information technology have allowed for a rewriting of the balance of power. Originally a nation state had the monopoly on power because of a massive military force, but new advances of the Internet and software have permeated most things in life, including the military and the nation state. Anyone with the knowledge and time and a computer can attack a nation state, a private firm, or become a force in the global community. Globalization, the series of various global interconnections such as technology and economics, laid the roadwork for the circumstances and tools to wage cyber war. The balance of power shifted to those with the means to use information technology, benefitting mostly nation states who managed to fund and develop the cyber weapons and software needed to establish and maintain dominance in the global community. Individuals have also gained power to become forces in their own right, rewriting the relationship between government and the citizen. While attempts to regulate the Internet, are attractive to some, led to many issues of civil and human rights and problems of state and global governance. Regulation is good in some cases, such as targeting child predators and cyber criminals. Who regulates the State is a major issue dealing with national sovereignty and trans state governance as many governments fear being forced into policies that favor rivals or undermine their sovereignty. As part of the traditional balance of power, governments were absolute in their authority in domestic affairs, but the new balance of power requires a rethinking of the authority of the government and many governments, the United States, Russia, and China especially, are reluctant to delegate some of
15 their authority to any trans state institution that would resemble a global government with the power to punish and regulate their individual government activities absolutely without influence from member states. Advances in information technology have already changed the balance of power and with greater advances, the traditional balance of power and the ideology behind it will both be rendered obsolete. The question is how governments will deal with the new balance of power. Work Cited 1. Arthur, C., Quinn, B., & Godfrey, H. (2011, July 18). Sun website hacked by lulzsec. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/sun-website- hacked-lulzsec 2. Ball, J. (2012, March 07). The lulzsec hacking arrests won't make it safer online. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/07/lulzsec-hacking-arrests- fbi?intcmp=239 3. Bielski, Z. (2012, April 27). Teen sues facebook bullies for libel. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/teen-sues-facebook- bullies-for-libel/article2415738/?from=sec431 4. Davis, J. (2007, August 21). Hackers take down the most wired country in europe. Wired, Retrieved from http://www.buec.udel.edu/wraggej/MISY850-09S/Estonia.pdf 5. Eckholm, E., & Zezima, K. (2010, March 29). 6 teenagers are charged after classmate's suicide. The New York Tims. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/us/30bully.html?scp=4&sq=Phoebe Prince&st=cse
16 6. Gchq to help firms combat cybercrime. (2011, November 25). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15881297 7. Hopkins, N. (2012, April 16). Militarisation of cyberspace: How the global power struggle moved online. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/16/militarisation-of-cyberspace-power- struggle 8. Houghton, B. (2011, December 22). A list of the world's top piracy sites. Retrieved from http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/12/a-list-of-the-worlds-top-piracy-sites.html 9. Krekel, B. (2009). Capability of the people's republic of china to conduct cyber warfare and computer network exploitation. Retrieved from Northrop Grumman Corporation website: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi- bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA509000&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf 10. Koebler, J. (2012, March 20). U.S. nukes face up to 10 million cyber attacks daily. USA News. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/03/20/us-nukes-face- up-to-10-million-cyber-attacks-daily 11. Lee, D. (2012, April 20). 'revenge porn' website isanyoneup.com. closed by owner. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17784229 12. Ragan, S. (2010, December 30). Anonymous targets corrupt zimbabwe government. The Tech Herald, Retrieved from http://www.thetechherald.com/articles/Anonymous-targets- corrupt-Zimbabwe-government/12393/ 13. Ritzer, G. (2010). Globalization: A basic text. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 14. Rupert murdoch. (2012, March). Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/profile/rupert- murdoch/
17 15. Ryan, Y. (2011, January 6). Tunisia's bitter cyberwar. Aljazeera. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/01/20111614145839362.html 16. Sangani, K. (2011, September 22). Sony security laid bare. Engineering and Technology, 6(8), 74-77. 17. Shear, M. D., & Vick, K. (2008, September 18). Hackers access palin's personal e-mail, post some online. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/washpost/2008-09- 18_washpost_palin_email_hacked.pdf 18. Shackelford, S. J. (2008). From nuclear war to net war: Analogizing cyber attacks in international law. Berkley Journal of International Law, 27(1), 191-251. Retrieved from http://www.boalt.org/bjil/docs/BJIL27.1_Shackelford.pdf This is the exclusive property of Benjamin Andrew Morley. This piece shall not be reproduced without expressed permission of the author.

