3 ms·

Because a government hacking another government to disable military infrastructure is clearly an act of war. Spying is a pseudo-accepted peace time activity, mi

• EthanHeilman 12y ago
  To add to your point: computer espionage is the first and often second to last step before computer sabotage. You could build a program protected by cryptography that without the key would be indistinguishable from spyware, but with the key would be very destructive. You can't know the intention of a computer network operation until the attacker pulls the trigger and releases the key and by then it is too late. In conventional espionage sabotage does not have the same footprint as intelligence collection. They are easier to tell apart. For this reason merely copying the rules and norms of HUMINT and SIGINT into computer network operations is very dangerous.