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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: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday February 15 2017, @06:53PM
It is highly unusual for the weapons themselves to be calling for a convention. And besides, there is already the Tallinn Manual.
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Thursday February 16 2017, @08:47AM
Oh, obviously no one has heard of the Tallinn Manual [wikipedia.org] Kind of a big deal for cyberwarfare, when it came out. But obviously no Microsoft involvement, since they are a weapon and not a party to any international agreements. I am surprised more Soylentils are not up to date on the international laws as regards getting a total idiot elected president of America!
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Thursday February 16 2017, @04:35PM
getting a total idiot elected president of America!
They've all been total idiots. It is a prerequisite for the job -- no, for the career choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @03:44AM
The Talinn manual? It's almost funny. We have real war crimes taking place in the world. Among them are UN troops run amok, raping innocent women in Africa. And, these experts are placing cyber attacks and cyber crime on the same level as real war crimes?
Large portions of the world's population has no access, or limited access, to clean, healthy water, many of them due to war. And, experts are as concerned about internet access as they are about access to clean, safe water?
As much as I value my electronic devices, and access to the world outside my home area, those electronics simply can't be compared to food, water, and shelter. Electronic crimes cannot be compared to rape, robbery, murder, and mutilation. Electronic acts of war can't be compared to firebombing a city.
If "developed" nations are vulnerable to cyberwarfare, they have no one but themselves to blame. There are no stone tablets, written by the finger of God, commanding nations to commit the security of infrastructure, and military command to electronic devices. Nor is there a law that commands that these networks be accessible by outside networks.
If your local water/electricity/traffic control systems go down to a cyberattack, then your elected and appointed officials need to be crucified, because they have completely and utterly failed.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday February 17 2017, @11:49PM
As much as I value my electronic devices, and access to the world outside my home area, those electronics simply can't be compared to food, water, and shelter.
Point taken. But it is well to remember that a lot of this started as C's, as in attacking command and control, of the military. Then it was command, control, communications. And C4: command, control, communication and computers! DARPANet was designed to be all of that, and to be able to survive, to various levels of "survive", a nuclear attack.
The danger is that all these is the tendency to group everything into the "target" category using the concept of "dual-use". This is why the US claimed it was legitimate to take out water-purification plants and electrical power. And the same would apply to internet communications: the hostile is only directly attacking the military use of said infrastructure, so the impact on non-combatants is unintentional.
Of course the creeping nature of such justifications soon can remove that distinction. The 4C's transform into "information warfare", were information, and dis-information, become weapons, and weapons directly and intentionally targeted at civilians, and most often the military's own civilians, because (in democratic societies at least) they have the greatest ability to defeat the military by removing its funding. It's all fake news from here on out, comrade!