More Related Content

PPTX
Development communication
Trinity Dwarka
 
PPTX
Net neutrality
ZEESHAN ALI
 
PPTX
What is united nations
Anmol Sawhney
 
DOCX
The Arab Springs
Fahima
 
PPTX
Internet fraud #scichallenge2017
N F
 
PPTX
Community Radio for disaster management
Ankuran Dutta
 
PPTX
Presentation - Citizen Journalism
jessieyqm
 
PDF
Social Media Newsgathering Tools
Alaa Mahmoud
 
Development communication
Trinity Dwarka
 
Net neutrality
ZEESHAN ALI
 
What is united nations
Anmol Sawhney
 
The Arab Springs
Fahima
 
Internet fraud #scichallenge2017
N F
 
Community Radio for disaster management
Ankuran Dutta
 
Presentation - Citizen Journalism
jessieyqm
 
Social Media Newsgathering Tools
Alaa Mahmoud
 

What's hot (16)

PPTX
Online journalism
Laiba Yaseen
 
PDF
Cyberwarfare
Space Defense Newsletter
 
PPTX
China in Africa
Ryan Maxwell
 
PDF
cyber security and impact on national security (3)
Tughral Yamin
 
PPTX
A Guide to Social Network Analysis
Olivier Serrat, PhD
 
PDF
BOTNET
Arjo Ghosh
 
PDF
Contemporary world-media
NEO NEWS NETWORK
 
PPTX
Cyber Crime Investigation
Harshita Ved
 
PPTX
Medium is the Message
Muhammad Rawaha Saleem
 
PDF
Voici le contrat pour les gros investisseurs
Rachid Rchidi
 
PPTX
Media regulation
taliasmith
 
DOCX
THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENT...
Kasthuripriya Nanda Kumar
 
PDF
Journalism in Pakistan - Training Needs Assessment
Amir Jahangir
 
PPT
06 un responses to conflict
fatima d
 
PDF
Information Operations: What It Is and Why It Matters
Jeffrey Malone
 
PPTX
David Gauntlett
Zoe Lorenz
 
Online journalism
Laiba Yaseen
 
Cyberwarfare
Space Defense Newsletter
 
China in Africa
Ryan Maxwell
 
cyber security and impact on national security (3)
Tughral Yamin
 
A Guide to Social Network Analysis
Olivier Serrat, PhD
 
BOTNET
Arjo Ghosh
 
Contemporary world-media
NEO NEWS NETWORK
 
Cyber Crime Investigation
Harshita Ved
 
Medium is the Message
Muhammad Rawaha Saleem
 
Voici le contrat pour les gros investisseurs
Rachid Rchidi
 
Media regulation
taliasmith
 
THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF STUDENT...
Kasthuripriya Nanda Kumar
 
Journalism in Pakistan - Training Needs Assessment
Amir Jahangir
 
06 un responses to conflict
fatima d
 
Information Operations: What It Is and Why It Matters
Jeffrey Malone
 
David Gauntlett
Zoe Lorenz
 
Ad

Similar to Cyber Security in the Age of Globalization (20)

PDF
Brown and Beige Aesthetic Vintage Group Project Presentation.pdf
venuspatatag4
 
PDF
Cyber Crime Essay
Paper Writing Service Reviews
 
DOC
Computer crimes
essay-writing-help.us
 
DOCX
64The Empire Strikes Back Social Media Uprisings and .docx
evonnehoggarth79783
 
DOCX
AN ARTICLE: Is Tiktok a tool for Chinese spies
Yokimura Dimaunahan
 
PDF
HacktivismPaper.docx
Desarae Veit
 
PPT
28658043 cyber-terrorism
Dharani Adusumalli
 
PDF
Manipulating Social Media to Undermine Democracy 2017 Final
Alireza Ghahrood
 
PDF
The Patriot Act Title Vii Section 814 And 816
Nicole Fields
 
PPTX
Cybercrime: A Seminar Report
Arindam Sarkar
 
PDF
Delincuencia Cibernética- Inglés
Gim Andrade Vidal
 
DOCX
WHAT ARE THE METHODS THAT CAN BE EMPLOYED TO REDUCE THE TH.docx
philipnelson29183
 
DOCX
Cyberterrorism can be in the form of Information attacks which a.docx
whittemorelucilla
 
