(Photo illustration)īrigham Young University professor of law and former U.S. Over a period of hundreds of years, an international body of law and treaties has developed governing what nations can and can't do while at war, and while conducting espionage.Ĭalled " Jus in Bello," this "Law of War" addresses nearly every aspect of conflict, from how wars begin and end to defining legitimate targets, the treatment of prisoners, and what are war crimes.įILE - Hackers have perpetrated massive data breaches. The difference between labeling an attack an act of espionage or military action is more than just semantic. "There was no one term, so they slapped the label 'cyberwar' on it."
"Then there’s the defensive side, with varying government agencies squabbling about who has the authority to defend American corporations and citizens from cyber-attacks from abroad," he said. "There’s offensive war, which runs the gamut from hackers trying to steal your banking information, but also the use of intelligence agencies such as the NSA hacking into the governments of foreign nations and terrorist organizations to find out what their intentions and capabilities are," Aid said. In 2012, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that "America faces the potential threat for another Pearl Harbor" and that "technologically, the capability to paralyze this country is there now."īut intelligence historian Matthew Aid, author of the book " The Secret Sentry" – considered by many a definitive history of the National Security Agency – told VOA there’s no clear definition of online war because, by its very nature, it defies clear definition. politicians have long warned about the dangers of a looming cyberwar and in recent years the warnings have grown more dire. In the case of state actors, they’re probing for intelligence or, in some cases, trying to bring down systems in pursuit of their various foreign policy objectives." "In some cases, it’s non-state actors who are engaging in criminal activity and potential theft. "Both state and non-state actors are sending everything they’ve got at trying to breach these systems," Obama said. "This looks like espionage."Īt a press conference following G-7 meetings in Europe, President Barack Obama was equivocal. "This doesn’t look like cyber fraud," said Freedman. However, Kobi Freedman, founder and CEO of the cybersecurity intelligence firm Comilion and himself a former member of the military, told VOA he saw the hack differently.
"We should be very clear: China is at virtual war with the United States, and the threat is far higher than that of terrorism, which gets the lion's share of attention - and, in the post-9/11 world, funding," he said. Speaking with Business Insider, Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer was definitive in his assessment. officials say they are investigating whether Chinese hackers are to blame China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called the accusations "irresponsible." But there’s little agreement as to just what the hack actually was. Some analysts and politicians were quick to seize on the OPM hack as proof the government needs to take cybersecurity more seriously. To that end, an international group of military strategists and legal scholars is hard at work to help define where online espionage ends and military actions begin, with the goal of detailing what international law says can be done in response to either. It highlights how cyberspace is increasingly becoming the arena where nations practice the arts of statecraft. The OPM attack provides only the latest example of the many ways in which the lines between spying and military action are blurring on the Internet. Office of Personnel Management has left many questions unanswered.Īmong them: Was the theft of files filled with the private details of 4 million federal employees digital espionage? Or was it something even larger – perhaps an act of cyberwar perpetrated to damage the nation? When a word functions as both a noun and a verb, in what way are they often distinguished in speech? a) The noun is stressed on the first syllable, while the verb is stressed on the secondī) The noun is stressed on the second syllable, while the verb is stressed on the firstħ.The massive data breach announced last week of personnel records stored at the U.S. Where does primary stress usually occur in words ending with the suffix “-ate”? a) On the suffix itselfĦ. Where does primary stress usually occur in words ending with the suffix “-ic”? a) On the suffix itselfĥ. Which of the following words can be completely unstressed? a) runĤ. How many syllables in a word can have primary stress? a) 1ģ. What type of speech sound receives stress in a word? a) Consonant soundsĢ.