Risking Security: Policies and Paradoxes of Cyberspace Security

Abstract

Conceptualizations of cyberspace security can be divided into two related dimensions, articulated as “risks”: risks to the physical realm of computer and communication technologies (risks to cyberspace); and risks that arise from cyberspace and are facilitated or generated by its technologies, but do not directly target the infrastructures per se (risks through cyberspace). There is robust international consensus, growing communities of practice, and an emerging normative regime around risks to cyberspace. This is less the case when it comes to risks through cyberspace. While states do collaborate around some policy areas, cooperation declines as the object of risk becomes politically contestable and where national interests vary widely. These include the nature of political opposition and the right to dissent or protest, minority rights and independence movements, religious belief, cultural values, or historical claims. The contrast between the domains has led to contradictory tendencies and paradoxical outcomes.

Telecom Responsibilization: Internet Governance, Surveillance, and New Roles for Intermediaries

“…Although much of the cyberoptimism of the 1990s has now faded, it remains possible to argue that the internet is different enough from its media predecessors to resist this consolidating trend. However, the "founding myth" of the internet as a non-hierarchical network that routes around censorship must be tempered by an understanding of how vulnerable internet architecture is to control at particular points (Deibert & Rohozinski, 2010;DeNardis, 2014;Zittrain, 2003) or "organizational bottlenecks" (Mueller, 2010), which are occupied and operated by intermediaries (ISPs and OSPs).…”

“…While the corporate giants of the internet, such as Google and Facebook, are private actors that exercise considerable regulatory independence over their domains, many states are pursuing varying forms and degrees of internet governance, and asserting their sovereignty even over and against such "internet sovereigns" (see Deibert, Palfrey, Rohozinski, & Zittrain, 2012, p. 17;MacKinnon, 2012). Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu (2006) have documented "the Internet's transformation from a technology that resists territorial law to one that facilitates its enforcement" (p. 10), and Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski (2010) have argued that "securing cyberspace has definitely entailed a 'return of the state' … [although] not in ways that suggest a return to the traditional Westphalian paradigm of state sovereignty" (p. 30). Numerous states around the world are developing and refining the exercise of state power through the internet by way of surveillance and content filtering.…”

Internet Governance Capacity Building in Post-Authoritarian Contexts. Telecom Reform and Human Rights in Myanmar

“…This is particular true when we refer to governments aiming to exercise their hegemony and control over the use of the Internet among their citizens. In the domain of mass surveillance, internet filtering and censorship, there is arguably a "return of the state" (Deibert & Rohozinski, 2010). Here, despite its transnational decentralized technical nature, the use of the Internet happens within legal frameworks applicable within national borders, giving legitimacy to national sovereignty over the Internet (Drake, 1993).…”

Crowdsourcing cyber security: a property rights view of exclusion and theft on the information commons

“…Experts from non-Western countries also have an incentive to organize and protect the internet. Many countries use the internet for commerce, safety, and public services (Deibert and Rohozinski 2010). During the Conficker virus episode, representatives from the Chinese government worked with Americans and Europeans to protect the internet's underlying vitality and their computers' functionality.…”