PDF
Social Network Crime on Rise
Dominic Karunesudas
 
PPT
Polinter11
Jeffrey Hart
 
PDF
Traditional Terrorists
Christina Ramirez
 
PDF
Future_Radicals_Study_Guide_HIGH_RES
Jenny O'Meara
 
DOCX
(Lim Jun Hao) G8 Individual Essay for BGS
Jun Hao Lim
 
DOCX
Social-Media
Alexander Deucalion
 
PPTX
impact of cyber crime on youth ppt |pptx
omihospitalzoom
 
Brown and Beige Aesthetic Vintage Group Project Presentation.pdf
venuspatatag4
 
Cyber Crime Essay
Paper Writing Service Reviews
 
Computer crimes
essay-writing-help.us
 
64The Empire Strikes Back Social Media Uprisings and .docx
evonnehoggarth79783
 
AN ARTICLE: Is Tiktok a tool for Chinese spies
Yokimura Dimaunahan
 
HacktivismPaper.docx
Desarae Veit
 
28658043 cyber-terrorism
Dharani Adusumalli
 
Manipulating Social Media to Undermine Democracy 2017 Final
Alireza Ghahrood
 
The Patriot Act Title Vii Section 814 And 816
Nicole Fields
 
Cybercrime: A Seminar Report
Arindam Sarkar
 
Delincuencia Cibernética- Inglés
Gim Andrade Vidal
 
WHAT ARE THE METHODS THAT CAN BE EMPLOYED TO REDUCE THE TH.docx
philipnelson29183
 
Cyberterrorism can be in the form of Information attacks which a.docx
whittemorelucilla
 
Social Network Crime on Rise
Dominic Karunesudas
 
Polinter11
Jeffrey Hart
 
Traditional Terrorists
Christina Ramirez
 
Future_Radicals_Study_Guide_HIGH_RES
Jenny O'Meara
 
(Lim Jun Hao) G8 Individual Essay for BGS
Jun Hao Lim
 
Social-Media
Alexander Deucalion
 
impact of cyber crime on youth ppt |pptx
omihospitalzoom
 
Ad

More from Benjamin Morley (7)

