PHILOSOPHICAL & ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF INFORMATION-CYBER-WARFARE:Richard S.Y. Kim PhD, 1st Doctoral Thesis Proposal--Mentor: John Ian Kleinig, BDiV, PHD, F.Warren Ned Benton, PhD, Adina Schwartz, JD. PhD

SURVEILLANCE, CRIME & PHILOSOPHY & CULTURE Richard S. Kim Prof. John Kleinig Preliminary Introduction (Part 1) March 11, 2002 Socio-Political and Ethical Aspects of Information Warfare and Policy Computers, information systems and telecommunications have globally structured and digitized how technology has been used for the maintenance of national defense, infrastructure, and financial institutions. These are the three primary sectors where security issues are of considerable importance because of the interactive and global nature of information warfare (cyberterrorism, cyberwarfare and financial crimes committed through the use of computers) which policy analysts and scholars believe poses a threat in the near future in the U.S and abroad. Information Warfare (IW) “involves action taken to achieve information superiority by affecting adversary information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks while defending one’s own information, information-based processes, information systems, and computer-based networks.” Cyberwarfare involves defending information and computer networks, deterring information attacks, as well as denying an adversary ability to do the same. It can include offense information operations mounted against an adversary, or even dominating information on the battlefield. Cyberwar often refers to information-military oriented warfare involving high intensity conflicts. Information warfare on lesser scale is classified as Netwar. Netwar is referred to as low intensity conflict involving operations other than war (as in terrorist activities), and non-military modes of conflict and crime. These threats may pose a significant harm to various institutions that heavily rely on informational technology. A global theory of “informationalism” and a “network society,” which analyzed the changing of the global socio-political economy due to informational technology, was advanced by Manuel Castells. Castells argues that there was a growing shift towards the electronic use of information, which had a revolutionary affect on how society and nation states conducts it economic and political affairs, tantamount to the momentous changes brought about the Industrial Revolution. Informationalism grew with the emergence of a new economy, “because of the productivity and competitiveness of units or agents in this economy (be it firms, regions or nations) fundamentally depend upon the capacity to generate, produce and apply efficiently knowledge based information.” Castells defines “networks” as the productivity that is generated through a network of linkages between competing economic agents. This mode of analysis extends to a political landscape, where competing or conflicting political agents or institutions may engage in war for the purposes of military and political dominance. The information revolution has made an impact on terrorists, and non-state agent group, and organized crime syndicates conduct their military campaigns and criminal enterprises. The use of networks in such organizations organize themselves into sprawling multi-organizational networks, sectioning themselves off into nodes , as for example the Al-Qaeda network, who communicate to each other in cells and public internet cafes across the world. Terrorists suppose that information operations may be useful as a traditional military operative for achieving their goal for achieving their goals, systematic disruption as much as destruction. Terrorist activity employing network strategies reap the advantages of utilizing such resources to facilitate its campaigns and use cyber technology as made evident in the 9/11 attack of World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Electronic financial information was destroyed prior to the attack on the World Trade Center. Michael Vatis, former director of the FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) writes: American and allied military strikes are likely to lead to further terrorist strikes against Americans and allied citizens and interests, both in the U.S. and abroad. This aggression will likely take a variety of forms and may include cyber attacks by terrorist groups themselves or targeted by nation-states. Even more likely are cyber attacks by sympathizers of terrorists, hackers with general anti-U.S. or allied sentiments………During the past five years, the world has witnessed a clear escalation in the number of politically motivated cyber attacks, often embroiling hackers from around the world in regional disputes. One instance of cyberwarfare between two nation-states reveals a terrifying example of how cyber technology can be used to increase military and political conflict. The affects of mid air collision between an American surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter aircraft in April 1, 2001 shows the potential for international conflict between nation states. The resulting political conflict between the two major powers was accompanied by an online campaign of mutual cyber attacks and web defacement, with both sides receiving support from hackers around the globe. Chinese hacker groups, such as the Honker Union of China and the Chinese Red Guest Network Security Technology Alliance, organized a massive and sustained week-long campaign of cyber attacks against American targets, which led NIPC in the U.S. to issue an advisory on April 26, 2001, warning the “potential for increased hacker activity directed at the U.S. systems in the April and May of 2001. After approximately 1,200 U.S. sites including those belonging to the White House, U.S. Air force and the Department of Energy had been subjected to denial of service attacks, the attacks stopped. Analysts and experts report that cyber attacks will precede a military use of force as perceived in the conflicts between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Muslims Indian and the Indian government, and the conflict in Kosovo directed against NATO. It is important to note that the “U.S. does not expect to detect much hard evidence when these cyber threats exists; indeed the more serious the less likely there is to be a priori evidence.” Such a threat would be logically unseen, as the secrecy and the undetectable nature of a cyber attack would preclude an assessment of the immediate harm. Moreover, there have been few studies of the ethics in justifying the use of cyber technology in support policies implementing security measures in respect to information warfare. Is the ethical and policy question: can a ethical framework be applied to uses of cyber weaponry used by the state and criminal justice agencies to certain scenarios and events when security and interests are involved? And if an ethical framework can be applied, what would be the justifications and conditions for engaging in war, where cyber technology plays a key role in policy formulations? In addition, what would be the rules governing how such a war is to be conducted, where military or police action is involved? What actions would be classified as “acts of war” in cyber attack situations? James Moor, a leading figure in computer ethics, argues for the application of computer ethics in need to justify how computer are used in supporting social, legal and governmental policies. Moor believes that there is currently “a policy and a conceptual vacuum.” Often either no policies for conduct in these situations exist or existing one are inadequate. Moor argues for the “formulation and justification of policies for the ethical use of technology.” Some scholars have argued that a state is justified in using cyber weapons in a state of political conflict, when a state is attacked by terrorists or other states, where the use of such technology is necessary to protect, defend, prevent and deter hostile agents from making further attack. Other scholars have applied the traditional just war theory to the use of cyber technology as a moral category in framing a policy response to how nations and organizations would engage in cyber attacks when in midst of military conflict or when victimized through the use of computer technology by hackers , organized criminal groups, terrorists, and other nation states. The concepts of jus ad bellum and jus in bello are primarily confined to definitional concepts of when a war is defensive/offensive, and what type of technological weaponry, when used, constitutes an “act of war” when there is political conflict between hostile nations…………... (IN PROGRESS)