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Reader riposte: What is 'cyberwar', anyway?

Reader riposte: What is 'cyberwar', anyway?
Published 25 Sep 2013 

Darragh Murray writes:

I found the recently published post by Ian Wallace another example of a somewhat frustrating article on ‘cyber’ warfare.

That there is some kind of 'warfare' taking place on telecommunications networks (outside of fictional networked video games) is increasingly becoming a taken-for-granted fact. Espionage, crime - sure - but warfare? Unless the definition of warfare has changed substantially, I'm still unsure how an actor might actually use the Internet to gain strategic or tactical advantages in the field of war. Yet articles like the one Ian Wallace has published indicates that there is, or there might be, such uses for the Internet .

Questions I'd love answered include: have there been recorded cases of states or non-state actors using networked technology for a strategic or tactical advantage in war? Or, in what circumstances can an actor gain advantage in war through use of cyber 'weapons' (whatever they might be) that couldn't be gained using preexisting 'conventional' weaponry?

It seems to me that those advocating the existence of cyber war (or its possibility) do a poor job of articulating the utility of cyberspace as a domain of conflict outside of describing it in terms more relevant to espionage or crime. Call me paranoid, but the increasing rhetoric of ‘cyber’ warfare seems more about consolidating state power over the Internet than it has to do with actual important security concerns.



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