How Can We Be at Cyberwar if We Don’t Know What It Is?

by Jim Harper on March 23, 2010 · 3 comments

Brilliant column from William Jackson on GCN.com debunking “cyberwar”:

“The United States is fighting a cyberwar today and we are losing it,” former National Security Agency chief and national intelligence director Mike McConnell wrote in a recent op-ed column in the Washington Post. “It’s that simple.”

It is neither simple nor true. Failure to distinguish between real acts of war and other malicious behavior not only increases the risks of war, but also distracts us from more immediate threats such as online crime.

The habit of threat inflation is harmful to the country. Jackson’s welcome take on “cyber” threats earns an accolade I rarely give out: Read the whole thing.

Update: Tim Stevens, a researcher in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, has—ahem—attacked “cyberwar” rhetoric multiple times. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) Kudos, Tim.

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Jim Harper / Jim is the Director of Information Policy Studies at The Cato Institute, the Editor of Web-based privacy think-tank Privacilla.org, and the Webmaster of WashingtonWatch.com. Prior to becoming a policy analyst, Jim served as counsel to committees in both the House and Senate.

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