Cyber Scene #6 - The DNI and Congress: Last Round?
Cyber Scene #6
Cyber Scene is intended to provide an informative, timely backdrop of events, thinking, and developments that feed into technological advancement of SoS Cybersecurity collaboration and extend its outreach.
The DNI and Congress: Last Round?
Director of National Intelligence, the Honorable James Clapper, testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on 17 November 2016, announcing his resignation effective 20 January 2017 and, addressing the Members on cybersecurity among his top issues.
Following his reaffirmation that he does not expect Russia to back away under the new administration from its aggressive cyber attacks, he underscored the successful "internetted" fusion intelligence cells across the country, and added:
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"The challenge for us is always going to be the fundamental fact that the internet is insecure...we are going to be playing catch-up in reaction to defending our networks. The other issue I would mention is the creation of both the substance and the psychology of deterrence in the cyber realm. .. the issue is whether you react on a binary basis or asymmetrical basis via cyber...or do you retaliate in some other way? I think that is going to be a challenge for the country." (01:13:08) He then cited the need for a legal doctrine and policy--developing a body of law for cyber, which might be analogous to the US body of law, developed over 200 years, that defines the state. This harkens back to some of the ABA discussions addressed in Cyber Scene #2. "With cyber," he stated, "we have not had enough time to develop that body of law, and until such time as there are some norms developed and we have a firm definition of what deterrence means that is recognized by both state and non-state actors, we're going to have a problem with cyber defense." (01:14:46) Both video and text of the entire Congressional exchange with DNI Clapper and others is accessible at: |
https://www.c-span.org/video/?418617-1/james-clapper-testifies-capitol-hill-submitting-resignation.
Predicting the Cyber Future: Other Voices
Domestic
Pre-election, several fora attempted to carry this view of the future into the arena of cybersecurity cooperation. These included Atlantic Council coverage of Michael Chertoff, now Chair of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University (6 October 2016); a Washington Post-sponsored Cybersecurity Summit on 13 October 2016; and both preceded by a Raytheon-sponsored Intelligence and National Security conference on "Securing Tomorrow" --the third in the series. (All are covered by C-SPAN: see https://c-span.org/video). Post-election, however, has created a limbo regarding a clear view of the future while awaiting the cabinet + 4,000 political appointments that will afford some indicators of the future.
Foreign
From abroad, despite BREXIT, Angela Merkel's recent commitment to run for re-election, and the run-up to the final French elections in two weeks (round #1 this weekend eliminating President Hollande in favor of party leaders François Fillon and Alain Juppé with Marine Le Pen in the mix), cybersecurity continues to rise to the surface. The UK's chancellor of the exchequer, the reportedly lackluster "Spreadsheet Phil" Hammond, declared on 1 November that not only was Britain developing its offensive cyber capabilities, but was doing so "...because the ability to detect, trace and retaliate in kind is likely to be the best deterrent." New Prime Minister Theresa May, likewise "...wants the cornerstone of her government to be security," including the cyber variety. https://theeconomist/news/britain/britain-flexes-its-cyber-muscles (November 5th 2016, p. 50)
Simultaneously, US legal adjudication ramps up re: the limits of anonymous scientific criticism, deriving from PubPeer's launch in 2012. Google and Twitter filed a brief supporting PubPeer in January 2016, countering the argument that the law shouldn't protect anonymous commenters more than named ones. https://theeconomist.com/scienceandtechnology/the-watchers-of-the-web (November 5th 2016, pg 71.)
In addition to the international extension of this PubPeer legal dispute, the European Court of Justice, which had declared in May 2014 that search engines such as Google can't continue to display links to information on people who have requested that it be removed, has brought to the surface both the issue of extraterritoriality and the fact that governments now care a great deal about cyberspace. "As it has penetrated every facet of life, they feel compelled to control it. The internet--and even more so cloud computing...has become the world's uber-infrastructure."
https://theeconomist.com/news/britain/lost-in-the-splinternet (November 5th 2016, pp 51-52)
China's Controling Interest
Related to this issue of control, China's new cybersecurity law is raising alarms from foreigners as well as the co-CEO of Huawei, who believes that China will never have true info security if it doesn't bring in the world's best technology (!). The law would impact both domestic as well as foreign firms on Mainland China, requiring among other still vague laws the Chinese retention of any important data that is gathered in China as well as obtaining security certifications from Chinese authorities for network equipment and software, foreign and domestic. http://theeconomist.com/news/china/the-noose-tightens (November 12th 2016, p.42)
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