PDF
Inter-Caste Marriage in Urban India
Benjamin Morley
 
PDF
Non
Benjamin Morley
 
PDF
Power Balance
Benjamin Morley
 
PDF
The Tea Party Social Movement Profile
Benjamin Morley
 
PDF
Anth 324 S 11
Benjamin Morley
 
PDF
Global Financial Institutions final exam
Benjamin Morley
 
PDF
Case Study Nagaland Conflict in India
Benjamin Morley
 
Inter-Caste Marriage in Urban India
Benjamin Morley
 
Non
Benjamin Morley
 
Power Balance
Benjamin Morley
 
The Tea Party Social Movement Profile
Benjamin Morley
 
Anth 324 S 11
Benjamin Morley
 
Global Financial Institutions final exam
Benjamin Morley
 
Case Study Nagaland Conflict in India
Benjamin Morley
 

Cyber Security in the Age of Globalization

  • 1. 1 Benjamin A. Morley GLOA 600 Research Paper May 9, 2012 Cyber Security and the State in the Age of Globalization In the age of Globalization, advances in communications and information technology have created a new field of conflict that threatens the traditional power of the Nation State and empowers the individual. Information technology is a new tool for waging conflicts, whether between individual, Nation States, or even between individuals and the Nation State. The use of cyber weapons like hacking gives the aggressor global strike capacity in real time, while rendering conventional security measures ineffective. The best missile defense shield is less effective at deterring a faceless cyber enemy that can strike from anywhere in the globe and damage infrastructure without resorting to conventional warfare. Corrupt regimes can crumble from the forces of Twitter and the Iphone even after enduring for decades with armed force. Individuals can now bring down the powerful in a society, attack nations, or even wield political power that was impossible before the introduction of advanced information technologies. Despite being a new threat to the balance of power, the very system of Globalization, the interconnections that connect the globe, makes conventional controls over power less useful and potentially obsolete. Cyber space is an artificial scape created by and maintained over the workings of computer systems and their exchange of data. It’s artificial but it also has the unique characteristic of allowing travel to anywhere in the scape free of physical borders and open
  • 2. 2 access normally to anyone who can connect to it. By its nature cyber space is borderless and relatively lawless in the regard that no one nation state has full control or jurisdiction over the scape and even when laws are put on the books in a given nation state, they are hard to enforce in the whole of cyber space. Powerful nation states like the United States and China have some influence, but even this influence can be checked as the blatant disregard for intellectual property rights is rampant on the Internet in sites like Pirates’ Bay and torrentz.eu (Houghton, 2011). In this paper, cyber crime and cyber conflict will be analyzed on several levels starting from individuals targeting each other and will progress to nation states targeting each other. One new use for information technology, cell phones, the Internet, social media, etc., is to bully others. Cyber bullying is the use of social media and other forms of media based technology to torment a victim in a manner identical to conventional forms of bullying. This might manifest in posting rumors about the victim on chat forums, emailing or texting threatening messages, and otherwise abusing the victim by the use of media. The case of the suicide of Phoebe Prince, a freshman in South Headley high school in Massachusetts in 2010, was an example of bullies coordinating efforts on social websites and targeting Ms. Prince on a daily basis. While the physical abuse was prominent, the bullies were using media to attack Ms. Prince. The resulting bullying was such that Ms. Prince committed suicide rather than face anymore of the torments (Eckholm & Zezima, 2010). This is just one example of information technology being used to attack others, but when individuals conglomerate into bands or organizations, their ability to attack other people grows. Besides using social websites to terrorize individuals, information technology can make the humiliation and pain of bullying and abuse a truly global experience. When some relationships turn sour, previously secret intimate information can become public by one of the
  • 3. 3 ex-lovers in a bid to humiliate the other. With the Internet, cell phones, and general ease of uploading personal information anonymously, this takes on a new level of abuse. There are countless websites catering to revenge on the Internet, the following is one example of such a website that combined pornography, invasion of privacy, and public exposure to help angry ex- lovers take revenge. People used the site, IsAnyoneUp.com to get revenge on their ex lovers by posting pornographic photos for public viewing. Along with photos, personal information, links to social websites, and the victim’s locations were posted on the site. Effectively the victim would have not just their picture on-line, but their full name, home address, age, and their social and Internet life exposed for anyone visiting the site. The site also catered to a global audience, making the exposure global. The founder of the site, Hunter Moore, gave control to the site to Bullyville.com, an anti-bullying website, after trouble with under aged victims winding up on the site. Bullyville later took down the site to stop more posts on it, claiming the site itself was part of on-line abuse (Lee 2012). Individuals in a society can have varying degrees of prestige, power, and wealth, but with new information technologies and cyber space, every individual has the power to target, damage, or destroy strangers and people in positions of power that would have otherwise been unassailable by normal means, legal or otherwise. Rupert Murdoch was the owner of The Sun website, is number twenty four on Forbes’ list of the most powerful people in the world, and runs a media empire (“Rupert murdoch,” 2012). Yet LulzSec, a hacker group that splintered from Anonymous, hacked Murdoch’s the Sun website and vandalized it with reports of his death and claims of having sensitive emails and information. News International, a media organization owned by Murdoch, was also hacked and several sites from the organization were taken down (Arthur, Quinn & Godfrey, 2011). This attack was an example of how even the powerful in
