Return-Path: <sentto-279987-1227-989527134-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.1.0) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Thu, 10 May 2001 13:40:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 684 invoked by uid 510); 10 May 2001 19:40:50 -0000 Received: from c3.egroups.com (208.50.99.225) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 10 May 2001 19:40:50 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-1227-989527134-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.4.55] by c3.egroups.com with NNFMP; 10 May 2001 20:38:57 -0000 X-Sender: ellisd@cs.ucsb.edu X-Apparently-To: iwar@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_2); 10 May 2001 20:38:53 -0000 Received: (qmail 55775 invoked from network); 10 May 2001 20:37:41 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 10 May 2001 20:37:41 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO letters.cs.ucsb.edu) (128.111.41.13) by mta2 with SMTP; 10 May 2001 20:37:36 -0000 Received: from plover (plover [128.111.48.34]) by letters.cs.ucsb.edu (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA02189 for <iwar@egroups.com>; Thu, 10 May 2001 13:37:35 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: ellisd@plover To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.4.21.0105101002490.882-100000@kenny> From: Dan Ellis <ellisd@cs.ucsb.edu> Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 13:37:35 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] when back alley fights really hurt Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit We have all witnessed the pathetic reports of the nature of the 'cyber war' between Chinese Honkers and American teenagers. (Aside: I am glad that it was a pathetic engagement.) It seems that nothing happened that couldn't just be shrugged off as harmless but annoying. What happens when these teenagers (or other uebercrackers) do something more than just deface webpages? What I mean by 'more' is something substantial, like disrupt EMS, effectivly disrupt a power grid, or disrupt our economy through psyops, etc. Although not necessarily sanctioned or launched by the PRC, would the US consider this a military offensive? Would they consider the PRC responsible for the engagement? Is the PRC responsible to make sure that its citizens are not engaging in warfare operations? If the US did deem such an attack a military offensive and if (a big if) the US could isolate the attacks as coming from the Honker Union or some other subset of Chinese nationalists (other than the Chinese military), does the US declare war against the Honkers, simply engage in information operations against the Honkers, or do they pull the PRC into the mix? Is there some other alternative? The US has, in the past, taken action against a government or regime (Saddam Hussein) but made it clear that we were not warring with 'the people of Iraq', just their leader. Could the opposite be true? Would the US ever declare war or initiate operations against a (subset of the) people but not the government of that people? It appears that escalation may be provided, not just by nation states (or their militaries), but by individuals from either nation, or, because of the lack of authentication over our communication media, some third party (eg, Taiwa--to beat the PRC with a big American stick). Comments on any of the following are requested: 1) Does a nation have the responsibility to keep its own in check? 2) How does a nation respond to a threat that is projected by a proper subset of another nation's population? Is this just another case of terrorism? 3) How substantial does an attack (from somebody other than a nation state) need to be before it justifies/demands/etc. some sort of retaliation? ------------------------------ Dan Ellis, PhD student, UCSB http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~ellisd Home: (805) 971-6183 Work: (805) 893-4394 Fax: (805) 893-8553 ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-06-30 21:44:12 PDT