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Microsoft's President Brad Smith is calling for a Digital Geneva Convention:
Microsoft is calling for a Digital Geneva Convention, as global tensions over digital attacks continue to rise. The tech giant wants to see civilian use of the internet protected as part of an international set of accords, Brad Smith, the company's president and chief legal officer, said in a blog post.
The manifesto, published alongside his keynote address at the RSA conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, argued for codifying recent international norms around cyberwarfare and for establishing an independent agency to respond to and analyze cyberattacks.
From the blog post:
Just as the Fourth Geneva Convention has long protected civilians in times of war, we now need a Digital Geneva Convention that will commit governments to protecting civilians from nation-state attacks in times of peace. And just as the Fourth Geneva Convention recognized that the protection of civilians required the active involvement of the Red Cross, protection against nation-state cyberattacks requires the active assistance of technology companies. The tech sector plays a unique role as the internet's first responders, and we therefore should commit ourselves to collective action that will make the internet a safer place, affirming a role as a neutral Digital Switzerland that assists customers everywhere and retains the world's trust.
Also at The Seattle Times and USA Today.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 15 2017, @05:28PM
What makes MS, or anyone else, think this could possibly work, or that nation-states would be interested in supporting it? The big nation-states are the ones doing many of the cyberattacks. They're not going to stop because of some agreement. At best, they'll give it lip service and then keep on hacking.
Of course, the tech companies could come up with their own agreement, but that too is useless unless they all move all their operations to Switzerland or the Moon: the governments will simply force them to comply with their hacking and surveillance efforts, using National Security Letters here in the US for example.
Finally, for the real Geneva Convention, as TFA says the Red Cross was involved to police it. The Red Cross is an international non-profit humanitarian body, not a for-profit corporation. Why would we want to trust for-profit corporations, who will simply push us to use their shoddy, compromised products and services (with useless promises that they're "safe" and "secure") so they can make more money, instead of directing us to Free/Open-Source alternatives where we really can inspect the code for vulnerabilities and back-doors, make any fixes we want, and there's no profit motive at work?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by jmorris on Wednesday February 15 2017, @05:39PM
I suspect the idea is like the old Soviet era extensions to the Geneva Conventions. We in the West would have (political pressure from the usual NGO community) to obey while our enemies wouldn't obey, even if they signed or were even capable of signing.
Microsoft supports this for two primary reasons. One is the simple one, they are a SJW converged entity. The more interesting one is self interest. As cyberwar becomes mainstream nobody is going to want to have a Microsoft OS since they are roach motels distributed from a U.S. based corporation. The promise that nobody will attack civilian IT operations in Western and "non-aligned" areas will calm the market... for a few years until stupid people realize the ones launching attacks against them aren't playing along. IT shops in enemy areas will keep buying because they willl be fairly sure the U.S. not only won't break the deal and attack 'civilian' IT they will be effectively barred from any cyber attack other than very targeted ops against WMD and other special high value targets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:12PM
Yup this is more of the same SJW virtue signaling that Microsoft is famous for. Notice how they didn't blog about this when their Dem cronies were in power. Just a cheap shot at Trump.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by turgid on Wednesday February 15 2017, @08:55PM
Ding ding ding!
...and...
The two hackneyed terms employed by the Alt-Wrong when stupid signalling their bigotry.
Congratulations!
BTW, Microsoft are evil.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday February 15 2017, @10:49PM
Ironically, the very specific terminology J-Mo uses (virtue signalling, cuck, SJW, Dork...err, DARK Enlightenment, etc) is itself a form of virtue signalling.
...except he hasn't got any actual virtue to signal. What do we call it? Vice Signalling? Posturing? Dogwhistling? Haldol deficiency?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...