  • 4. 4 society are at risk of attack with the advances in information technology. Not all attacks by individuals are aimed at powerful members of society. The group Anonymous proved that security was at risk by rising information technology in 2008 when members hacked and released several emails from the email account of then governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. The hackings occurred during allegations of Mrs. Palin using her personal email to conduct governmental business and in a scandal involving her brother-in- law and the public safety inspector. The hacker group gave the stolen emails to Wiki Leaks for publishing. The resulting uproar cased more attention to be focused on Mrs. Palin during the 2008 race for the Presidency when she ran with John McCain. The hackers are believed to have used either widely available information to guess Palin’s password or a Trojan, a program that captured Palin’s keystrokes and allowed them to type her password (Shear & Vick, 2008). Even multinational corporations are possible targets despite their ability to move from one country to another. Sony was hacked by several anonymous hackers April 19, 2011, and the Play Station Network was down for several days as Sony was repairing the network. One of the given reasons by the hackers for attacking the network was the new firmware called a Root kit, which Sony had installed which allowed for remote updates whenever the system without the user’s knowledge. It was viewed as an invasion of privacy and possible motive for the attacks. The corporation was quick to blame the group Anonymous for the attack, but Anonymous has denied involvement. What made this attack so damaging was the response Sony took after the attacks, in which users had their credit cards, passwords, accounts, and other personal data. It took Sony a week to inform users of the attacks and had actually kept the system off line to rebuild the security system (Sangani 2011: 76-7). While they were rebuilding, the personal data could have been sold to private individuals or used by the hackers.
  • 5. 5 The individual alone is normally not thought of as a threat to a nation state, but improved information technology has given individuals the ability to gather, coordinate, and to launch both violent and non violent attacks against oppressive governments. The group Anonymous is one example of an organization putting a regime on the defensive by cyber attack. In a cyber attack by Anonymous, the Zimbabwean government and finance ministry websites were both attacked with a distributed denial of service attack. There were two reasons for the attacks, to protest the Zimbabwean government’s actions, and for the attack was the news of a 15 million dollar lawsuit against a The Standard, a local newspaper. The Standard had published an article exposing Grace Mugabe for her role in the illicit diamonds trade, citing a leaked embassy cable that was published on Wiki Leaks. The newspaper was charged by the government for defaming Grace Mugabe (Ragan 2010). This case was of the government being on the defensive, but not all governments are on the receiving end of cyber attacks, some attack their own people with information technology. During the Tunisian revolution, the Tunisian government had censored the Internet and used targeted phishing to steal passwords and information of Tunisians in order to spy on them and to hack websites that criticized the State. The Tunisian government has hacked en masse web sites before, but what made their phishing attack different was the malware used by the government to intercept information rather than hacking sites like Google or Facebook (Ryan 2011). The use of information technology by the regime was meant to curb dissent and control the population, usually by censorship and hacking accounts and blogs. Nations like China use extensive censoring to curb the freedoms of their people online, but the nature of the Internet and information technology makes such measures at best a temporary fix.
  • 6. 6 Not all attacks on a nation state are clearly from hacker organizations or from nation states. In the case of Estonia, the culprits could be from both groups, such as State sponsored hackers or hackers operating inside a nation state but otherwise not sanctioned and funded by the government. In the week before the attack, the Estonian government was removing a statue dedicated to the war dead of the Soviets in World War Two, a move that enraged many Russians both in Estonia and in Russia. The local Estonians called for the removal of the statue believing it was a reminder of Soviet dominance in the country and wanted it removed for decades but didn’t because of threats from Russia. When the Estonian government removed the statue, Russian chat forums and social sites were alit with anger and talk of changing Estonian policy. The next few days saw an attack on Estonia’s cyber infrastructure with multiple sites down, banks and news organizations and government sites were all targeted and disabled or taken down. The damage was extensive; the country was effectively cut off from the rest of the cyber world despite having been labeled the “most wired country in Europe” and the hackers were able to use servers from all over the world to attack the government of Estonia. The attacks highlighted a major weakness in Estonia’s security apparatus because of the potential for the long term damage of the attacks and the fact it was unexpected by the government (Davis 2007: 1-9). The most dangerous form of information based conflicts is Information Warfare, the use of information technologies as a tool to wage war similar to any other tool in a warfare setting such as bombs or WMDs. Unlike conventional wars, resulting in massive destruction of infrastructure, loss of lives, and other traits of war, information warfare is more precise and harder for governments to defend against than conventional weapons. Nations such as Russia,
