Lost in cyberspace: Harnessing the Internet, international relations, and global security

Abstract

Early in the twenty-first century, new, cyber-based threats to the well-being of individuals, economies, and societies added a new dimension to the well-understood threats of the twentieth century. For the first time in human history, advances in information and communications technologies are potentially accessible to much of the world’s population. These Internet based advances allow almost anyone to disseminate messages, meaning that a wide range of actors, state and nonstate, have the potential to disrupt networks and commerce with relatively little fear of discovery. In cyberspace, it is hard to know with certainty what is behind a particular action—and actions in one place can have effects around the world. A powerful example of how advances in cyberspace have changed the national security environment is the deployment of Stuxnet, a complex piece of malicious software that reportedly damaged the uranium enrichment facilities of Iran’s nuclear program (Broad and Sanger, 2010). Both Israel and the United States have been blamed as creators of the virus, but in part because of the nature of cyberspace, the origin of the software remains in dispute.1 Another apparent case of international relations conducted in cyberspace were the 2007 cyber attacks that overwhelmed the websites of prominent Estonian organizations, including public-sector agencies, banks, and media firms. Some Estonian officials blamed Russia for the attacks, but responsibility was never proved. Similarly, in 2010 Google announced that it and a variety of high-tech, security, and defense firms had been targeted in an attempt, apparently originating in China, to gain access to and steal valuable digitized information. The episode resulted in a temporary shutdown of Google’s China site.