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Politics

El desarrollo de nuevas normas de ciberseguridad

Mar 8, 2018 Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

CAMBRIDGE – El mes pasado, el secretario general de las Naciones Unidas, António Guterres, pidió una acción global para minimizar el riesgo que supone la guerra electrónica para los civiles. Guterres expresó preocupación porque “no hay un esquema regulatorio para este tipo de guerra” y señaló que “no está claro de qué manera se le aplican la Convención de Ginebra o el derecho internacional humanitario”.

Diez años atrás, la ciberseguridad recibía poca atención como tema internacional. Pero desde 2013, se la describe como la mayor amenaza que enfrenta Estados Unidos. Las cifras exactas son opinables, pero el “informe de seguimiento de ciberoperaciones” del Consejo de Relaciones Exteriores señala que desde 2005 hubo casi 200 ataques con patrocinio estatal de 18 países, de los que 20 ocurrieron en 2016.

El término ciberseguridad se refiere a una amplia variedad de problemas que la pequeña comunidad de investigadores y programadores que desarrolló Internet en los años setenta y ochenta no tuvo muy en cuenta. En 1996, sólo usaban Internet 36 millones de personas (cerca del 1% de la población mundial). A inicios de 2017 ya había 3700 millones de personas conectadas, casi la mitad de la población mundial.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 3 Comments on this article

Eduardo Rodriguez Mar 11, 2018

I haven't found any difference between cybersecurity and information security, or IT security, yet. And many researchers and practitioners have been working on solving IT Sec issues for several decades now.
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Nathan W Mar 11, 2018

The author clearly has no idea what "electronic warfare" means. It is not about the internet.

It is somewhat of an embarrassment to "The West" as a whole that someone in a position of such stature has not been assured of information enabling to avoid projecting such profound lack of knowledge on a subject so critical to mental and physical security of civilians.
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j. von Hettlingen Mar 9, 2018

Joseph S. Nye fears that the acronym “www” would soon be called the “wild west web” in the absence of norms that provide for cyber security. Calls for tougher laws and norms to secure the cyberspace are loud. But there are difficult hurdles to be taken. The biggest challenge is that – thanks to technological development – “cyber time moves quickly, /while/ human habits, norms, and state practices change more slowly.”
Internet is a global “network of networks”, with most of which being “privately owned” and “non-state actors” increasingly playing “a major role.” Back in the 1970s cyber security was not a problem until in the 1990s. Since then cyber attacks have been on the rise, because the increasing reliance on computer networks also created new vulnerabilities. “Cyber tools are dual use, fast, cheap, and often deniable, verification and attribution are difficult, and entry barriers are low.”
The author says, “while the Internet is transnational, the infrastructure (and people) on which it relies fall within the differing jurisdictions of sovereign states.” This raises the questions of how to define the term “cyberspace” and to enforce norms that govern behaviour in cyberspace. Although international agreements are urgently needed, “major states differ in their objectives, with Russia and China stressing the importance of sovereign control, while many democracies press for a more open Internet.”
An attempt was made two decades ago, when “Russia first proposed a UN treaty to ban electronic and information weapons (including for propaganda purposes). With China and other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it has continued to push for a broad UN-based treaty. The US continues to view such a treaty as unverifiable.” Ironically China and Russia have been actively engaged in launching cyber attacks and waging a cyber war against Western democracies.
In 2015 the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (UN GGE) recommended norms, rules and principles for the responsible behaviour of States, as they have been developing military capabilities for military purposes. There was widespread fear that the use of cyber tools in future conflicts would become “more likely”, especially should critical infrastructure systems come under attack.
The Obam-administration saw a breakthrough for cyber diplomacy: China and the US “reached a bilateral agreement restricting cyber espionage for commercial purposes.” The 2015 UN GGE report “was later endorsed by the G20”. But in 2017 the UNGGE failed to agree on a new report. Cyber diplomacy has been disrupted under Trump, and efforts have been made ever since to tackle the challenge.
Microsoft has clamoured for “a new Geneva Convention on the Internet”, like norms “regarding privacy and security” that could have abusive content – child pornography, hate speech, disinformation and terrorist threats – removed.
While there are calls for protecting “the public core of the Internet (defined to include routing, the domain name system, certificates of trust, and critical infrastructure)”, autocrats insist on “recognition of the right of sovereign states to control online content on their territory.” In many cases the control is superfluous, because foreign websites seen critical of their regimes are simply blocked.
The author says, “this need not contradict the call to protect the public core, which refers to connectivity rather than content.” Nevertheless this constitutes an infringement on the freedom of expression, which includes the free flow of information, without its content being censored by state authorities.
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