  • 7. 7 the United States, and China have devoted time and resources to cultivating effective cyber based and information based weapons and defenses. The Chinese government is currently pursuing cyber warfare options in their military to make up for a less advanced mechanized military compared to the United States, a nation they view as a rival. Information warfare is considered “bloodless” and less likely to cause massive collateral damage by the People’s Liberation Army and more likely a first strike tool. As part of this new form of warfare, the Chinese military is training militias in information warfare tactics and psychological warfare as part of their capacity to attack decision making and perception (Krekel 2009: 19-20). The Chinese government is aware of the potentially dangerous diplomatic fallout of having cyber warfare militias and weapons and has taken steps to keep the units from leaking information about new weapons (Krekel 2009: 36). The Chinese government also engages in cyber espionage to gain unclassified but sensitive information from nations like the United States to gain advances technologically and militarily (Krekel 2009: 50-3). These new developments have not gone unnoticed by the United States and other nations. The United States and China are currently engaged in cyber war games to help ease tensions and to promote better cooperation and understanding. This is part of a new effort by the United States to engage in diplomacy and to avoid cyber war with China while having a better understanding of how these new weapons could work. For the Chinese government the accusations of being involved in cyber attacks and espionage are damaging to their government, which claims to have been subject to many such attacks. They also dismiss the claims they were responsible for the attacks on the United States and private firms. The Pentagon and the FBI have not released the names of the military officials engaged in these games and have raised alarms about the growing strength and scale of these attacks (Hopkins 2012).
  • 8. 8 Cyber warfare also incorporates the private individual and group with the nation state. The case of Estonia is probably one example of private individuals working for State interests in attacking a rival, as a matter of both power projection and to strike Estonia for an insult to the national pride of Russians. China also has a similar relationship, albeit a tenuous one, with their community of hackers. Known for supporting illegal hacking activities, the “Black Hat” community in China supply hacking software to the State to exploit weaknesses in new software before the weaknesses are known to developers, though the hackers sometimes cause more damage to Chinese interests than foreign interests (Krekel 2009: 7-8). The Black hat community engaged in politically motivated attacks and the “hacker wars” from 1999-2002, initially with the support of the Chinese government. After the Chinese government began cracking down, the hackers changed their roles and many started working with companies and the government on research (Krekel 2009: 37-8). In each case, information technology has been used to re-evaluate the power of individuals, whether they’re nation states, private firms, or individuals. In the case of the bullies and the Internet, the power to terrorize others now extends beyond the physical world and people need not be in the same country anymore to help humiliate of hurt someone. Words become typed responses, insults become more personal while the perpetrators become more obscure. New forms of bullying are possible; the victims of these attacks can live in different countries and never have met but suffer the same abuse from one or more bullies, who are similarly separated by thousands of miles and language and culture barriers. More awareness is being raised about the dangers of cyber bullying; legal questions are being raised about bullying. In Georgia, a teen had sued her cyber bullies for libel due to the fake Facebook profile her bullies made about her. In Canada and parts of the United States,
  • 9. 9 cyber bullies can be sued for their activities or censored if the actions are by students (Bielski 2012). New programs are being created to help people track the IP addresses of spam and other forms of marketing as well as potential scammers. One response to on-line scamming is a practice called “scam baiting” in which a scammer is tricked by the potential victim into various time wasting activities and ends up losing the chance to scam others as scam baiters have set up warning sites detailing their scam baiting schemes and the tactics such scammers use. For private firms, their power is greater with their ability to collect private data using various programs and software allows them more marketing tools to specialize their ads to individuals while tracking their spending habits and visits online via “cookies”. Yet hacking attacks and cyber espionage are more damaging to firms than they usually are to nation states because of the costs firms take in just for cyber security. Cyber attacks are particularly devastating to the private sector, with more than 85-90% of the Internet in private sector control rather than government control. Unlike nation states, private firms have no real recourse to stop hacking from nation states such as China due to the fact they’re not governments and lack militaries of their own. The only real recourse a firm has is to pressure governments to try and deal with states that hack the firm for business secrets. Nation states have the power to oppress their own people, or another population if they wished, because of their greater access to state resources for developing cyber tools. Cyber war is both a real and very dangerous development of information technology, as nation states can be crippled without using conventional weapons such as bombs. While not directly as environmentally damaging and immediately intimidating, cyber weapons can trump nuclear weapons by simply disabling the nation’s energy infrastructure and information hubs, as part of the current strategy of the Chinese. The potential damage from cyber war is as devastating as
  • 10. 10 conventional warfare, as the case of Estonia has shown. In just a few days, many major systems were shut down through distributed denial of service attacks and hacking, including critical infrastructures such as bank and media. The government of the U.K. and private firms are now trying to work together to improve cyber security for both private firms and the government. This step towards government and private sector cooperation is hampered by the economic crisis has created budget shortfalls for the government. Yet for private firms, some of their security technologies have practical applications and could be sold commercially, allowing for some funding to be channeled to the efforts of the government to provide extra security and assistance for the firms. The government is working with the private sector because of the stakes; about 6% of GDP for the U.K. comes from Internet related businesses, more than utilities or agriculture and will be a source of jobs in the future ("Gchq to help," 2011). The partnership with private firms also allows the government to create new incentives for business to research security technology that might cost the government more to research on its own, whether it’s new cyber security technology or possible cyber weapons. Non state actors can effectively launch their own war against a nation, making retaliatory attacks dangerous if the aggressor cannot be readily identified. In the case of Estonia, some of the Internet activity was traced to Russia, other traces shown that the attackers were in the United States. Similar, but less intensive, attacks in the United States were traced to China, Israel, and other nations. The technology to hide or change an IP address location is readily available and easily used, meaning an attacker can come from any location in the world that is wired. Attackers can be anywhere and nowhere at once, attacking from one nation while throwing the trail to many other nations. Russia reserves the right to retaliate against a cyber attack with
