World Leaders Looking To Regulate Cyber War

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World leaders will be taking the first steps toward a universal definition of “cyber war,” and how to wage it legally, at the Munich Security Conference later today. (Presumably our invite was lost in the mail.) On the agenda: a new definition of the term “nation-state,” and figuring out how to update the Geneva and Hague protocols to make them compatible with today’s electronic battlefields. Call Sy Hersh!

The conference, which will see the likes of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in attendance, aims to “address the main security issues of our time.” What concerns us, of course, is cyber war: no M16s or AK-47s allowed.

The big show-and-tell will be conducted by the EastWest Institute, the “global think-and-do tank.” The talk is expected to teach policy-makers how to better understand the difference between civilian and military “cyber” targets (don’t want to accidentally take out a civilian hospital, do you?) and how to engage non-state actors.

I wonder if a government shutting down its own Internet infrastructure will be mentioned during the talk?