President Obama's Cyber Soldiers

Legal Review of President's Cyber Authority: Can he protect us?

02/14/2013

 The future of American security could rest on the presidents shoulders, or at least, so a recent review of Obama's authority over cyber weapons would have us believe.  However, while this may allow us to stave off large scale attacks, similar to DDOS, how does a cyber attack stave off a virus that does not need a coordinated network of computers to function?  Can it?  This quote is from the article Broad Powers Seen for Obama in Cyberstrikes from the New York Times.

The rules will be highly classified, just as those governing drone strikes have been closely held.John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser and his nominee to run the Central Intelligence Agency, played a central role in developing the administration’s policies regarding both drones and cyberwarfare, the two newest and most politically sensitive weapons in the American arsenal.

As you can see from the quote above, many details as to the presidents authority, and by virtue ability to protect the public from attacks are not public information.  While secrecy does help in terms of not allowing our enemies to prepare, it cripples at least my, and I would imagine, the public confidence.   The fact that the military is looking out for public interest is touching, but how much can it do about rogue skilled hackers?   The public needs to know, especially in terms of an open source resource like the internet, what the president is doing or planning on doing, so it can give our approval over a shared resources treatment.  Having the non-specific details given to the public, or at least something like the american IEEE, for feedback would be extremely comforting to the public in my opinion.  Unfortunately given the current state of affairs, there is no way for the public to educate themselves on american cyber-military protocols, because there isn't any real information on them.  A quote from google news article:  US military review backs pre-emptive cyber strikes

The military and top civilian officials examined scenarios for offensive cyber ops while updating "rules of engagement" for the armed forces, adding the digital realm to the standard battle areas of air, land, sea and space.

"They're trying to normalize cyber as a domain," the official added.

Even the military does not know how its going to handle all of this at the moment, its finalizing its policies. While it is comforting that the military wants to protect us, having a public resource suddenly policed is going to be quite a shock.  For example, what if we released a targeted virus on Chinese server clusters, and the virus didn't stay targeted.  If a nasty virus created by the US got into the wild, what would be done about the damage?  Would there be reparations?  What if the US caused a large section of the internet to crash, and fail.  What if your small business was linked through that portion of the net?  What would happen? Again from the New York Times:

While many potential targets are military, a country’s power grids, financial systems and communications networks can also be crippled. Even more complex, nonstate actors, like terrorists or criminal groups, can mount attacks, and it is often difficult to tell who is responsible. Some critics have said the cyberthreat is being exaggerated by contractors and consultants who see billions in potential earnings.

This type of attack could EASILY have collateral damage, so the question isn't really a what if, so much as a when.  Its a question that we should all be concerned with, and that none of us really can afford to ignore.  The better question here, is not just what can we do to attack our enemies online, but how to protect ourselves from said attacks.  I urge you to read up on modern issues, even if it something as simple as reading Google technology news.  Contact your senators or congressmen, let them know what you think.  An informed country is a better country.