  • 11. 11 nuclear weapons according to the Russian government (Shackelford 2008: 215). The response itself could damage a nation that had nothing to do with the actual attacks, creating a war under false pretenses. Other nations, like China, do not have a clear definition of what could lead to physical retaliation for a cyber threat and to what scale. Grounds for war can be anything from disabling the government’s sanitation to stealing secrets to even angering the leadership. Cyber war is difficult to contend with under international law because much of the Internet is not policed by the State and in private hands. State sponsored hackers might attack another country but remain in the sponsor to avoid prosecution or to receive directions. Yet autonomous groups could attack nation states without the sponsorship of a State. For nation states to be “responsible” for a cyber attack, all the attackers need is to have the IP address of the nation state registered for the source of the attacks. This makes accusations of cyber attacks and waging cyber war dangerous because of the difficulty of proving the claim without offending and possibly provoking the supposedly offending nation state. The Chinese government is probably spying and testing cyber weapons, but the problem with claiming a State is responsible for all of the attacks is that hacking attacks are hard to pin down and it could be private actors within the national boundaries of the State that are acting on their own, and the attacks will still look as if they came from China even if the State did not sanction the attacks (Hopkins 2012). While openly criticizing the Chinese government could bring light to potential cyber espionage, such actions are possible sources of provocation and could be used to incite the hacker communities in China and even outside of China to attack an accusing nation state like the U.S.A. even if the government did not authorize the attacks. The actors for cyber war therefore can be driven to attack even if hostilities between governments and nation states remain simply accusations and words. In the case of China, open criticism can
  • 12. 12 lead to cyber attacks, with the case of Estonia it was a perceived insult to Russians. In both cases the nation state doesn’t need to declare a cyber war or list offenses since the actual actors in a cyber war can vary in their motivations and what constitutes an act of war can vary with the actors. Yet the suggested solutions from Russia and China are a form of arms control that would require greater transparency between governments in developing cyber tools and potential weapons. The United States and the United Kingdom have both suggested a form of international cooperation and harmonization of laws dealing with cyberspace, a proposal China and Russia find unsuitable. The infrastructure of the United States is extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks, one example being energy and utilities. New laws are being proposed and passed in many nations to deal with cyber based attacks on a domestic level, such as with cyber bullying and identity theft, but international consensus on how to govern cyberspace is lacking. Besides the problem of the majority of cyberspace being in private hands, nation states still try to influence the Internet for their own benefit, making a universal law governing the Internet an improbable task. This brings up the dangers of proliferation of cyber weapons amongst non state actors such as organized crime and terrorists. Even if nation states were to agree to universal laws governing the Internet, the knowledge of cyber weapons and the rate at which new software and information technologies are developed makes a new set of difficulties for nation states attempting to enforce such laws. As was the proliferation of nuclear weapons and small arms in previous decades, so to have cyber weapons and the knowledge to use software for purposes counter to State interests have spread and are easier to acquire. The very nature of the Internet is probably one of the biggest hurdles to universal governance and security because of the nature of
  • 13. 13 the Internet as a non physical space, an imagined community for which users can interact across barriers such as national boundaries. Information travels quickly and the global economy is built on ease of capital, information, and communication flows. This means the State eases their restrictions and regulations, but with this easing there is no governmental body to rule over a highly privatized Internet and many nation states will not want to sacrifice their sovereignty for some governance over the Internet. The very success of the many forms of globalization, particularly of economic liberalization and the defense of state sovereignty, also helps to maintain the power imbalance that comes from a free and open Internet. The nature of power has changed since the earliest city states of Sumer more than 6,000 years ago to the modern global society, the number of actors have increased along with the interconnections that helped mediate the balance of power in the past several thousand years. Up until the emergence of entities like the private firm, nation states held the monopoly on power. With the emergence of the Internet and the increasing interconnections of State and non State actors for economic, political, and social exchanges, the balance of power shifted from the complete State monopoly to one of ever changing power relations. The individual now can challenge a nation state, a company, or even attack other individuals, all from the safety and anonymity of the Internet. No longer are aggressors so clear and identifiable, nor are the powerful weapons simply the latest nuclear bombs or most powerful rifles. A simple computer virus created by a collective of hackers in multiple countries can pose a military threat to a powerful nation state. Yet the balance of power remains mostly with powerful nation states that have the resources, talent, and time to develop and empower their cyber presence. What has changed from earlier eras is that conventional arsenals are not the only measures of power. The very system of
