The announcement that the United States would response “proportionately” to the alleged hacks by Russia of the American electoral process (by which I encompass both the Democratic database as well as various State-level electoral processes) has drawn various responses. First up is Susan Hennessey on Lawfare, who covers the uncertainties of cyberwarefare episodes and provides a lot of interesting thoughts on the situation:
Public attribution is itself a significant government response and elucidates some of the administration’s sensibilities regarding line-drawing. But it also raises a difficult question about how we should think about what we are responding to. It appears that the trigger for the Obama administration was the targeting of election infrastructure and the threat to actual or perceived electoral integrity. But it is unclear that the type of election system intrusion thus far at issue—probing and scanning but not disrupting—would have been enough to warrant a response by itself. By linking the two activities together and to an overarching motivation—to interfere with the electoral process—the Administration is signaling that its response is to a course of conduct, not a single event.
Taking a broad view is sensible where Russia undertakes hybrid actions—intrusion into computer systems (malicious cyber activity) combined with the strategic release of documents (information warfare)—as well as larger efforts to undertake many distinct activities to achieve an overall goal—to sow distrust in the US electoral system. But the broad view here—where individual “below established threshold activities” combine to cross the threshold—also requires knowing what to group together.
We simultaneously engage Russia in cyberspace in a great many contexts, just as we do in diplomacy. And not everything is related. As Jack noted in a recent panel at Yale Law School, when we step back, it’s hard to know where the DNC and related leaks fall in the deterrence cycle. Are the leaks Russian retaliation for US action, such as imposing sanctions for Crimea? Or are the leaks intended by Russia to be a deterrent response to US cyber espionage? Or is this, as the White House statement would indicate, just a general attempt by Russia to see if it can sway the US election in its favor? Intelligence collection can answer some of those questions. But persistent uncertainty is a feature of cyber conflicts that is unlikely to ever resolve entirely.
It’s worth reading the whole article. She also provides this link to the US policy on cyber deterrence – which I have not read.
Karl Bode on techdirt prefers to attempt to occupy the moral high ground:
We’ve noted several times how launching cyberwar (or real war) on Russia over the recent spike in hack attacks is a notably idiotic idea. One, the United States effectively wrote the book on hacking other countries causing all manner of harm (hello, Stuxnet), making the narrative that we’re somehow defending our honor from shady international operatives foundationally incorrect. And two, any hacker worth his or her salt either doesn’t leave footprints advertising their presence, or may conduct false flag operations raising the risk of attacking the wrong party. …
Again though, the very idea that the United States would be “responding” is fundamentally incorrect. We’ve been engaged in nation state hacking and election fiddling for decades, happily hacking the planet for almost as long as the internet has existed. We use submarines as underwater hacking platforms, the U.S. government and its laundry list of contractors routinely hacking and fiddling with international elections and destroying reputations when and if it’s convenient to our global business interests. Our behavior in 1970s South America giving tech support to Operation Condor is the dictionary definition of villainy.
He is probably correct on the technical aspects, although I’m no expert. However, on the stickier aspects, I do not think past moral indignities that stained our country’s honor, as repugnant as they were, and even eventually counterproductive, requires us to bare our breast to the bloody blade of the assassin. Perhaps we should examine the histories of all countries, and then demand that each sacrifice in proportion to their past crimes?
It’d be one poverty-stricken world after that exercise.
We might be better served by examining how poorly the previous behaviors have served us in the long run, ruining our reputations, etc, and then vow to do better in the future. And if Russia is indeed involved in this mess, respond. Perhaps Karl should review the behavior of Russia in World War II.
