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Appraising Future Threats: Cyber security question?

How time changes and brings with it new challenges and opportunities too. Soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the balkanization of that empire into several republics and the eventual end of the cold war, many had opined that history had ceased, amongst such believer was Fukuyama (1992), who penned the end of history and the last man , a book which argued among other issues, clearly and gave great impetus for the repositioning of Americas (US) military might since the last known enemy had been vanquished, and also which argued that the advent of Western liberal democracy may signal the end point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and the final form of human government . Perhaps in a way he was right for the potent threat that bestrode the narrow world like a colossus had been pulled down, thus opening the channel for free enterprise and with it new ideas. Simply put, physical international boundary was no longer necessary or tenable because it impeded trade, while also stifling it. In came was and still the concept of globalization, a phenomenon which no one ever comprehended or still comprehends because it was not and is never kinetic. This concept now compresses the whole world into a global village thereby destroying international boundaries, some of which had existed even before the peace of Westphalia which ushered in the International system. The concept of globalization is driven by the inter-net. As Rosenzweig (2011) has opined, in the case of the United States, the age of the Internet now determines daily life for Americans, many threats to the U.S. now exist in the cyber domain. Cybersecurity is a near constant theme in Washington, as well as for private companies around the country. The Department of Homeland Security has identified 18 sectors of the economy as the nation s critical infrastructure and key resources, while a comprehensive list would cover everything from transportation to the defense industrial base. It also includes energy, financial systems, water, agriculture, and telecommunications.

As Rosenzweig (2011), contends, the fundamental characteristic of the Internet that makes it truly different from the physical world is that it lacks any boundaries. It spans the globe and it does so nearinstantaneously. There is no kinetic analog for this phenomenon even the most global-spanning weapons, like missiles, take 33 minutes to reach their distant targets. The cyber domain is basically an incorporeal network of information. It transmits bits of information (essentially 1s and 0s ) across geographic boundaries at amazing speeds, allowing access to information at a distance. With access to information often comes control. Through cyberspace, nationstates can perpetrate espionage; industrial spies can steal trade secrets; criminals can steal money; and militaries can disrupt command-and-control communications. Congress and government agencies are clamoring to develop policies and strategies to protect national security and commercial interests. Internet attacks are already a standard feature of modern life, and the threats and their implications from hacking into company sites to steal credit card numbers to hacking into government computers for espionage are growing fast. No wonder then that President Barack Obama in 2009 crafting a new cyberspace policy and appointed a Cyber Czar, while three competing Senate bills clamored for attention on the floor of the chamber during the last session of Congress. Turf wars between the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency are widely reported. The Deputy Secretary of Defense has announced a new Cyber strategy 3.0, and a United States Cyber Command has been created at the Pentagon. While also News reports suggest that someone (nobody quite knows who) has unleashed a cyber-attack against Iranian nuclear facilities. Markoff (2011) contends that Billions of dollars in federal funding hang in the balance; not to mention the vast and immeasurable consequences that Cybersecurity has on the privately owned critical infrastructure in America.

But this is never recognized by policy makers .The tumult of policy confusion is substantial, even by Washington standards. Some question whether a threat exists at all, while others deem the threat existential. Novel issues of policy and law surface on a near-daily basis as technological innovation runs headlong forward, leaving policymakers and concerned and legislators trailing in its wake, never taking a conceited position with regards to national security or interest. The situation has also become more intractable because, with the current Internet architecture, it is nearly impossible to identify the source of an intrusion. Forensic capabilities in the physical realm are far more advanced than they are in the cyber world. Though it sound ominous, I echo very loudly along with Rosenzweig (2011) that someday, somewhere, a cyber-attack or intrusion will succeed in ways that one can only imagine, with consequences one cannot fully predict. It follows that a critical component of any strategy is to plan for the inevitable instances in which the country s defenses fail. This means the creation of incentives and structures that encourage the development of a resilient cyber network that can contain any intrusion and rapidly repair any damage.

Refrences. Fukuyama, Francis (1992). The end of history and the last man. Avon books Inc. Lynn, III, William J. Defending a New Domain: The Pentagon s Cyberstrategy. Foreign Affairs, (September/October2010), p. 97. Culled from http://www.cfr.org/publication/22849/defending_a_new_domain.html (January 14, 2011). Markoff John (2010). A Code for Chaos. The New York Times. Culled from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/

Rosenweig Paul (2011). 10 Conservative Principles for Cybersecurity Policy. Culled from www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/01/10-conservative The White House, Cyber Space Policy Review, 2009. Culled from http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Cyberspace_Policy.

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