Today I came across a couple of conflicting posts about the word “Cyberwar” and whether they accurately describe the state of things. First was Bruce Schneier’s opinion that “The Threat of Cyberwar Has Been Grossly Exaggerated.” He concedes that he lost a debate on this very subject, but points out that the debate, and ongoing discussion has more to do with a disagreement on the definition than a disagreement on the current threats in cyberspace. Sometime later in the day, I was promised by Matt Olney Yes, Virginia, There is Cyberwar.
I agree with Schneier on this one. It’s not that I don’t see potential for something like a “Cyberwar” but to suggest that the attacks happening now constitute a war really stretches the concept of war.
Olney states: “It exists as certainly as espionage, defacing and cybercrime exist, and you know that they abound and are a threat.”
I absolutely agree that espionage, defacing and cybercrime exist, but I don’t agree that their existence is anywhere near sufficient to constitute a war. The non cyber equivalents of those things do not indicate war, so why should they in cyberspace? The United States and other nations have spies in other countries. Espionage is a concern for the security of every nation, but that doesn’t mean everyone is at war. Valuable property is stolen in the real world, kids have defaced almost any hard physical surface you can think of with spray paint, markers, or carvings and yet that has never been classed as a war.
“But we know that networks can be penetrated, servers can be compromised and we even know that generators can be destroyed simply by instructions from control servers. We also know that there are those who would seek to harm us. So yes, Virginia, there is cyberwar.”
We know that houses and offices can be burglarized, sensitive documents and property can be stolen and we even know that power lines can be taken down by a drunk driving his car into a pole. We know there are mean people out there, so we’re at war? Nah. I’m not buying it.
Certainly security is an issue. There are definitely threats from many different sources that need to be addressed. If you want to say “Cyberwar” like we talk about the “War on Drugs”, “War on Obesity” or “Battle of the Sexes” then fine, but when you degrade the language into Newspeak, then we’ll all be worse off.