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You guys know me. I'm the first to run around with their hair on fire when we're talking about illegal or dangerous use of technology by the state. But there a

You guys know me. I'm the first to run around with their hair on fire when we're talking about illegal or dangerous use of technology by the state. But there are a couple of things to consider here. 1) " a team of international law practitioners and scholars" -- International Law is an attempt to use treaties and legal customs to resolve disputes among international actors. I won't say that it's a fiction, but states have a tendency to interpret these things in the way that suits them. 2) While I have no doubt that these scholars did a bang-up job inside their own discipline, the field of unconventional internet warfare (which I suppose differs from "regular" internet warfare) is really, really new. The big boys are going to decide how this plays out, not the lawyers 3) Even assuming that the scholars have it right, and that the field is mature enough for their opinions to be useful and/or valid, states do things all the time that are illegal. The problem here is that they got caught. I have no idea where this is headed. I'm guessing this low-level stuff will morph into large numbers of civilians being killed at some point. Only then will the players decide if and how to ratchet it down a couple of notches. (I am reminded by this story that WWII was highly illegal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellogg%E2%80%93Briand_Pact http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellogg%E2%80%93Briand_Pact)

gadders 14y ago
That is the elephant in the room - that whole "no such thing as international law" concept that people find hard to grasp.
- kyllo 14y ago
  International law is a thing now, but it won't be respected until there are teeth behind it. And there won't be teeth behind it until there is actually a functioning world government with military and police power. Most currently powerful countries are too self-interested and enjoy their freedom and autonomy too much to actually want such a thing to exist. The UN is an attempt at it, but it is not powerful enough because the powerful member states undermine its authority by vetoing everything that goes against their individual interests. So it gets used as a mere tool for powerful countries to police weak countries' internal and neighborly disputes.
  - lmickh 14y ago
    The UN fails at it because that is not what it is designed to do. It is supposed to be an organization to drive international cooperation. Any attempt or hope to make the UN anything else is a waste of time. It is not a government body with its own legitimacy. It never will be without radical reform.
    - kyllo 14y ago
      Fair enough; then the point stands that declaring an action "illegal" under international law is meaningless because no party has a legitimate mandate to enforce international law.
  - jbooth 14y ago
    The UN's doing exactly what it was designed to do, to be a talking shop for great powers in order to make WWIII less likely. It was never designed to be a world government or anything close to the sort.
  - gadders 14y ago
    And the fact that the UN has no moral authority either.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Its a fair point that 'law' isn't what folks necessarily think it is. The role of law changes as we move from municipality to city to county to state to nation and to the world at large. But by and large the law seeks to be an expression of the principles under which we agree to be governed, rules if you will, that codify acceptable and unacceptable behavior or action. The world is having a conversation with itself. It does so constantly as it seeks to understand what is expected of it. The discussion of computerized warfare or criminal activity is one that has lots of variants. From Aaron Schwartz to DMCA to Stuxnet to peering agreements and spam. To have that discussion we have to decide on what we can agree on, and what we can't. And when I read this paper I felt starting from the perspective doing a person or property physical harm, was a good step at differentiating between computer acts. We've had an ongoing discussion about economic damage (piracy being the common one), and not a lot about "harmless" hacks. Having a common understanding about these things are going to be instrumental in writing credible laws about what constitutes a computer crime and what doesn't. All of that takes thought. And this team has thrown their thoughts out there for consideration. Discussing them is the next step to figure out where we agree and where we disagree.
zeteo 14y ago
International law is a very good case study of why the law matters less than the interpretation. Even more so when the law is old and being stretched to deal with completely new phenomena.

gadders 14y ago

That is the elephant in the room - that whole "no such thing as international law" concept that people find hard to grasp.

kyllo 14y ago
International law is a thing now, but it won't be respected until there are teeth behind it. And there won't be teeth behind it until there is actually a functioning world government with military and police power. Most currently powerful countries are too self-interested and enjoy their freedom and autonomy too much to actually want such a thing to exist. The UN is an attempt at it, but it is not powerful enough because the powerful member states undermine its authority by vetoing everything that goes against their individual interests. So it gets used as a mere tool for powerful countries to police weak countries' internal and neighborly disputes.
- lmickh 14y ago
  The UN fails at it because that is not what it is designed to do. It is supposed to be an organization to drive international cooperation. Any attempt or hope to make the UN anything else is a waste of time. It is not a government body with its own legitimacy. It never will be without radical reform.
  - kyllo 14y ago
    Fair enough; then the point stands that declaring an action "illegal" under international law is meaningless because no party has a legitimate mandate to enforce international law.
- jbooth 14y ago
  The UN's doing exactly what it was designed to do, to be a talking shop for great powers in order to make WWIII less likely. It was never designed to be a world government or anything close to the sort.
- gadders 14y ago
  And the fact that the UN has no moral authority either.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Its a fair point that 'law' isn't what folks necessarily think it is. The role of law changes as we move from municipality to city to county to state to nation and to the world at large. But by and large the law seeks to be an expression of the principles under which we agree to be governed, rules if you will, that codify acceptable and unacceptable behavior or action. The world is having a conversation with itself. It does so constantly as it seeks to understand what is expected of it. The discussion of computerized warfare or criminal activity is one that has lots of variants. From Aaron Schwartz to DMCA to Stuxnet to peering agreements and spam. To have that discussion we have to decide on what we can agree on, and what we can't. And when I read this paper I felt starting from the perspective doing a person or property physical harm, was a good step at differentiating between computer acts. We've had an ongoing discussion about economic damage (piracy being the common one), and not a lot about "harmless" hacks. Having a common understanding about these things are going to be instrumental in writing credible laws about what constitutes a computer crime and what doesn't. All of that takes thought. And this team has thrown their thoughts out there for consideration. Discussing them is the next step to figure out where we agree and where we disagree.

zeteo 14y ago

International law is a very good case study of why the law matters less than the interpretation. Even more so when the law is old and being stretched to deal with completely new phenomena.