Should we prohibit the development of the cyber command
Cyber weapons includes computer viruses and software that can be used to penetrate enemy networks.
Defining these tools as weapons, as opposed to systems or processes, allows the military to apply the same authorisation controls as they apply to conventional weapons such as guns and tanks. Cyber command Cyber command has been defined as a command for network which subordinate to the state. They have three tasks, attack, defence and development. Lets use the first establishment of cyber command, the US Cyber Command, to be an example to explain. US Cyber Command centralizes command of cyberspace operation and organizes existing cyber resources, these can help for the network developmant.
In the defence side, US Cyber Command synchronizes defense of US military and the US government services networks, to comfirm that US will be safe under any situations. In the attack side, it also include that the background why Cyber Command had aroused the international concern. In 2010, It has waged cyberwar. US Cyber Command postponed the development of nuclear weapon of Iran. It involves hacking and attack. This aggressive action had aroused international concern. Why We chose this topic because of Edward Joseph Snowden. He was an NSA system administrator.
He was wanted by USA because he published th of the U. S. classified intelligence to public. He came to Hong Kong to publish these secret file. This action had aroused international concern, including us. He had published the PRISM project which U. S. is preparing to do. U. S. can through PRISM to get all the data about us, like e-mail, file, video, login information. Also, he said that U. S. has developed over 2000 cyber weapon to destroy computer system. We are interested in this because we think our privacy are not save and our national security is threatened .
This resentation will focus on whether we should prohibit the development of Cyber Command as a part of Cyberwarfare. Later on, Jacky will discuss about cyber command in different perspective. Conclusion We disagree with prohibiting the development of Cyber Command but should be focus on the defensive purpose and the technology development. Since the offensive provocation could lead to real war, the offensive development should be prohibited. We think that enhancing the national cyber technology is very important. Cyber weapon meets an objective which would require spy or the use of force.
Such actions include theft of data and destroy of data. Theft of data or intellectual property, such as proprietary information of a business, classified information of a government or military. Destruction of data or programs on the system, less frequently, damage to the computer hardware, in the most extreme case, damage to an electromechanical or process control system such that a serious industrial accident results in loss of life or major economic damages. To protect the citizens’ right and their life, to prevent the terrorist attack national computer systems, the development of Cyber Command s necessary.
Predicted Future In the future, we predict that first, every countries will develop cyber command overtly or covertly, because we are in cyber era, it is necessary to have a cyber command to deal with the network security problem. second, cyberwar may lead to real war as Ken mentioned. third, National security agencies and law enforcement agencies will promote cooperation, because they need to deal with the privacy problem. In the following time, I am going to analysis the problem in social interest perspective and national security perspective.
But before that, I will talk about the development of cyber command first. In the past, Cyber Command in different countries were mainly focus on the defensive purpose. They Just want to improve the firewall, to improve their network security and thus to thwart cyber attack. But in recent years, they have been starting to change the focus to offensive purpose. They are actively to develop different cyber weapons and hacking others computer system to collect information. The U. S. Cyber Command has a monitoring program to collect data and to know someone’s whereabouts.
Their targets are not only the important member of other countries, but also the citizens. The media in U. S. disclosed that they has been monitoring Internet service providers user database, which including G-mail in google, yahoo email, skype, facebook etc. What you have done in the computer is possible to be monitored. Our personal privacy is infringed and it is the right of everyone. Therefore , in the social interest perspective, the development of Cyber Command should be stop. But, in the National security perspective, the US government explained that the onitoring program is used for against Terrorism.
They hack in some database system and get the information about the terrorists in order to track them and thus to avoid terrorist attack. Besides that, developing Cyber Command can improve the protection of the national computer system. One ot the task ot the Cyber Command is to protect the whole country’s network by filtering some harmful website, e-mails. In other words, they protect the citizen computers from attacking by others. The citizen will be more save to do online shopping or something else. And also prevent the leak of national secret ocuments.
As US government reported that they had been received several times of attack by China, some of the secret documents may be copied, which threaten the national security of US. An air force general asked why we should wait for the attack from others and take response to it? He then suggested an idea, “Offense is the best defense” and there is a term of this defense, we called active cyber defense. They has developed many cyber weapons and has been actively hacking other countries computer systems with the “Defensive purpose”. It is undoubtedly that it is effective for national security.
The development of Cyber Command also help to enhance the technology level. The better hacking skills, stronger firewall is for better protection to the nation. But it is not Just benefit to the security aspect. The task of development of Cyber Command not Just the attack skill and cyber weapon, but also the improvement of both the speed, the memory size of computer, and the transmission speed of internet. It is benefit to the evolution of human technology level. I have mentioned many advantages if developing the Cyber Command, but there are some possible disadvantages to national security.
First, the Cyber Command may threaten to the national security itself. Since whole national computer system is controlled by them, they can hack in the military system and then dominate the whole country. Second, we cannot completely control the action of hackers in the Cyber Command. If they attack the banking system so as to obtain benefit, we may not know who did it as they have the best hacking skills. Also, they may sell the secret national documents to other countries implicitly to obtain benefit. Then, Ken will discuss the problem in another perspectives. In political perspective, it is concerned the relations between countries.
Firstly, prohibit the development of Cyber Command can maintain world peace. If we do not prohibit this development, it will destroy partnership between countries. Cyber weapons mean monitoring computer system, stealing private information or destroying program system. When a government uses cyber weapons, it threatens other countries because they doubt their secret national documents have been divulged and blame the country which using cyber weapons. Also, hacking is a serious problem and may damage international relation. Due to hacking, the country which its system was hacked must stop the cooperation with the hacking country.
If countries use cyber weapons more frequently, their distrust between countries must be increased. This provocation is possible to wage real war, the world peace is destroyed. However, the development of Cyber Command will be of benefit to a country. If a country can hold a strong cyber-military, it can strengthen international status. Besides, a country develops Cyber Command to steal other national secret information, they can clearly know other countries’ situations then it can enhance ore influence on the determinations in international affairs.
Developing Cyber Command also protect interests and dignity of nation. When a country can prevent cyber-attack from other countries, they protect their interests and dignity. The next is economic perspective. In this point of view, developing Cyber Command need to increase government expenditure because they must use super computer in Cyber Command. Oppositely, it can increase employment rate in I. T. industry because it need a lot of experts in computer to wage cyber-attack or defend hacking. Also, it can protect financial service.
Many financial activities like stock market are controlled by computer system, if there is cyber-attack to these financial activities, it will make a huge economic loss. Therefore, we need to develop Cyber Command for defending cyber-attack, it can avoid economic loss. Four perspectives on development of cyber command have been discussed. Now, I will talk the complexity on this topic. We find two dilemmas in developing Cyber Command, world peace versus national benefit and privacy versus security. I talk about world peace versus national benefit first.
If we hope for world peace, we should not wage any types of war including cyber war. Even though cyber warfare will not make actual harm such as casualties, it will cause bad relation between different countries. Consequently, the real war occurs because relations between countries have been destroyed. But countries can get benefits in cyber war. On the other hand, some governments think monitoring is a good way to maintain national security. However, citizens do not agree that they are monitored by the government because they do not want to lose their freedoms and privacies.