  • 14. 14 Globalization, the interconnections of economics, politics, and people, has given some of that power to those capable of using information technology, whether they’re individuals, private firms, nation states, or even trans state entities. The modern balance of power is now in the hands of those who are best situated to use the connections of Globalization to their own benefit. In conclusion, the new advances in information technology have allowed for a rewriting of the balance of power. Originally a nation state had the monopoly on power because of a massive military force, but new advances of the Internet and software have permeated most things in life, including the military and the nation state. Anyone with the knowledge and time and a computer can attack a nation state, a private firm, or become a force in the global community. Globalization, the series of various global interconnections such as technology and economics, laid the roadwork for the circumstances and tools to wage cyber war. The balance of power shifted to those with the means to use information technology, benefitting mostly nation states who managed to fund and develop the cyber weapons and software needed to establish and maintain dominance in the global community. Individuals have also gained power to become forces in their own right, rewriting the relationship between government and the citizen. While attempts to regulate the Internet, are attractive to some, led to many issues of civil and human rights and problems of state and global governance. Regulation is good in some cases, such as targeting child predators and cyber criminals. Who regulates the State is a major issue dealing with national sovereignty and trans state governance as many governments fear being forced into policies that favor rivals or undermine their sovereignty. As part of the traditional balance of power, governments were absolute in their authority in domestic affairs, but the new balance of power requires a rethinking of the authority of the government and many governments, the United States, Russia, and China especially, are reluctant to delegate some of
  • 15. 15 their authority to any trans state institution that would resemble a global government with the power to punish and regulate their individual government activities absolutely without influence from member states. Advances in information technology have already changed the balance of power and with greater advances, the traditional balance of power and the ideology behind it will both be rendered obsolete. The question is how governments will deal with the new balance of power. Work Cited 1. Arthur, C., Quinn, B., & Godfrey, H. (2011, July 18). Sun website hacked by lulzsec. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/18/sun-website- hacked-lulzsec 2. Ball, J. (2012, March 07). The lulzsec hacking arrests won't make it safer online. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/07/lulzsec-hacking-arrests- fbi?intcmp=239 3. Bielski, Z. (2012, April 27). Teen sues facebook bullies for libel. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/teen-sues-facebook- bullies-for-libel/article2415738/?from=sec431 4. Davis, J. (2007, August 21). Hackers take down the most wired country in europe. Wired, Retrieved from http://www.buec.udel.edu/wraggej/MISY850-09S/Estonia.pdf 5. Eckholm, E., & Zezima, K. (2010, March 29). 6 teenagers are charged after classmate's suicide. The New York Tims. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/us/30bully.html?scp=4&sq=Phoebe Prince&st=cse
  • 16. 16 6. Gchq to help firms combat cybercrime. (2011, November 25). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15881297 7. Hopkins, N. (2012, April 16). Militarisation of cyberspace: How the global power struggle moved online. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/16/militarisation-of-cyberspace-power- struggle 8. Houghton, B. (2011, December 22). A list of the world's top piracy sites. Retrieved from http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/12/a-list-of-the-worlds-top-piracy-sites.html 9. Krekel, B. (2009). Capability of the people's republic of china to conduct cyber warfare and computer network exploitation. Retrieved from Northrop Grumman Corporation website: http://www.dtic.mil/cgi- bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA509000&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf 10. Koebler, J. (2012, March 20). U.S. nukes face up to 10 million cyber attacks daily. USA News. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/03/20/us-nukes-face- up-to-10-million-cyber-attacks-daily 11. Lee, D. (2012, April 20). 'revenge porn' website isanyoneup.com. closed by owner. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17784229 12. Ragan, S. (2010, December 30). Anonymous targets corrupt zimbabwe government. The Tech Herald, Retrieved from http://www.thetechherald.com/articles/Anonymous-targets- corrupt-Zimbabwe-government/12393/ 13. Ritzer, G. (2010). Globalization: A basic text. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. 14. Rupert murdoch. (2012, March). Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/profile/rupert- murdoch/
  • 17. 17 15. Ryan, Y. (2011, January 6). Tunisia's bitter cyberwar. Aljazeera. Retrieved from http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/01/20111614145839362.html 16. Sangani, K. (2011, September 22). Sony security laid bare. Engineering and Technology, 6(8), 74-77. 17. Shear, M. D., & Vick, K. (2008, September 18). Hackers access palin's personal e-mail, post some online. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/washpost/2008-09- 18_washpost_palin_email_hacked.pdf 18. Shackelford, S. J. (2008). From nuclear war to net war: Analogizing cyber attacks in international law. Berkley Journal of International Law, 27(1), 191-251. Retrieved from http://www.boalt.org/bjil/docs/BJIL27.1_Shackelford.pdf This is the exclusive property of Benjamin Andrew Morley. This piece shall not be reproduced without expressed permission of the author.